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This thesis explores fashion education in the People's Republic of China (PRC) as it evolved historically, with a concentration on the teaching and learning of undergraduate fashion design programs. I use a mixed methodology that includes discourse analysis, case studies, archival studies and interviews with founders of fashion design programs and fashion design professors. This research is underpinned by a comparative approach in which I explore the similarities and differences between the top Chinese programs and their counterpart fashion institutions in the United States of America and Britain. This thesis argues that the Chinese government has been the dominant influence on the development of fashion education in the PRC whereas in the United States and Britain the evolution of this sector was initially primarily driven by the fashion industry and currently responds to social movements and activism. I show that despite their different development driving engines, a close examination of the evolving curricula in both of the international and Chinese fashion institutions follow similar paths. The trajectory for curriculum development is the move from being oriented towards "drawing" and the "artistic" aspects of design to a focus on "clothing construction", "production technologies" and the business of "selling" clothes, through to the current emphasis on "creative thinking" today. Despite their different starting points, the top Chinese fashion schools have achieved the same benchmarks as top international fashion schools in terms of "what should designers design? (form)" and "how do designers complete their designs? (technology)." This thesis shows that today the major difference between the top Chinese schools and their international counterparts lies in the question: "Why should designers design? (objective)" In China, design is still mainly oriented towards promoting Chinese culture and is often expressed as a form of nationalism; while in the international institutions the role of design is expanding from serving the business sector to serving the society—using design to solve social problems is the cutting edge trend. It took the top international fashion institutions nearly a century to reach their current levels. With the help of the active engagement of the Chinese government, PRC institutions have attained this same level in just 30 years. During these same three decades, this thesis shows that PRC fashion education is experiencing a transition from "serving the people (wei renmin fuwu)" to "serving the individual cadres" who represent the government. The result of this trend is that Chinese institutions have become "cadre-centered" rather than "student-centered." ; published_or_final_version ; Modern Languages and Cultures ; Doctoral ; Doctor of Philosophy

PurposeBased on affective events theory, this study explores the cross-level effect of team reflexivity on employee innovative behaviors. Specifically, the authors examine the mediating effects of affective and normative commitment on this relationship, as well as the moderating effects of benevolent leadership.Design/methodology/approachThe authors surveyed 341 employees and their direct supervisors in 74 work units and utilized multilevel path analysis to test a model of cross-level moderated mediation.FindingsThe study analysis results suggest that team reflexivity significantly contributes to employee innovative behavior. Both affective commitment and normative commitment mediate this relationship. Benevolent leadership not only enhances the relationship between team reflexivity and affective/normative commitment, but also reinforces the linkage of team reflexivity→affective commitment→employee innovative behavior.Practical implicationsThe current study suggests that organizations should invest more in promoting team reflexivity and benevolent leadership in workplace. Furthermore, managers need to develop appropriate employees training programs and pay more attention to employees' work and personal lives. They need to make efforts to enhance employees' affective and normative commitment, thereby facilitating their innovative behavior.Originality/valueThis research identifies affective commitment and normative commitment as key mediators that link team reflexivity to employee innovative behavior and reveals the moderating role of benevolent leadership in the process.

PurposeBased on experiential learning theory (ELT), this study explores the cross-level effect of team reflexivity on employee innovative behavior. The authors especially focus on the mediating effect of individual intellectual capital (IIC) and the moderating effect of empowering leadership on the relationship between the two constructs.Design/methodology/approachThis study collects data from 76 work units, which include 362 employees and their direct supervisors. A cross-level moderated mediation model was tested by using multilevel path analysis.FindingsThe results show that team reflexivity significantly contributes to employee innovative behavior. IIC mediates the above relationship. Empowering leadership not only positively moderates the relationship between team reflexivity and IIC but also reinforces the linkage of team reflexivity → IIC → employee innovative behavior.Practical implicationsThe study suggests that organizations should invest more in promoting team reflexivity and empowering leadership in the workplace. Furthermore, managers should make members aware of the importance of IIC for employee innovative behavior. They need to make efforts to enhance IIC via internal communication channels or open discussions, which facilitate IIC and employee innovative behavior.Originality/valueThis research tests the relationship between team reflexivity and employee innovative behavior and identifies IIC as a key mediator that links team reflexivity to employee innovative behavior. It also highlights the moderating role of empowering leadership in the process.

BACKGROUND: Fast food with its abundance and availability to consumers may have health consequences due to the high calorie intake which is a major contributor to life threatening diseases. Providing nutritional information has some impact on consumer decisions to self regulate and promote healthier diets, and thus, government regulations have mandated the publishing of nutritional content to assist consumers, including for fast food. However, fast food nutritional information is fragmented, and we realize a benefit to collate nutritional data to synthesize knowledge for individuals. METHODS: We developed the ontology of fast food facts as an opportunity to standardize knowledge of fast food and link nutritional data that could be analyzed and aggregated for the information needs of consumers and experts. The ontology is based on metadata from 21 fast food establishment nutritional resources and authored in OWL2 using Protégé. RESULTS: Three evaluators reviewed the logical structure of the ontology through natural language translation of the axioms. While there is majority agreement (76.1% pairwise agreement) of the veracity of the ontology, we identified 103 out of the 430 statements that were erroneous. We revised the ontology and publicably published the initial release of the ontology. The ontology has 413 classes, 21 object properties, 13 data properties, and 494 logical axioms. CONCLUSION: With the initial release of the ontology of fast food facts we discuss some future visions with the continued evolution of this knowledge base, and the challenges we plan to address, like the management and publication of voluminous amount of semantically linked fast food nutritional data.