Despite the huge public attention received by the male beauty contest discourse in Hong Kong as reflected in extensive local media coverage, studies on the discourse are rare. Concerning the limited literature in the male gender studies, this dissertation addressed the issue and examined the representation of and sexism against male in male beauty contest discourse in Hong Kong. Two latest publicized major male beauty contests in Hong Kong (TVB Mr. Hong Kong Contest 2011 and ATV Mr. Asia Contest 2012) were analyzed using frameworks of ‘dialectical-relational approach’ to Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 2009), the experiential metafunction of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Christian, 2004) and a combination of sexist characteristics suggested by influential theories such as Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). This study integrated findings across analyses of the contests in terms of their linguistics and multi-modal texts as well as culture of context. The findings showed that representations of men portrayed were seen to be degrading men. There was also clear evidence of sexism against male realized through language and visual aspects. It was concluded that the representations and sexist elements were possibly generated from the competitive rivalry between the two broadcasting companies and the change in public perception on gender characteristics. It also suggested that stricter regulating guidelines are needed to secure the professional ethics in media production in Hong Kong. This study grounded future research on the application of SFL framework as a useful quantitative analytical tool to supplement qualitative research in gender studies in media discourse. / published_or_final_version / Applied English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Environmental injustice has received high attention in the field of environmental studies. The concept of environmental justice is well defined within different academic disciplines. It refers to the rightness, fairness, and equity that a person in his own living environment is entitled to. In contrast, environmental injustice refers to the failure for one to receive the environmental justice that he is entitled to. Environmental injustice has been well substantiated by numerous international studies and evidenced in many countries overseas. A key question thus emerges: Is environmental injustice well evidenced in Hong Kong? Air pollution presents a major environmental challenge to the socially deprived communities both internationally and locally. Whilst the relationship between air pollution and social deprivation is well established internationally, given the strong evidence supporting the hypothesis that the socially deprived are exposed to more air pollution, the validity of such claim in the local context is not as obvious. Existing local studies investigating the relationship between air pollution and social deprivation are limited by, first, the lack of fine-grained air pollution data at a smaller geographical scale, which constrains the observation and conclusion of such hypothesis at a more refined geographical scale (Stern, 2003) and second, a stronger tendency to focus on the vulnerability of air pollution on different socio-economic spectrums (C. M. Wong et al., 2008). The current study aims to close the research gap by (a) developing a sophisticated methodology to enhance the collection and analysis of air pollution data at the Territorial Planning Unit, (b) examining the relationship between air pollution exposure and social deprivation at the TPU level, and (c) examining whether environmental injustice in relation to air pollution exists in Hong Kong. Our key research questions thus include the following: (1) Are the socially deprived in Hong Kong exposed to more air pollution? (2) Can we break through the existing methodological constraint and develop a brand new sophisticated air pollution data estimation methodology to interpolate air pollution at a smaller geographical scale? (3) If (1) is positive, would the exposure to more air pollution by the socially deprived in Hong Kong constitute the case of environmental injustice? A more sophisticated and accurate air pollution estimation methodology to estimate air pollution at a smaller geographical scale with the least root mean square error (RMSE) as compared to other key traditional models is introduced. The model identifies key spatial factors that affect the dispersion of air pollution in Hong Kong. By regression analysis, it is shown that the relationship between exposure to air pollution and social deprivation is positive and statistically significant. Both NO2 and PM10, the two major road-based pollutants, are positively correlated with the social deprivation index (for NO2: coefficient=0.4404 R= 0.6937, p<0.01; for PM10: coefficient = 0.4185, R = 0.6430, p<0.01). This leads to the conclusion that the socially deprived in Hong Kong are exposed to more air pollution, thus establishing the case of environmental injustice. This study has generated a key methodological breakthrough by developing a sophisticated air pollution estimation model that generates more accurate and fine-grained air pollution data at the TPU level – which was not previously available due to the limited number of air pollution monitoring stations in Hong Kong. This methodology allows the pursuit of social-economic air pollution study at a more refined geographical scale. The study strongly points to the existence of air-pollution related environmental injustice in Hong Kong. It calls for the Hong Kong Government to immediately address this under-researched and long neglected social-environmental problem, by formulating and implementing effective policies based on the fine-grained air pollution and socio-economic data, and the evidence generated from this study. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

Exhaust emissions from vehicles are major contributor to local air pollution and global climate change. Electric vehicles are zero tailpipe emission, while electricity can be generated from renewable sources. They are widely considered by policymakers. Although the Hong Kong Government carried out various policies in last few years, the market share of electric vehicles is still low, particularly in the public transport sector. This dissertation aims to investigate the policy drivers and obstacles to electric vehicles adoption in Hong Kong, focus on public transport vehicles – buses, public light buses and taxis, because they are the largest contributor to the street-level air pollution. The methodologies of this study included two parts. The first part is an extensive literature review and overseas case studies. The second part is survey interviews on 34 decision makers from public transport operators, public vehicle associations, infrastructure developers, car park management companies and property management companies. The survey covered 25.2 percent of total licensed public vehicles in Hong Kong in March 2013. The investigation reveals that long payback period, lack of infrastructure support, battery capacity, and range anxiety are the key obstacles to public electric vehicles adoption in Hong Kong, while environmental concern is less important to the stakeholders. As breakthroughs in technology will compensate most of the shortcomings, in short-term, provide direct subsidy on a non-linear sliding scale, and allocate land for overnight charging are vital for the Government to push public electric vehicles adoption. In medium to long-term, the Government has to be more proactive and roll out a clear roadmap for future development. Provide governmental research and development support, release the threshold of Green Pilot Transport Fund, further amendment on Road Traffic (Expressway) Regulations (Cap. 374Q), enhance collaboration with electric vehicle manufacturers, increase promotion, public education and professional training are recommended. The dissertation ends with a future research agenda. Suggestions included investigates the effectiveness of public electric vehicles' operation and acceptance by passengers; monitoring public electric vehicles' adoption, operation and development among Hong Kong and major regional competitors - Singapore and Shanghai. In addition, research on how China's expanding electric vehicle industry will influence public transport sector in the next two to three years' time. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

Recognizing that green construction industry has begun to notify recently among Hong Kong citizens; people begin to concern about the environment protection practices in daily life. The government has introduced the green building development since 1996, however, the development and policy do not mature enough as other developed countries. The Hong Kong green development is lagging behind. In the context of this research will focus on the following objectives: i) to review the current status of sustainable construction and green technologies in Hong Kong, ii) to identify major barriers towards sustainable construction in Hong Kong, iii) to find out the priority of those barriers which affect the most to the industry. This research will investigate the views for green building of Hong Kong residential and the developers in five aspects, for instance, the financial cost, professional technology & knowledge, perception of users and government initiatives. Among various features of green building, this research will focus on the technology of energy and water conservation, which is the most common adopted green technology in Hong Kong. The building services of existing green building is going to study, in order to review the unpopular reason behind the current situation in HK construction industry. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The Minimum Wage Ordinance was introduced since 1 May 2011. It was widely discussed among the society on how it affects the economy and the market nature of Hong Kong. Employer has carried out different measures on either changing the term of employment contract or raise up the requirement for the employee as to compensate the addition salary cost they have paid under this regulation. Being a participant in building management service, we observe that owners/ residents rise up their expectation on the performance of building attendant. They believe the increase of salary under MWO would motivate the building attendant on their work and it would also attract more candidates with higher qualification and personal ability to join the service sector. However, there is a variation between the expectation and the reality. This research is attempted to identify whether the implementation of MWO would improve the performance of building attendant and what are the factors of giving such impact by studying the change of labour market of building management and the result of customer satisfaction survey conduct in this research. From these findings, we would try to verify if there is any direct relationship between MWO and building staff performance and recommend some appropriate strategy to owners/resident on how to improve the performance of building attendant. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Urban social movements become one of the major forms of participation of urban governance of the public in recent years. Social values changed dramatically after the handover that people started to concern their right to the city. They demand for more power and influence in the formulation of urban policies and development strategy. However, urban governance in Hong Kong did not change with the time and resisted changes. This thus widened the gap of urban meaning between the formal government and the public. The conflict of their urban meanings thus led to urban social movement which aim to transform the urban governance. This also reinforce by the presence of new media in the mobilization of the movement. This dissertation aims to investigate how the changes of social values affect the conflict of urban meaning between urban actors and the impact on the urban governance in Hong Kong through analysing the framing of activists and urban managers. Choi Yuen Village Incident is chosen as case study to examine how different urban actors frame the issue and the implied urban meaning in the framing. This would reveal the conflict of urban meaning and the root of the occurrence of urban social movements in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Though billions of dollars has been spent on traffic infrastructure in Hong Kong for the past decades, it is still an unsolved traffic problem. Especially in peak hours, vehicles have to pay for the traffic congestion in the way of waiting time and air pollution. The public is interested in congestion pricing as it is effective in allocating resource. Also the revenues raised in road pricing can be used to invest in transport infrastructures which will benefit the whole society, especially in Hong Kong where more than 90% trips are taken by public transit. The existing policy is that growth in the private vehicle fleet should not exceed 3% per year. Currently, the increase rate of private vehicles is much higher than 3%. This generates the need to do the feasibility of ERP system in tackling congestion in Hong Kong. The ERP system is not a new term for the public as the Hong Kong Government has done two studies about road pricing in 1983 and 1998. However, the studies did not promote the implementation of ERP system in Hong Kong for various reasons. At the same time, the ERP system has been tested successful in many areas, such as Singapore and London. Lessons learnt from the two cases will guide the implantation of ERP system in Hong Kong. The study is conducted to evaluate the proposed implementation of the ERP system and attempts to recommend on future practices in order to achieve a more efficient, equitable and flexible means of managing the road space particularly in congested areas during busy hours. Questionnaire surveys will be conducted to get data for analysis of effect of ERP system. Combined with analysis of supply of transport infrastructure in next five years, the research finding is that the ERP system is not proper to be adopt to solve traffic congestion in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Tertiary institutions across the world continue to seek ways to enhance not only the knowledge students gain during a degree course but also the generic skills that they develop. Employers today assume discipline knowledge in graduates and are looking for skills that enable graduates to be work ready. Deep learning, which focuses on understanding rather than memorizing, has been shown to enhance better understanding and conceptualization of academic materials as well as better development of generic skills (e.g. analytical and problem-solving skills). Most researchers in the past have examined student learning in relation to deep learning, separately in the Students’ Approaches to Learning (SAL) and Achievement Goals (AG) perspectives. The present study therefore investigated how constructs from the SAL perspective: perceptions of course learning environment and approaches to learning, and constructs from the AG perspective: achievement goals, work together to enhance student learning and lead to more positive learning outcomes. Single-point-in-time and longitudinal studies were conducted among undergraduate students of a university in Hong Kong using paper and online survey through class visits and email, respectively. There were 849 and 651 students included in the single-point-in-time analyses of Study 1 and 2 respectively. A total of 183 cases were included in the longitudinal study. Analyses of structural equation modeling were conducted, and the results showed that achievement goals mediated the relationship between students’ perceptions of course learning environment and approaches to learning. This mediating relationship as a result could influence students learning outcomes in terms of GPA and perception of the development of generic skills. In particular, students’ perceptions of good teaching helped to promote the adoption of mastery goals which facilitated use of a deep approach to learning, as a result, were related to the perception of better development of generic skills. Students’ perceptions of a heavy workload promoted the adoption of performance-avoidance goals which encouraged use of a surface approach to learning and related to a lower GPA. Analyses of variance were used to compare students with single goal and multiple goals adoptions (i.e. adopting both mastery and performance-approach goals) in relation to approaches to learning and learning outcomes. The results demonstrated that adopting single mastery goals is beneficial in promoting a deep approach to learning, GPA and perception of better development of generic skills. Overall, the present study has demonstrated that the inclusion of achievement goals in the SAL perspectives provides a more comprehensive picture of the learning process among university students. To promote better learning outcomes, instructors should emphasize on understanding rather than memorization, develop mastery of knowledge and skills as their purpose for learning, avoid heavy workload, and enhance their teaching by adopting strategies such as explaining things clearly, providing helpful feedback and understanding the difficulties that students have in their learning. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This dissertation constitutes a detailed investigation of the history of the Lok Sin Tong Free School. It discusses how benevolent societies expanded their service scope in Hong Kong, as well as how the reforms in the education system and teaching curriculum of mainland China affected those in Hong Kong in the 1930s. Lok Sin Tong, one of the most remarkable charitable organizations in pre-war Hong Kong, formally expanded into the education field in 1929 with the establishment of the Lok Sin Tong Free School. The School was located at 32 Dai Tit Street, and its aim was to provide free education to children from Kowloon City who had formerly been deprived of schooling. The School began accepting male applicants in 1930. The first principal was Tam Kit-Sang, and the second was Wong Bun-Po. The School offered primary education and a four-year curriculum focusing on Chinese education. By 1938, when a new campus was established, the School’s number of students exceeded 300. However, soon after the outbreak of the Pacific War and Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in December 1941, the School was forced to close its doors. This dissertation comprises six chapters. The first defines the term “free school” and reviews the history of research on the Lok Sin Tong Free School. The second chapter outlines the historical development of Kowloon City and the Kowloon Walled City prior to 1941, and discusses how the local Kowloon City culture was key to the reestablishment of Lok Sin Tong’s services in the late 1920s following a suspension of services early in the century. The third chapter traces the origins and narrates the development of Lok Sin Tong from 1880 to 1941, with an emphasis on the improvement in its services under the leadership of Tam Kit-Sang and Chan Cho-Chak. The fourth chapter investigates the Lok Sin Tong Free School between 1929 and 1941, with special attention paid to its size, the quality of its teachers, its administration, curriculum and pedagogy, and student performance. An evaluation of the School’s overall effectiveness on the basis of these criteria follows. The fifth chapter presents a comparative study of the teaching and learning activities of the Lok Sin Tong Free School and those of the (1) Long Jin Free School and (2) Tung Sin Tong Free School. This comparison reveals the transformation of and changes in Chinese education in Hong Kong. The last chapter concludes the dissertation with a discussion of the interactions among free schools, benevolent societies, and the local community and culture in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

As the global economy has evolved, many companies have expanded their operations overseas in a constant search for potential markets in which to sell their products and services. As these companies seek to establish themselves abroad, it becomes imperative to train and to retain local employees. Despite this pressing need, Japanese companies have been widely criticized for failing to retain the services of experienced local employees. The retail industry, in particular, experiences a high degree of employee mobility and requires instant solutions for adjusting to the fast changing environment in which its firms operate. However, many companies believe in the rationality of their corporate systems without questioning suitability to the local circumstance. This thesis uses an anthropological approach to evaluate the company building process of a leading Japanese fashion enterprise (referred to by the pseudonym “Ichi”) in Hong Kong. In adopting this approach, I seek to explain the formation and expression of Ichi’s corporate ideology, and its interpretation by the firm’s employees. This analysis focuses on two primary themes: Ichi’s managerial control and the way employees attempted to satisfy company expectations in a purely superficial manner. Specifically, I adopt a participant-observation approach over fifteen months to provide a comprehensive illustration of the activity within Ichi’s Hong Kong stores. The first part of this thesis suggests that Ichi uses its corporate ideology, Ichi DNA, to control employees through its corporate system including training, ranking, remuneration, and promotion. Ichi’s implementation of its corporate system in Hong Kong seeks to apply its ideology to local employees to promote a “shared” set of values and its own institutional culture, thus unifying important principles across the company. This suggests that industrial familialism, which many scholars have identified as unique to Japanese corporate culture, only superficially illustrates the nature of Japanese companies. This thesis further demonstrates that during the implementation of Ichi’s corporate ideology, store employees individually or collectively distorted reports of their performance to attain personal career goals. This challenges the widespread perception that “harmony” is a genuine characteristic of the Japanese company. By examining the actions of different nationalities, the thesis also shows that Store Managers manage human relations within their stores primarily on the basis of different interpretations of the corporate ideology rather than their ethnic backgrounds. This similarly refutes the presumption that Japanese companies are ethnocentric in nature. Evidence from this study demonstrates that the general assumption of the efficacy of scientific management must be reexamined, as the company’s managerial practices and relationships with its employees are more heavily influenced by worker politics than the firm’s rational structure. By exploring the company building process and the effect of dynamic human relations on it, this study seeks to address the gap between corporate ideology and those practices that exemplify it, contrasting starkly with studies that claim that Japanese firms are uniquely culture- or ethnocentric. / published_or_final_version / Japanese Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy