AEI Insights

Educational Diplomacy And Latvia: Broadening The Scope Of Diplomatic Studies With A Focus On Asia

Zane Šime — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0800

The existing body of literature on educational diplomacy and talent flows should be broadened with insights from understudied countries and geographic areas. Such a research direction is relevant to the balanced mobility considerations included in the Asia-Europe Meeting Education Process. This study concerns the increasing inflow of students in Latvia from Asia. It is motivated by the growing interest across the Asia-Europe Meeting partner countries to analyse international student pathways. Compared to the world’s leading higher education destinations, Latvia does not operate a wealth of resources for educational diplomacy. However, since educational diplomacy is a relatively novel term in the Latvian setting, the impact of Latvia’s granted scholarships and the overall pool of international students welcomed in Latvia remains an understudied area of the general international interconnectedness of the country with Asia and beyond. It is a promising area for further exploration of how ties fostered through higher education support the Latvian diplomatic aspirations spanning well beyond the rather narrow academic focus on the talent flows across the higher education destinations of the Baltic Sea Region, as well as policy and academic attention paid to the Latvian diaspora worldwide. The shifting student pathways and collaborative networks invite paying continuous attention to the evolving interconnections across Europe and Asia.

Online Hedonic Consumers’ Privacy Concerns: A Systematic Literature Review

G. M. Shafayet Ullah, Sameer Kumar, Fumitaka Furuoka — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0800

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of extant literature on online hedonic consumer’s various privacy related issues and in particular- the privacy concern. Further, the authors attempt to identify a gap that can be addressed in future through developing a comprehensive and integrated model on online hedonic consumer behaviour that focuses on their privacy concerns. The authors conducted a systematic literature review of the extant literature on online hedonic consumers, their various privacy related issues and in particular- the privacy concern. This paper, through its thorough literature review, made a clear distinction among privacy related issues that the online consumers face, namely privacy awareness. The discussion on “privacy concern” elucidated any confusions held by the researchers and readers. This review offered an insight into the current status of research in this field and recognized the factor “privacy concern” as a gap in the existing model on online hedonic consumer behaviour that could be properly explored in further scholarly empirical research. Exclusion of non-English language articles and lack of inclusion of different kinds of hedonic products or services other than SNSs were the limitation of this paper. Managers and e-commerce vendors could utilize the findings of this review to address their hedonic consumer’s privacy concern for the growth of their online businesses. This paper lays the groundwork to explore hedonic consumer’s privacy concern in detail. A new integrated model on online hedonic consumer behaviour is proposed, which provides a theoretical framework for researchers to further examine the mediation effect of privacy concern.

Organizational Effectiveness: Systematic Literature Towards a Conceptual Framework

Amran Ahmad, Fumitaka Furuoka, Rajah Rasiah — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0800

To survive in this highly competitive business era, every business organization has to ensure a solid strategic position in the market. Researchers and practitioners highlight that enhancing the organization's effectiveness is essential to secure a strategic place in this competitive business world. Organizational effectiveness refers to the organization's success rate in achieving its goals. But it takes work to ensure the effectiveness of the organization. Therefore, the present study reviewed 25 articles using a systematic literature review approach. Based on the review outcomes, the present study proposes a unique model indicating the factors that enhance the organization's effectiveness. Accordingly, the present study highlights that business intelligence as methods and tools that organizations employ to manage and analyse business information, organizational agility such as market capitalizing agility, and operational adjustment agility. Agility is the capacity of an organization to renew, adapt, and change, and a fast evolving, uncertain, unstable environment and an innovative organizational climate, which is known as a creative organizational environment, are the influencing factors that influence organizational effectiveness. This study offers a unique direction for managers of organizations on how to ensure a strategic market position in this volatile business environment through enhancing organizational effectiveness.

Can Financial Development Contribute to Economic Growth in Asian Countries?

Fumitaka Furuoka — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0800

This paper examines the impact of financial development on economic growth in Asia. In other words, the objective of current paper is to examine the relationship between economic growth and financial development in 10 countries in Asia. It employs systematic time-series econometric methods, namely, the unit root test, the cointegration test, the cointegrating regression analysis, the vector error correction analysis and the Granger causality analysis. The source of data was the “World Development Indicators”. The empirical findings indicated some interesting characteristics in the finance–development nexus in Asia. Interesting findings that financial development could contribute financial development in Singapore only. By contrast, economic growth may induce financial development in China and Pakistan. These findings have some notable policy implications. Singaporean government may need to understand the importance of financial sector in its economy.

Malaysia’s Tourism Industry Challenges amid the Covid-19 Pandemic

Gareth Liu Zi Yuan — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Although 2020 was supposed to be another “Visit Malaysia Year” and the Malaysian government had fully prepared for it; the Covid-19 pandemic put all the nation’s hopes on hold. The understanding of how the tourism industry in Malaysia can recover from a crisis is not yet complete, which has resulted in a lack of guidance for both industry professionals and researchers. The aim of this study is to determine the current state of Malaysia's tourism industry, evaluate the challenges faced by the industry, and provide recommendations to facilitate its recovery. Adopting a systematic review method, the study examined the difficulties faced by the Malaysian tourism industry, the challenges in different sectors, and the government policies recorded in 40 identified reports. A framework of recommendation that synthesises relevant research and targets to cushion the industry’s recession was established in order to enlighten future research in a Covid-19 or post-Covid-19 society on Malaysia’s tourism industry.

Financing Sustainability: Critical Issues with East Asian Experiences. Edited by Rajah Rasiah, Gopi Krishnan & Azleen Osman Rani. Universiti Malaya Press, 2022.

Arjun Rajaseharan — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Book

Asia and Europe in the 21st Century: New Anxieties, New Opportunities. Edited by Rahul Mishra, Azirah Hashim and Anthony Milner. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2021.

Yanitha Meena Louis — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0800

Book