title: Green space justice amid COVID-19: Unequal access to public green space across American neighborhoods

authors: Gao, Shuqi

subjects: COVID-19

abstract: Countries around the world have resorted to issuing stay-at-home orders to slow viral transmission since the COVID-19 pandemic. During the lockdown, access to public park plays a central role in the public health of surrounding communities. However, we know little about how such an unprecedented policy may exacerbate the preexisting unequal access to green space (i.e., green space justice). To address this research void, we used difference-in-difference models to examine socioeconomic disparities, urban-rural disparities, and mobility disparities in terms of public park access in the United States. Our national analysis using the weekly mobile phone movement data robustly suggests the following three key findings during COVID-19: (1) The elderly, non-college-educated people, poor people, and blacks are less likely to visit public parks frequently, while unemployed people appear to be the opposite. (2) Compared to rural areas, populations in urban neighborhoods appear to visit public parks more frequently and they generally go to larger parks to minimize the risk of infection. (3) Populations in neighborhoods with higher private vehicle ownership or those with a higher density of transit stops would more frequently visit and travel a longer distance to public parks during the stay-at-home order. Our results imply that conventional inequality in green space access may still exist and even become worse during COVID-19, which could negatively impact people's health during isolation. We suggest that special attention should be paid to park-poor neighborhoods during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

text: Green space justice amid COVID-19: Unequal access to public green space across American neighborhoods Countries around the world have resorted to issuing stay-at-home orders to slow viral transmission since the COVID-19 pandemic. During the lockdown, access to public park plays a central role in the public health of surrounding communities. However, we know little about how such an unprecedented policy may exacerbate the preexisting unequal access to green space (i.e., green space justice). To address this research void, we used difference-in-difference models to examine socioeconomic disparities, urban-rural disparities, and mobility disparities in terms of public park access in the United States. Our national analysis using the weekly mobile phone movement data robustly suggests the following three key findings during COVID-19: (1) The elderly, non-college-educated people, poor people, and blacks are less likely to visit public parks frequently, while unemployed people appear to be the opposite. (2) Compared to rural areas, populations in urban neighborhoods appear to visit public parks more frequently and they generally go to larger parks to minimize the risk of infection. (3) Populations in neighborhoods with higher private vehicle ownership or those with a higher density of transit stops would more frequently visit and travel a longer distance to public parks during the stay-at-home order. Our results imply that conventional inequality in green space access may still exist and even become worse during COVID-19, which could negatively impact people's health during isolation. We suggest that special attention should be paid to park-poor neighborhoods during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

year: 2023-02-02

title: CSR practices in luxury hotels of China: Perception, cultural and generation differences

authors: George, LIU

subjects: luxury hotel

abstract: This study investigates how corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices are perceived in Chinese luxury hotels, focusing on cultural influences, generational cohorts, and organisational roles. Grounded in Hofstede’s national cultural dimensions, self-determination theory (SDT), and the Confucian concept of self-cultivation, the research addresses a gap in understanding how cultural values and intergenerational differences shape staff CSR perceptions in the luxury hospitality context. 

Adopting a pragmatic research philosophy, an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was employed. In the qualitative phase, 37 semi-structured interviews with hotel staff (including senior managers, middle managers, and line employees) revealed key themes by the use of narrative interpretation: (a) deep-rooted cultural norms (collectivism, harmony, respect for hierarchy) that reinforce CSR as a collective obligation led by top management, (b) generational value differences in CSR engagement, and (c) variations in perceived CSR benefits across job positions. 

Building on these insights, the quantitative phase surveyed staff across luxury hotels in China (N = 533). Structural equation modelling results confirmed and extended the qualitative patterns. For example, 72% of managers affirmed that CSR initiatives strengthened brand reputation, whereas only 48% of line staff shared this view, reflecting positional gaps in perceived strategic value. Generational contrasts were also evident: nearly two-thirds of Millennial and Gen Z staff reported strong personal commitment to CSR activities, compared to about half of older staff. Statistical analysis using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) confirmed significant employee-level differences in perceptions of CSR practices within luxury hotels in China. Notably, perceived CSR was particularly pronounced among senior-level staff, reflecting hierarchical variations in CSR prioritisation and implementation. 

This research has provided a pioneering examination of CSR practices in China’s luxury hotel sector, demonstrating how cultural context and generational dynamics jointly shape staff perceptions of CSR. The study involved a nuanced synthesis of qualitative depth and quantitative rigour, yielding empirical evidence to describe similarities and differences between the perceptions and generations. These differences, rooted in China’s cultural heritage and the evolving values of its workforce, have significant implications for both theory and practice. The findings extend the CSR literature by confirming that why and how staff engage with CSR is contingent on a confluence of individual values, leadership influence, and socio-cultural background, aligning with global evidence of CSR’s positive impact while also highlighting unique intra-cultural variations.

Theoretically, this thesis extends CSR and organisational behaviour literature by integrating Western motivational theories with Chinese cultural frameworks, demonstrating how national culture and generational identity jointly shape CSR perceptions and engagement. Methodologically, the study validates the efficacy of a pragmatic, sequential mixed-methods approach, effectively capturing the nuanced, multi-dimensional CSR perceptions within a complex cultural setting. Practically, the findings offer actionable insights for human resource management (HRM), recommending differentiated CSR strategies and communication tailored to generational characteristics and cultural values, thus enhancing CSR integration, employee motivation, and organisational alignment.

Consequently, the main contributions of this thesis are: providing empirical evidence on how cultural and generational factors together influence perceptions of CSR in China’s luxury hospitality sector; demonstrating the effectiveness of a mixed-method approach to exploring complex cultural and organisational phenomena; and offering practical, culturally informed guidelines for improving CSR engagement among diverse staff groups in luxury hotels of China, highlighting the potential impact of staff perception on corporate ethical behaviour.

This study discusses its limitations, provides recommendations, and explores potential opportunities for future research.

text: CSR practices in luxury hotels of China: Perception, cultural and generation differences This study investigates how corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices are perceived in Chinese luxury hotels, focusing on cultural influences, generational cohorts, and organisational roles. Grounded in Hofstede’s national cultural dimensions, self-determination theory (SDT), and the Confucian concept of self-cultivation, the research addresses a gap in understanding how cultural values and intergenerational differences shape staff CSR perceptions in the luxury hospitality context. 

Adopting a pragmatic research philosophy, an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was employed. In the qualitative phase, 37 semi-structured interviews with hotel staff (including senior managers, middle managers, and line employees) revealed key themes by the use of narrative interpretation: (a) deep-rooted cultural norms (collectivism, harmony, respect for hierarchy) that reinforce CSR as a collective obligation led by top management, (b) generational value differences in CSR engagement, and (c) variations in perceived CSR benefits across job positions. 

Building on these insights, the quantitative phase surveyed staff across luxury hotels in China (N = 533). Structural equation modelling results confirmed and extended the qualitative patterns. For example, 72% of managers affirmed that CSR initiatives strengthened brand reputation, whereas only 48% of line staff shared this view, reflecting positional gaps in perceived strategic value. Generational contrasts were also evident: nearly two-thirds of Millennial and Gen Z staff reported strong personal commitment to CSR activities, compared to about half of older staff. Statistical analysis using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) confirmed significant employee-level differences in perceptions of CSR practices within luxury hotels in China. Notably, perceived CSR was particularly pronounced among senior-level staff, reflecting hierarchical variations in CSR prioritisation and implementation. 

This research has provided a pioneering examination of CSR practices in China’s luxury hotel sector, demonstrating how cultural context and generational dynamics jointly shape staff perceptions of CSR. The study involved a nuanced synthesis of qualitative depth and quantitative rigour, yielding empirical evidence to describe similarities and differences between the perceptions and generations. These differences, rooted in China’s cultural heritage and the evolving values of its workforce, have significant implications for both theory and practice. The findings extend the CSR literature by confirming that why and how staff engage with CSR is contingent on a confluence of individual values, leadership influence, and socio-cultural background, aligning with global evidence of CSR’s positive impact while also highlighting unique intra-cultural variations.

Theoretically, this thesis extends CSR and organisational behaviour literature by integrating Western motivational theories with Chinese cultural frameworks, demonstrating how national culture and generational identity jointly shape CSR perceptions and engagement. Methodologically, the study validates the efficacy of a pragmatic, sequential mixed-methods approach, effectively capturing the nuanced, multi-dimensional CSR perceptions within a complex cultural setting. Practically, the findings offer actionable insights for human resource management (HRM), recommending differentiated CSR strategies and communication tailored to generational characteristics and cultural values, thus enhancing CSR integration, employee motivation, and organisational alignment.

Consequently, the main contributions of this thesis are: providing empirical evidence on how cultural and generational factors together influence perceptions of CSR in China’s luxury hospitality sector; demonstrating the effectiveness of a mixed-method approach to exploring complex cultural and organisational phenomena; and offering practical, culturally informed guidelines for improving CSR engagement among diverse staff groups in luxury hotels of China, highlighting the potential impact of staff perception on corporate ethical behaviour.

This study discusses its limitations, provides recommendations, and explores potential opportunities for future research.

year: 2026-01-23

title: Te Reo Tātai: The Development of a Mathematics Register for Māori-Medium Schooling

authors: Trinick, Anthony

subjects: Indigenous Mathematics education

abstract: This thesis investigates the development of a lexicon and register to facilitate the teaching of mathematics in the medium of te reo Māori. This sociolinguistic development is situated within the wider Māori language revitalisation movement in Aotearoa/New Zealand, of which Māori-medium education is a central component. 
Lexication of a language is a subdomain of corpus planning. Corpus, status and language-in-education planning are considered the three major interconnected domains of language planning and policy (LPP). For decades, the primary focus of LPP research has been on the activities of states and their agencies at the macro (national) level. The significance of this study is that it addresses this gap in the research, by investigating the development of LPP at the meso/micro-level—in this case, with respect to the development of a mathematics register for an endangered indigenous language, te reo Māori.
The thesis draws on two major participant data sources. The first is the narratives of key individuals at the forefront of lexical development for Māori-medium mathematics who recounted their experiences. The second is interviews with principals and teachers from two Māori-medium case study schools to examine their own learning and usage of the standardised pāngarau lexicon.
Two complementary theoretical frameworks were used to investigate the topic. First, an LPP theoretical framework was applied to investigate the complex relationships between the various levels of LPP that have impacted on the evolution of te reo Māori and Māori-medium schooling. Second, a linguistic framework, systemic functional linguistics (SFL), was used to investigate the linguistic and pedagogical issues.
Thesis findings show that the status of te reo Māori was variously affected by linguistic ideologies such as assimilation, which in turn led to such policies as English only in schooling. As a consequence, at the micro-level of LPP, Māori-medium mathematics development went into a hiatus for over 100 years, and at the macro-level, considerable language shift occurred to English, causing te reo Maori to become endangered.
In response to language revitalisation efforts, the (re) vernacularisation of te reo Māori over the past 30 years has exhibited a complex combination of both bottom-up and top-down LPP. Within this, early pāngarau lexical developments were largely driven by local schools and their communities, which sometimes centred on the maintenance of their tribal dialects, often in conflict with later LPP agency language goals. 
Subsequently, lexication for pāngarau was influenced by macro-level sociolinguistic beliefs such as linguistic purism, which in turn have influenced the technical approach to creating terms and may have created particular pedagogical issues, such as a lack of intertranslatability between te reo Māori and English at the higher levels of mathematics study. 
While Māori-medium schooling has contributed significantly to language revitalisation in the past 30 years, its development has been very ad hoc. In the absence of a “formal” language plan for Māori-medium education, policy has been significantly driven by national education (English-medium) imperatives since the late 1970s to the present day. On the other hand, these policies have favoured mathematics education and directly supported the development of the Māori-medium specialised lexicon and register.

text: Te Reo Tātai: The Development of a Mathematics Register for Māori-Medium Schooling This thesis investigates the development of a lexicon and register to facilitate the teaching of mathematics in the medium of te reo Māori. This sociolinguistic development is situated within the wider Māori language revitalisation movement in Aotearoa/New Zealand, of which Māori-medium education is a central component. 
Lexication of a language is a subdomain of corpus planning. Corpus, status and language-in-education planning are considered the three major interconnected domains of language planning and policy (LPP). For decades, the primary focus of LPP research has been on the activities of states and their agencies at the macro (national) level. The significance of this study is that it addresses this gap in the research, by investigating the development of LPP at the meso/micro-level—in this case, with respect to the development of a mathematics register for an endangered indigenous language, te reo Māori.
The thesis draws on two major participant data sources. The first is the narratives of key individuals at the forefront of lexical development for Māori-medium mathematics who recounted their experiences. The second is interviews with principals and teachers from two Māori-medium case study schools to examine their own learning and usage of the standardised pāngarau lexicon.
Two complementary theoretical frameworks were used to investigate the topic. First, an LPP theoretical framework was applied to investigate the complex relationships between the various levels of LPP that have impacted on the evolution of te reo Māori and Māori-medium schooling. Second, a linguistic framework, systemic functional linguistics (SFL), was used to investigate the linguistic and pedagogical issues.
Thesis findings show that the status of te reo Māori was variously affected by linguistic ideologies such as assimilation, which in turn led to such policies as English only in schooling. As a consequence, at the micro-level of LPP, Māori-medium mathematics development went into a hiatus for over 100 years, and at the macro-level, considerable language shift occurred to English, causing te reo Maori to become endangered.
In response to language revitalisation efforts, the (re) vernacularisation of te reo Māori over the past 30 years has exhibited a complex combination of both bottom-up and top-down LPP. Within this, early pāngarau lexical developments were largely driven by local schools and their communities, which sometimes centred on the maintenance of their tribal dialects, often in conflict with later LPP agency language goals. 
Subsequently, lexication for pāngarau was influenced by macro-level sociolinguistic beliefs such as linguistic purism, which in turn have influenced the technical approach to creating terms and may have created particular pedagogical issues, such as a lack of intertranslatability between te reo Māori and English at the higher levels of mathematics study. 
While Māori-medium schooling has contributed significantly to language revitalisation in the past 30 years, its development has been very ad hoc. In the absence of a “formal” language plan for Māori-medium education, policy has been significantly driven by national education (English-medium) imperatives since the late 1970s to the present day. On the other hand, these policies have favoured mathematics education and directly supported the development of the Māori-medium specialised lexicon and register.

year: 2015