Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Throughout last few years functioning mechanisms of civilized society in foreign policy area more often give practitioners a surprise – they don’t work properly. There have been many attempts to create or recreate such organization or group which would head “the world state”. However, like in a chess strategy, each step estimates a “grand master opponent”, he/she considers the intentions of “others” and anticipates any possible power imbalance. That is why most global problems still can’t find any solution. In this connection the role of "grand masters" gets huge value. The style or even diplomatic line of negotiations is sometimes defined by the personality of the “grand master”. It generates set of questions. Under what conditions are negotiations more affected by practitioner’s influence? What personality characteristics possess the big influence during negotiations? How important are practitioner’s identity, national and cultural background? We have tried to answer all these questions by means of research in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the focus of this presentation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The present paper has examined the psychological impacts of market reforms on men and women. Specifically, it has investigated the gender differences in psychological distress and level of happiness, and their association with exposure to life stressors and change in personal status. Data were collected in a sample survey in urban Shanghai in 2000. Our findings show no gender difference in exposure to life stressors, status change, and levels of distress and happiness. However, men and women have differential vulnerability to the stressors and status change. Women tend to be more distressed than men by life stressors, particularly family-related stressors. However, life stressors negatively affect men’s life happiness. Further, status change does not induce distress among men and women but affects the level of happiness. Status change, regardless of direction, would make women unhappy but only downward social mobility would make men unhappy. Selected sociodeomographic variables, including employment status and education, also have differential effects on men’s and women’s happiness. Employment and better education exert greater effects on women’s level of happiness than on men’s.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Much is written about the rise of China as a great economic power and of the emergence of global cities in China and throughout East Asia. There is a sense of regional ascendency in the world-system, with much of the dynamism in the eastern coastal cities of China. Shanghai, in particular, is seen as a great metropole for the entire People's Republic of China: an entry port for foreign capital, an emerging business and financial center. The city contains miles of new high-rise buildings, burgeoning transportation and communication infrastructure, and a sense of economic dynamism and prosperity (at least for the middle and upper classes, if not for large numbers of poor migrants). Indeed, some see it as the main competitor with Hong Kong as China's lead "global city."

In the paper we review the literature on "global cities" in an attempt to analytically outline how to ascertain whether Shanghai has attain this status in the world urban system (and whether it really is challenging Hong Kong). How is this rapidly growing city mediating China’s upward mobility in the global system and facilitating it’s incorporation into circuits of global capitalism? What political and/or economic limitations does Shanghai face? Drawing on both a series of interviews (with business leaders, trade officials and academics) done by the authors during summer research trips to Shanghai in 2004, as well as archival and statistical sources, we provide a broad overview of the city’s current global status in an attempt to answer the central question.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The Internet has been regarded as a revolutionary information communication technology which brings us with a global information flow and free discussion forums. As an authoritarian country which hosts the largest population in the world and spares no efforts in boosting information technology, China’s future with the Internet has naturally become a key academic concern. More recent literature seems to stop short of the early optimistic ideas of the Internet’s liberalizing potential in China, and attributes the Internet’s failure to realize such a task to the rigorous regulation and controls of the Chinese government.This paper argues that it is necessary and valuable to rethink the political and social impact of the Internet in China from the Internet users perspective. The author combined a survey and in-depth interviews with Chinese net users of different backgrounds to uncover the underlying reasons for the usage patterns of Chinese net users. In conclusion, this paper finds that the Internet is not really a democratizing tool at China in its current stage, but it is not simply because of the control and regulations from the Chinese government. A number of cultural and social factors largely shape the usage patterns of the Chinese net users.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Shanghai, as one of the first Chinese ports opened to Western traders, has been influenced by the West since the Opium War of 1840. Because of its history and an increase in the influx of foreigners to the city especially in the 1920s and 1930s, it became one of the most cosmopolitan cites in China. This study investigates the nature of public relations practices among a sample of different types of organizations in this cosmopolitan city that is leading China’s explosive economic growth.
A combination of quantitative (self-administered survey) and qualitative methods (in-depth interviews) was used to gather data for this study from 23 organizations (government agencies, non-profits, and corporations – domestic and multinational).
The personal influence model was found to be the most prevalent model in all the organizations based on personal networking (“Guanxi”) due to China’s relation-centric culture. Relationship with the media was less valued particularly amongst government agencies and state owned enterprises. Contrary to published literature, the public information model was least used by government agencies and non-profit organizations in the sample. Multinational corporations practiced the two-way asymmetrical or symmetrical model more often than domestic organizations.
The “lun zi pai bei” system (valuing seniority over performance or qualifications), which had not been discussed at all in PR literature, showed that heads of PR departments of government agencies often had no education or even background in public relations. As a result, railway workers and even chefs were asked to head public relations departments!