It is widely accepted that the educational system of universities has to provide an academic environment that may serve as a catalysts for high-technology start-ups. The academic tradition of entrepreneurship in German-speaking countries is very short. Until recently, fostering innovations and new product development through entrepreneurship has not been regarded as a primary task of universities. However, perspectives have changed in this respect, and there have been numerous attempts to enhance the role of university graduates as founders of innovative businesses. In this paper, we compare the entrepreneurial intentions of students at two German-speaking universities (the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and the University of Munich) with the corresponding results for a leading institution in this field: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We find very distinct patterns of entrepreneurial spirit in these universities. The results also suggest that the lower level of founding intentions among students in Munich and Vienna may be attributed to their less distinctive entrepreneurship education. This leaves a great deal of room for improvement. (author's abstract)

Japan is the longest lived population in the world and has led the world in low mortality for over two decades. The United States, although its GDP exceeds all other countries, has a life expectancy that falls substantially below most other western countries. Taiwan, although it has an emerging economy with rapid aging population, has a life expectancy approaching that of the United States. Previous studies have investigated multiple domains of physical health for elderly Japanese, American, and Taiwanese, but very few studies have compared mortality across these countries and even fewer have examined how mortality and morbidity intersect differently across the countries to influence differences in healthy life expectancy. This dissertation is aimed at filling this gap. Based on studies in the United States and other Western countries, education is increasingly characterized as a "fundamental cause" of health -- with more years of educational attainment associated with better health. Although the association is robust for a variety of health measures and mortality in the United States and other Western countries, studies in East Asia report more modest associations or no associations. Thus, whether the association extends beyond the Western context is less clear. In my dissertation, I investigate these issues in detail. In the United States, the more-educated enjoy longer life expectancy and a compression of mortality comparing with their less-educated counterpart. Here, data from Taiwan and Japan are used to assess whether education has similar consequences in two important non-Western settings. In sum, the findings reveal that: (1) older Japanese people not only have the highest total life expectancy but also have the highest absolute healthy life expectancy in each gender group, (2) older American and Taiwanese people have similar total life expectancy in each gender group, but they have very different health profiles, (3) educational gradients on mortality/health differ across gender and country groups, and (4) within a population, having more education helps maximize lifespan, changes and delays the biological aging process in the different contexts. Overall, the results underscore the importance of international perspective in explicating health disparities, especially educational differentials in health. / text

Background. There are few cross-national comparisons of the rates of suicide ideation and attempts across diverse countries. Nine independently conducted epidemiological surveys using similar diagnostic assessment and criteria provided an opportunity to obtain that data. Methods. Suicide ideation and attempts were assessed on the Diagnostic Interview Schedule in over 40000 subjects drawn from the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, France, West Germany, Lebanon, Taiwan, Korea and New Zealand. Results. The lifetime prevalence rates/100 for suicide ideation ranged from 2·09 (Beirut) to 18·51 (Christchurch, New Zealand). Lifetime prevalence rates/100 for suicide attempts ranged from 0·72 (Beirut) to 5·93 (Puerto Rico). Females as compared to males had only marginally higher rates of suicidal ideation in most countries, reaching a two-fold increase in Taiwan. Females as compared to males had more consistently higher rates for suicide attempts, reaching a two- to three-fold increase in most countries. Suicide ideation and attempts in most countries were associated with being currently divorced/separated as compared to currently married. Conclusions. While the rates of suicide ideation varied widely by country, the rates of suicide attempts were more consistent across most countries. The variations were only partly explained by variation in rates of psychiatric disorders, divorce or separation among countries and are probably due to cultural features that we do not, as yet, understand.

Previous family researchers have found that parents who share different demographic backgrounds construct unique parenting styles and beliefs. Although such studies contribute to understanding how parenthood is socially constructed, the information about how parents internalize cultural information and everyday experiences to raise children is missing in the extant literature. To fully comprehend the social construction of parenthood, the linkage between the mind and the behavior of parents within specific social structures needed to be studied. I thus conducted conjoint interviews with 24 Japanese couples and 24 American couples who were raising four-to-six year old daughters and sons to examine how culture and cognition produce parental philosophies and family relationships. By using cognitive sociology as a theoretical framework and grounded theory methods as a mode of analysis, I found that the parents’ construction of parenting beliefs and practices basically depended on how they thought about four analytically distinct relationships: (1) their relationship to their parents; (2) their relationship to their children; (3) their relationship to their marital partner; and (4) their relationship to other people in society. Although fathers and mothers in Japan and the United States talked in general about these four aspects, in the process of doing so they offered unique views on each aspect. Japanese parents tended to view their parents as role models, believe that children and parents teach and learn from each other, consider gender ideology to be the foundation of parental partnership, and rank understanding others' feelings as the most important skill for children. Thus, their parenting philosophies were manufactured through reciprocal relationships with other people. In contrast, American parents tended to want to become better parents than their own parents, prefer to influence and control their children’s lives, consider equality to be the foundation of their parental partnership, and encourage their children to become independent. Therefore, their parenting philosophies were manufactured through self motivation. Through the cross-national comparisons of parents’ cognitive processes, I also discuss: the levels of parental expectations and pressures; the issues around the gender relations within a family; and the roles of international parenting books in a globalizing world.

While the lack of publicly available literatures examining the applications of managerial accounting information in service organizations, this study uses the international tourist hotel as an example to determine the relationship between managerial accounting information, the organization, strategies and business performance. Multi-national comparison is another important issue of this paper. As background the paper cited a popular text by Horngren and Sundem (1999), which delineated three types of managerial accounting information: scorekeeping, attention directing, and problem solving. The purposes of the study present as follows: 1.Have an outlook of managerial accounting information exercising in international tourist hotels in the Netherlands and Taiwan. 2.To analyze the effects of organization characteristics and strategies on managerial accounting information and business performance. 3.Through multi-national case comparison, both countries could see the differences of managerial accounting information exercising between each other and the reasons behind. Both countries can use them as a reference for future operating improvement. This study interviewed four international tourist hotels in the Netherlands and Taiwan. To minimize the interference from international chain hotels on decision makings, the target of case research hotels were all focused on independent operated, belonged to the range of 4 to 5 stars. The results of these case studies suggest: 1.Due to the differences of multi-national environment and accounting regulations, the international tourist hotels in the Netherlands and Taiwan exercise different degrees of managerial accounting information. 2.The result partly proved that international tourist hotels need sufficient managerial accounting information to cooperate with Cost Leadership Strategy. 3.The hotels emphasizing corperate governance attach more importance to managerial accounting information. Besides, the accounting sections within these companies are usually more professional operated. 4.The hotels in the Netherlands which follow Differentiation Strategy need abundant accounting information to support decision makings; while those hotels in Taiwan usually rely on the rich experiences of top managers to make decisions. There is no significant relationship between managerial accounting information and Differentiation Strategy in Taiwanese hotels. 5.In the Netherlands, relevant relationship was observed between managerial accounting information and business performance; whereas there is no direct conclusion for Taiwanese hotels.

Background. There are few cross-national comparisons of the rates of suicide ideation and attempts across diverse countries. Nine independently conducted epidemiological surveys using similar diagnostic assessment and criteria provided an opportunity to obtain that data. Methods. Suicide ideation and attempts were assessed on the Diagnostic Interview Schedule in over 40000 subjects drawn from the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, France, West Germany, Lebanon, Taiwan, Korea and New Zealand. Results. The lifetime prevalence rates/100 for suicide ideation ranged from 2·09 (Beirut) to 18·51 (Christchurch, New Zealand). Lifetime prevalence rates/100 for suicide attempts ranged from 0·72 (Beirut) to 5·93 (Puerto Rico). Females as compared to males had only marginally higher rates of suicidal ideation in most countries, reaching a two-fold increase in Taiwan. Females as compared to males had more consistently higher rates for suicide attempts, reaching a two- to three-fold increase in most countries. Suicide ideation and attempts in most countries were associated with being currently divorced/separated as compared to currently married. Conclusions. While the rates of suicide ideation varied widely by country, the rates of suicide attempts were more consistent across most countries. The variations were only partly explained by variation in rates of psychiatric disorders, divorce or separation among countries and are probably due to cultural features that we do not, as yet, understand.

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No / Trade credit terms offer firms contractual solutions to informational asymmetries between buyers and sellers. The credit period permits buyers to reduce uncertainty concerning product quality prior to payment, while the seller can reduce uncertainty concerning buyer payment intentions by prescribing payment before/on delivery or through two¿part payment terms and other mechanisms. Variation in trade credit terms also offers firms price discriminating opportunities. This study, drawing on the responses of 700 large firms in the US, UK and Australia, explores trade credit terms through the twin objectives of reducing information asymmetries and discriminatory pricing. Support is found for both theories.

Sexual violence is a well-known phenomenon in armed conflicts. The international attention from scholars and policymakers has substantially expanded during the last decades, but until today a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances that generate this violence is absent. This causes difficulties in the policy rhetoric of the issue, as well as in the development of effective measures to prevent and combat conflict-related sexual violence in current conflicts. This study aims to explore and identify circumstances related to the use of sexual violence by armed groups, and by state forces in particular. The overall purpose is to contribute to an understanding of why state forces commit sexual violence in some armed conflicts and not in others. An analytical framework is created based on existing theoretical concepts and explanations to the varying frequency of sexual violence. Based on this, five hypotheses of possible correlated conditions are created. These conditional factors are: 1) Rule of Law, 2) Other Violence, 3) Ethnic Conflict, 4) Gender Equality, and 5) International Support. The hypotheses are translated into macro-level variables that are systematically applied and compared between ten cases of armed conflicts, five of which have high levels of sexual violence committed by state forces, respectively five with no reports of sexual violence committed by state forces. This is done by a cross-national comparison using descriptive statistics. Four hypotheses are to a varying degree strengthened by this study and the result suggests that sexual violence committed by state forces is more likely to occur; in conflicts with low levels of rule of law; in ethnic conflicts; in conflicts with high levels of other violence, and; in absence of international support. The anticipation is that the results of this study will provide a platform for further conclusive research of casual factors to conflict-related sexual violence.