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Within a span of 50 years, Singapore had to worry about its fertility rate for two very different reasons. Its development years in the 1960s and 1970s saw a baby boom, with the country’s maternity hospital even earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest number of birth in a single maternity facility— a record it held for ten years. However today, the country’s fertility rate has fallen below the replacement rate. SMU professor Norman Li provides a take on this phenomenon.
The benefits of state-owned enterprises are well known: cheap loans, favourable policies and little competition. Because of the perks they enjoy, these companies have often been criticised for not being hungry enough to maximise firm value, especially when their CEOs are not as well paid as those in the private sector. There is proof now that competition in the political job market helps mitigate the weak monetary incentives for CEOs in China. Interestingly, this means that state control and political connections may not be inconsistent with economic pursuits.
While some people may claim to work solely for the money, research has shown 'self-concept' to be an important but often overlooked consideration when choosing between jobs. An out-of-work investment banker may fail to consider 'analyst' positions due to perceptions of job prestige. Similarly, gender stereotypes may prevent a female civil engineering student from considering a career in construction. Speaking at a Behavioural Sciences Institute seminar, Serena Wee, an assistant professor of psychology at SMU, drew links between job seeking behaviours and concepts of identity.
Most people consider slavery to be extinct today. However, the practice has merely gone underground and is manifested today as human trafficking— a problem not seen or experienced directly by us in our daily lives. This invisible trade of human cargo is one of the most lucrative illegal businesses in the world today. Prominent expert on human trafficking Siddharth Kara shed light on the issue and look at ways to combat human trafficking in a seminar held in SMU.
There has long been a perception that creativity and money are somewhat opposed to one another. Profitable artists are sometimes seen as sell-outs while risk-averse corporations are seldom regarded as centres of creativity. Yet, for survival, businesses need to be creative and the creative-types need to eat. In the book, Brainfruit: Turning creativity into cash from East to West, authors Hugh Mason and SMU associate professor Mark Chong provide a slew of practical ideas for anyone aspiring to build or understand the business of creativity.
Many Asian economies are in the process of transitioning from an industrial-led growth model to a more knowledge-based one. While some have seen greater success than others, several challenges have arisen in recent years, in particular, with rapid advancements in information-communications technology. These changes are discussed in 'Beyond the Knowledge Trap: Developing Asia's Knowledge-based Economies', a book that presents a range of studies to show how Asian countries are adapting and addressing some of the new issues brought about by changes within a more complex and globalised environment.
Knowledge@Wharton
Investor Sentiment and Stock Prices: Explaining the Ups and Downs
State of the Unions: What It Means for Workers -- and Everyone Else
Etsy Seeks Scale without Losing Its 'Street Fair' Aesthetic
Everyone's Problem: Looking Beyond the Wal-Mart Bribery Case
Declining Employee Loyalty: A Casualty of the New Workplace
China Knowledge@Wharton
Shrouded in Mystery: Chinese Executive Compensation and the Numbers behind the Numbers
Panda Fireworks’ Zhao Weiping: Achieving Growth in a Tightly Controlled Industry
Why Eurozone Woes are Creating Headwinds for Global Firms
Panda Fireworks’ Zhao Weiping: Achieving Growth in a Tightly Controlled Industry
King of the Hill: Can Established Tech Companies Be Bested?
Jon Huntsman, Jr., on Republican Politics, the U.S. Economy and China's Transition



