Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

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

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Sociology

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Organizational leaders often seek to hire and retain innovative employees as a source of competitive advantage. Both transformational leadership and effectively managed workplace diversity have been theorized and shown to lead to increased employee creative performance at work; however, a full model of the relationships between leadership and the multi-dimensional construct of workplace diversity has not yet been tested. Using a sample of 371 employees in three Chinese high-technology firms matched with 64 supervisors collected at three time points, this study theorized and tested a moderated mediation path model in which transformational leadership and diversity climate were predicted to significantly interact to influence the workplace diversity constructs of organizational justice and organizational identity, which in turn, influence individual creative performance. Based on major theories of leadership, diversity, and creativity, several partial mediation hypotheses are presented, including diversity climate as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and creative performance as well as organizational justice and organizational identity as mediators of the relationship between the interaction of transformational leadership and diversity climate and creative performance. Several single- and multilevel path analyses were conducted to test the model, using two measures of creative performance: self-ratings and supervisor ratings. The results showed that the interaction of transformational leadership and diversity climate significantly predicted self-rated creative performance, and organizational identity significantly predicted supervisor ratings of creative performance. In addition, transformational leadership was found to significantly predict diversity climate and organizational justice was a significant predictor of organizational identity. Finally, transformational leadership had a significant indirect effect on creative performance through diversity climate. The contributions of this study to three major bodies of literature, as well as the implications of the results for research and practice, are discussed.

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

First, from the distributive justice perspective, strong perceptions of distributive injustice are found among undergraduates from national minority and lower-middle and lower classes. The perceptions of distributive injustice can further be differentiated into injustice in educational accesses, educational processes, educational outputs and educational outcomes. Both undergraduates from national minority and from lower-middle and lower classes have registered strong sense of "accumulative distributive injustice" in their educational-advancement experiences. Attributions of educational distributive injustice to disparities of educational resources among regions have also been revealed in this study. However, educational injustice attributed to gender differences seems to be insignificant among perceptions of the subjects under study. / Second, from the relational justice perspective, the perceptions of educational injustice among undergraduates are investigated and categorized in accordance with Young's framework of relational injustice, namely exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. It is common among undergraduates from national minority and lower-middle and lower classes to have relatively strong sense of relational injustice relating to cultural imperialism and violence. However, the experiences of violence revealed are mostly in the form of symbolic rather than physical violence. They also have substantive sense of relational injustice pertaining to marginalization and powerlessness. Experiences on exploitation are rarely reported among subjects from national minority and lower-middle and lower classes. This study finds that perceptions on relational injustice attributed to gender differences are insignificant among female subjects. / Social justice has risen to be one of the major social issues in Chinese mainland. As attainment of higher education has become one of primary determinants of attainments in social status among future generations, justice in higher education has therefore constituted as one of the areas of concerns among scholars in the field of Chinese education. / Third, differences in ethnicity and class have been revealed as the primary contributing factors to the perceptions of educational injustice among the subjects under study. Perceptions of educational injustice reported by undergraduates from national minority are mainly concentrated on subjects who are Islamite and Tibetan Buddhist from Xinjiang and Tibet. Among subjects of lower-middle and lower classes, subjects from rural areas have relatively stronger sense of injustice than those of comparable class backgrounds from urban areas. Therefore, it seems that disparities in class position and regional differences seem to have crystallized and asserted reinforcing effects on students' perceptions of educational injustice. / This study focuses on a group of the undergraduates from disadvantaged social backgrounds. It investigates their perceptions on educational injustice that they have experienced during their studies. The perceptions of injustice will be studied from the perspectives in both the distributive and relational justice. This study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the perceptions of justice among students of higher education in Chinese mainland. Twenty-two undergraduates from disadvantaged social backgrounds have been selected to be subjects of the study from four universities in Nanjing city of Jiangsu province. From the data collected, the following major findings are revealed. / This study has contributed to the scholarly discourses on distributive and relational justice by injecting first-hand qualitative data generated from the context of higher education in Chinese mainland. Furthermore, this study has provided some deep descriptions of the perceptions and experiences of educational injustice in a group disadvantaged background undergraduates in Chinese mainland. It is hoped that these data may help policy makers in formulating educational policy in the future. These data may also sensitizing teachers and other persons working in higher education sectors to address the perceptions and experiences of injustice among undergraduates from disadvantaged social backgrounds. Lastly, it is hoped that the study may be viewed as one of the tiny efforts that have been accumulated over the years by educators all over the world to constitute a relatively more equal and just educational system in human societies. / 钟景迅. / Adviser: Wing-kwong Tsang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-03, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-307). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Zhong Jingxun.