Narrow Results

Using a large-scale dataset from Hong Kong, this study describes the prevalence of cyberbullying and examines how gender and grade level relate to cyberbullying among secondary school students in Hong Kong. Participants were 1,855 students from secondary schools (Forms 1 to 7). Students were given an anonymous questionnaire that included a scale for reporting their experiences of cyberbullying. Responses indicated that 17.8% of students reported cyberbullying and 30.9% experienced at least one type of cyberbullying in the past three months. Curses, insults, and humiliation were the most common types of cyberbullying. Males reported higher rates of bullying and victimization than did females. The overall rates of bullying and victimization peaked in Forms 2 or 3 and in Form 6. Cyberbullying among secondary students in Hong Kong is a serious problem that needs immediate attention. Potential intervention programs should target males and students in Forms 2, 3, and 6. Programs should mainly aim to reduce online curses, insults, and humiliation by students.

This paper takes the social unrest in 2019 as a case study and identifies three factors that contributed to the radicalization of social protests in Hong Kong: globalization, digitalization and the U.S. meddling in Hong Kong affairs. First, with the deepening of globalization, the worsening of social-economic conditions had bred populism among the youth. Second, digital technologies and social media platforms also made it easy for young people in Hong Kong to protest in a more covert and radical way. Third, the U.S. support for the Hong Kong opposition leaders added fuel to the radicalization of youth protesters. All these factors finally led to radicalized social protests in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, following the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong SAR, violent activities were largely stopped and social order was gradually restored.

This paper aims to investigate the role of a consumer satisfaction index (CSI) for financial investments in the Hong Kong market. Using yearly data for Hong Kong consumer satisfaction index (HKCSI) to compile a CSI at company level, the effect of consumer satisfaction on company market value is identified. A hypothesized investment portfolio based only on CSI at company level is created, and its return compares with a widely used index measuring stock market performance in Hong Kong. A formal statistical test on the outperformance of portfolios that load on consumer satisfaction is conducted. Using the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the beta risk of the entire time period is evaluated, and shows that the portfolio risk based on company level CSI is not significantly different than the market risk. This paper concludes therefore that consumer satisfaction can be incorporated into financial models and applied for formulating investment portfolios with better performance than the market rate in Hong Kong.

Sitting in the middle of the Indian Ocean and major international maritime routes, Sri Lanka’s strategic geographic location has brought both opportunities and complications to its economic development. In view of the mixed outcome and perceptions of the Chinese investment projects in Sri Lanka, this paper investigates the nuances of both successful and failed experiences in Chinese investment, and the management approach the Chinese project managers have sought to adapt to improve their community engagements and secure public support. While these efforts have not, largely, been effective, we also find little evidence that China has conspired to dominate Sri Lanka. By refuting the sweeping debt-trap argument, we further seek to reflect upon Hong Kong’s possible role in addressing the critical managerial and capacity issues in Sri Lankan investment.

The Hong Kong Society of Rheumatology (HKSR) has developed evidence-based position statements on the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). A special interest group (SIG) developed the statements based on the literature review of the following research questions: 1) In whom should SI joint MRI be done to diagnose axSpA? 2) Should spine MRI be performed for diagnosis of axSpA? 3) Should spine and SI joint MRI be used in the assessment and monitoring of disease activity? 4) Which MRI sequence(s) should be used in axSpA? These statements have at least 75% agreement from voting rheumatology fellows of HKSR, and are developed to serve as local practice guidelines for rheumatologists and musculoskeletal radiologists in the management of axSpA.

Informal family long-term caregiving has become an appealing policy topic in Hong Kong in recent years. The Hong Kong Government has released a commissioned report on caregivers of the elderly and persons with disabilities. It is timely to gauge the views of the policy stakeholders accordingly. This paper uses qualitative methods to review the existing carer policies and services and collect the experience and views of caregivers and frontline workers. It investigates the issues related to informal caregivers and discusses possible future directions.

Social movements occur not only because of political opportunities but also due to a perceived threat to citizens. Popular contention has remained an important mode of political participation in Hong Kong since 1997 when its sovereignty was handed over to China. Many influential collective actions in Hong Kong occurred when residents felt a threat had arisen from policies made by the city government or Beijing. By examining the Anti-Extradition-Bill movement in Hong Kong, this paper explores how threat triggers and sustains social movements. It finds that threat both facilitates the mobilization of social movements and sustains them. Threat strengthens solidarity among movement supporters because of their shared concerns and goals. It sustains a movement when government responses confirm participants’ belief in the continual existence of the threat. The Anti-Extradition-Bill movement deepened the distrust between local residents and Beijing, resulting in the promulgation of the National Security Law by Beijing in May 2020.

Official data shows that in 2021, there were 1,423 street sleepers in Hong Kong (excluding other forms of homelessness). However, the Hong Kong government has only subsidized a few NGOs to operate temporary shelters and homeless hostels. In this context, the Society for Community Organization pioneered a non-government-funded program called "Friend Home Hostel," a relatively long-stay hostel. This paper reports on resident profiles in this program and scrutinizes the functions of this program, drawing on data collected from a questionnaire survey and 21 in-depth interviews. The findings from this study are used to discuss the prospects and challenges of long-stay hostels that prepare residents for pathways out of homelessness. This long-stay hostel offers a social service model for the government and other NGOs by adopting a unique practice setting in which innovative and persistent intervention can promote the health and welfare of homeless people.

The least effective working capital management and poor corporate governance resulted in the 2008 global financial crisis besides various other factors as highlighted by the prior studies. So far, the existing literature reveals that WCM and CG affect firm performance (FP) on an individual basis. However, the collective effect of working capital management and corporate governance on firm performance has been paid the least attention. This study investigates the collective effect of working capital management and corporate governance on firm performance for Australia and Hong Kong markets, being the top two markets in the Pacific region. For this purpose, a system generalized method of moments based on two steps is applied to address the endogeneity issue. The results establish that working capital management and corporate governance affect firm performance on an individual basis and then these individual effect results compliment the collective effect results. The limitation of the study is that it did not consider two stages of Least Squares Regression due to difficulty in the identification of instrumental variables for both explanatory variables. As a policy implication, firm manager may take the benefit of the findings of this study while devising financial policies to enhance firm performance. Future investors may use the findings of this study to make an informed decision on future investment in both markets.

This paper examines the case studies of three East Asian entities (Thailand, Myanmar and Hong Kong) battling both the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic as well as socio-political unrest simultaneously. While Thailand/Myanmar and Hong Kong are different in geographical/demographic sizes and the former two are sovereign states while the latter is a Special Administrative Region (SAR), they have similar challenges in experiencing cosmopolitan pro-democracy movements (made up of young activists) pitted against the governments determined to maintain control in what political scientists may characterize as illiberal political systems. While Thailand and Myanmar may be much larger in terms of geographical/demographic sizes, much of the recent political activism occurred in the capital city of Bangkok (a city of about 8 million people) and Yangon (also having about 7 million in population and being the former capital of Myanmar before the military elites had moved the capital to Naypyidaw in anticipation of political unrests). In the case of Myanmar, the demonstration and protests have effectively spread nationwide. Both cities are similar in size to Hong Kong that is with approximately 7 million inhabitants. Both Bangkok and Hong Kong are also cosmopolitan cities with high exposure to global commerce, ideas and tourism while Yangon is a fast-developing urban commercial capital city. In terms of ideologies and political systems, both Bangkok and Hong Kong have nominal liberal democratic systems that have limits imposed on political freedoms while Myanmar was liberalizing and democratizing before the military coup on February 1, 2020. These similarities make them suitable candidates for comparative studies, including analyzing their differences in managing the political challenges.

The newly released “Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA)” shows that the roles of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao GBA have gone beyond its original emphasis on regional economic development and now serves higher purposes in fostering the ongoing process of deepening reforms in China, and in meeting the challenges in the Chinese-led “Belt and Road Initiative”. Whereas earlier policy on cross-border collaborations and the previous literature often emphasize “harmonization” and “integration” of the diverse institutions and practices of the constituent cities into one economy, this paper suggests an alternative perspective highlighting the utility of institutional contradictions and diversity contained in the “one country, two system” framework within the GBA. Leveraging the advantages of its more internationalized special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, the GBA plan would not only benefit this coastal megalopolis, but also stimulate a dynamic mechanism of reform in the whole country.

This study aimed to contribute to an exploratory categorization of different adolescent drug rehabilitation service models in Hong Kong. In-depth interviews were conducted with local social workers working in the medical model setting, integrated model setting, and social model setting. There was a trend that hybrid models were used by the drug rehabilitation service providers and a shift to postmodernism was found in the current service settings.

This paper investigates the increasing use of cyber coercion by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) among its core interests: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea. It argues that the PRC’s deployment of sophisticated attacks in the form of cyber coercion continues to be part of its geostrategic playbook to exert its influence and prosecute its wider interests as a rising power in the Indo-Pacific region. However, it observes that cyber coercion will be employed by the PRC in concert with all the other tools — diplomatic, economic, and the political — across the spectrum. The paper has two broad goals: first to unpack the trends or patterns in the PRC-sponsored cyber coercion by accentuating contextual and operational dimensions using Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea as analytical case studies; second, to highlight the opportunities and limitations of using cyber coercion as an asymmetrical capability in the changing threat landscape. The paper concludes that the PRC’s cyber coercion is characterized by blurring the distinction on what constitutes compellence and deterrence. The boundaries are not clear cut, and to a certain degree both are even mutually reinforcing. The in-depth analysis of the case studies reveals the growing prominence of disinformation campaigns in close coordination with cyber operations (malware, phishing, and DDoS attack). This emboldens the PRC with a myriad of coercive strategies in shaping its external environment and realizing its ambition of national rejuvenation across Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea.

In Hong Kong, post-divorce families have long been conceptualised as "single parent families", thereby overlooking the fact that some non-resident parents do have continuous participation in the post-divorce families. With this over-generalised conceptualisation, social services have been focusing on bringing about successful single parenting and have ignored the possibility of post-divorce co-parenting and non-residential parenting in these families. It also reinforces the win-lose dichotomy in fighting over child custody. The author recommends re-conceptualising the post-divorce families as "binuclear families" to draw our attention to the possible participation and influence of the non-resident parents in these families. Promotion of forever-parenthood and family law reform would also help to induce change in the dominant social discourse. We need more empirical research on post-divorce families to clear the obscured picture and facilitate the formulation of an inclusive practice model with these families. Last but not least, as co-constructors of the social discourse on families in alternate forms such as post-divorce families, social work practitioners should enhance their reflexivity on family ideologies and beliefs in parent-child relationships.

基 於 离 婚 家 庭 被 等 同 於 单 亲 家 庭 的 理 解， “非 与 孩 子 同 住 的 父 ／ 母” 在 香 港 离 婚 家 庭 中 的 参 与 一 直 被 忽 略。 在 服 务 设 计 及 实 施 时 也 忽 略 了 离 婚 家 庭 中 “非 与 孩 子 同 住 的 父 ／ 母” 的 亲 职 参 与 及 “协 作 亲 职” 的 可 能， 这 理 解 也 强 化 了 孩 子 抚 养 权 于 父 母 在 离 婚 中 作 为 成 与 败 的 象 徵 意 义。 基 于 过 往 的 不 足， 作 者 提 出 在 概 念 层 面 上 以 “双 核 心 家 庭” 取 代 单 亲 家 庭 的 理 解 以 及 在 法 律 层 面、 实 务 层 面 以 至 训 练 层 面 上 所 需 作 出 的 改 革 考 虑。

This paper applies stochastic dominance techniques for income distribution analysis and develops tests of richness and poorness to achieve more accurate characterizations of relative welfare in populations than was previously possible. Results from our empirical application, using Hong Kong data, are consistent with predictions of the life-cycle theory of income and savings. Among other things, we find high concentrations of poor individuals among the younger cohorts, and at the same time, there are high concentrations of rich individuals amongst the oldest cohorts. Our results help to explain Hong Kong’s persistently high levels of income inequality in the population.

This paper reports research that examines general values and work values held by university students studying social work in Hong Kong. Comparison is also made with values held by similar students studying in different majors. Results indicated that social work students rated general values such as benevolence, self-direction, universalism and tradition higher than their non-social work counterparts. They also rated work values such as altruism, creativity, supervisory relations, independence and intellectual stimulation more highly. However, the social work students held lower values associated with economic returns, thus supporting a view that students with an inclination towards social work tend to espouse self-transcendence and intrinsic work values, and are less influenced by material rewards. Among the social work respondents, gender differences were found in both general and work values. Differences were also noted between the groups with different modes of study. Implications for social work education and future research are discussed.

In mid-1999, the Walt Disney Company and the Hong Kong Government were involved in intense discussions about the possibility of building the Hong Kong Disneyland theme park on Lantau Island. This case presented detailed information about the proposed theme park and the associated decision making process with a particular emphasis on sustainable development. It also lays out the characteristics of the Hong Kong Government and Hong Kong people that might have played a role in decision making.

The case includes A and B parts concerning corporate and government decision making. It firstly summarizes the negotiation process between Disney and the Hong Kong Government, and considered the environmental impact on Hong Kong. The difficulties faced by governments in making decisions about this highly visible large-scale project are described. It then explains the rationale of the government decision, which illustrates how governmental structure and culture affect the decision making process. In the end, it showed improvements in Hong Kong Disneyland with respect to sustainable management and development.

Chinese grand infrastructure projects in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) program are instrumental for Myanmar to bridge the voluminous bottlenecks in transportation and energy infrastructure essential for economic development. However, the high project costs as well as the project design and execution have raised skepticism over their benefits for Myanmar, in particular the economic viability and disruptive impacts for the local ecology and culture. The military coup in February 2021 in Myanmar deepened the skepticism to the Chinese and even outright hostilities to some projects. This paper reviews the broader context of the local receptions to the Chinese investment, drawing upon in-depth fieldwork in Myanmar, and suggests the potentials of leveraging Hong Kong’s managerial and professional experience in enhancing responsible investment in the BRI.

A case in the Hong Kong Chinese context is presented in this paper to illustrate the use of both quantitative (Holland's SDS) and qualitative career assessment (Card Sorts) to help a 16-year-old girl overcome career indecision. Guided by both Holland's Hexagonal Career Types Theory and Socio-Cognitive Career Theory, a career counsellor can promote a client's positive changes after two counseling sessions. This case supports Tracey's (2002) and Nauta et al.'s (2002) postulated bidirectional causal path between self-efficacy and interests. In addition, it highlights that partial match instead of perfect match between Self-directed search (SDS) scores and choice of academic major is more pragmatic or effective while performing quantitative assessment. Finally, it points to the need for establishing local SDS norms, examining the Holland codes for occupations in Hong Kong, and researching the link between congruence and maximal career outcomes in future research.

Twenty years after the return of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, this paper examines the UK’s policy toward Hong Kong over the last decade, with a particular focus on its approach toward the ongoing and intensifying political and constitutional debates in Hong Kong, which have partial origins in the British colonial legacy. The paper argues that the UK has been attempting a delicate balancing act in relation to Hong Kong between a number of factors: the growing importance of relations with China as a whole, the particular opportunities offered by UK–Hong Kong links, the changing and more contested political landscape in Hong Kong, the occasional intervention of British politics, and the agreements on Hong Kong’s future to which the UK was party in the 1980s. These reflect tensions between pragmatism and idealism, and in conclusion, the paper discusses what the case of Hong Kong says more broadly about the making of British foreign policy.