published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Botany / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Ecology and Biodiversity / Master / Master of Philosophy

The researcher conducted a case study analysis of China Airlines' crisis management during its 1998 crash in Taiwan, the worst in the airport's history.The researcher looked for evidence of Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt's crisis theory in China Airlines' crisis management by identifying the following parts of the theory: issue management, planning prevention, the crisis, and the post-crisis.The researcher sought to suggest the use of Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt's crisis theory in the formative research of China Airlines crisis management and to help public relations planners in the airline industry understand how crisis management incorporating Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt's crisis theory could be presented and disseminated.Procedures began with collection of facts and interviews with the key public relations personnel of China Airlines. Next, the researcher applied Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt's crisis theory to the China Airlines case for analysis. In addition, by viewing the other two airlines crash cases, this study provided a comparison of their crisis management strategies.The researcher followed Miles and Huberman's (1994) guidelines for addressing reliability and validity.Recommendations for improving China air's crisis management would be to use issue management, planning prevention, the crisis, and the post-crisis, the four steps of Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt's crisis theory, for managing crises. The researcher also recommends periodical internal drills for different crises, and establishment of organizational legitimacy and authority.Limitations of the study included the legitimacy of qualitative research, that the study included the legitimacy of qualitative research, thus the study may not be considered a case study in the strictest sense, and that crisis management did not intentionally incorporate the process of Gonzalez-Herrero and Pratt's crisis theory in China Airlines' crisis management because of the company's culture issue.Further research on the China Airlines' crisis management should be conducted to evaluate its effectiveness and the culture issue. / Department of Journalism

FH f. Technik u. Wirtsch., Diplomarb,--Zugl.: Berlin, 2005. / e-Book Ausdruck auf Papier.

Zugl.: Berlin, Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2009.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 355-377).

As global competition intensifies, more companies have found that it is imperative to develop quality management systems that will continuously improve the quality of their products, simply in order to survive. Total quality management (TQM), a term widely accepted as a new management philosophy which was developed based on the management practices in Japan, may hold the key to unlock American industries’ competitive power. It is understandable that many American managers have embraced TQM with great enthusiasm since the early 1980s. China, on the other hand, adopted a policy of economic “reform and openness” in 1978; the goal of this more “open and reformed” policy was to create a better economic, social, and political environment for its state-run enterprises in order to improve their efficiency. Since then, however, western management systems ---- including total quality management ---- have been introduced to Chinese managers. Realizing the potential of TQM in helping those state-run enterprises, the Chinese government has taken a leading role in promoting the implementation of TQM. Rules and regulations have been instigated to enforce the government’s determination to pursue TQM. Moreover, the news media in China has taken an active role in the process of promoting TQM. Special programs have been produced to raise people’s attention to those quality related issues. Despite the early start and wide support received from the government, media, and industry, the effectiveness of TQM implementation in China’s state-run enterprises has been far from satisfactory. Quantity, not quality, is still a main concern of many managers in China. “Shady” products (products of suspect quality) are still sold in the markets. The overall quality level achieved by the Chinese products is clearly below the quality standard set by developed countries. Why have China’s state-run enterprises failed to reap the benefits of implementing total quality management? The main objective of this thesis is to report research that examines the recent history of quality management in China, the national movement toward TQM, the benefits some enterprises have gained since implementing TQM, and the reasons of China’s failure to reap TQM’s full benefits. It is hoped that the experience of China’s TQM implementation can assist other countries in developing a better strategy and to avoid making similar costly mistakes. / Master of Science

The purposes of this study were to describe patterns of time use and to identify some of the sources of the gender gap in time expenditures in both urban and rural China. Based on previous theoretical perspectives, a number of individual and family structure characteristics were proposed to form a parsimonious and distinct model. Bivariate analysis, ANOVA, and multiple regression with interaction terms were used to test hypotheses that linked predictive variables with the dependent variables of the inquiry. Empirical work of the study was based on the 1990 survey data from a representative sample of adult Chinese persons living in Hubei Province, People's Republic of China. The descriptive results provided abundant information about gender differences in paid work, housework and leisure activities. On the whole, urban women had an equal amount of paid work as men had, their unpaid housework hours doubled or tripled their men's, and their leisure time was one hour less than men's. The gender gap in time use was larger in rural areas than in urban ones. The ANOVA results confirmed the majority of the aforementioned findings as significant. The multiple regression results identified the determinants of time use as follows: Once the other variables were held constant, (1) age, education, and income were predictive of paid work time; (2) sex, paid work time, education, and marital status had a significant impact on housework time; and (3) sex, time spent on paid work and housework, age, education, and income affected leisure time. The three models were found to be more applicable to the rural setting than to the urban one. The conclusions raised questions requiring policy development in China, and theoretical improvement and future research in both China and America. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / China Area Studies / Master / Master of Arts