THE ANCIENT CONFUCIAN OF ANALECTS TO TODAY’S MORAL CRITERIA OF MARITIME LEADER IN TAIWAN

Shiang-Min Meng

Department of Logistics and Shipping Management, Kainan University, Taiwan

ABSTRACT

This study explores to twenty precepts of virtues set forth by the ancient Confucian philosopher Confucius and his students’ writings of Analects in which related to leader’s humaneness characteristics (LHC) and leader’s manhood soul (LMS) to today’s moral criteria of maritime leader in Taiwan. An empirical validation and develop a scale of twenty virtues of LHC and LMS with desirable psychometric properties, and explore theoretical and practical applications to Taiwanese maritime leader. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is applied to measurement of the components between LHC and LMS relationship to help readers understand the two constructs. The virtues aspect of a leader’s humaneness characteristics it is defined in terms of Ritual, Ceremony, Charity, Benevolence, Honesty, Faithfulness, Kindness, Culture, Nature, and Broad-learning. Leader’s manhood soul described in terms of Trustworthy, Bravery, Loyalty, Governance, Reciprocity, Sage, Love, Self-cultivation, Balance, and Commonality. Empirical evidence proves that leader’s humanness characteristics (LHC) significant effect on leader’s manhood soul (LMS).

Keywords:Confucian, Confucius, Analects, Structural equation modeling, Leader’s humaneness characteristics (LHC), Leader’s manhood soul (LMS), Maritime leader.

ARTICLE HISTORY: Received:13 September 2018 Revised:15 October 2018 Accepted:20 November 2018Published:17 December 2018.

Contribution/ Originality:This study is one of very few studies which have explored to Confucius of Analects to today’s moral criteria of maritime leader in Taiwan. The paper's primary contribution to today’s business leaders must make moral decisions of Analects put forward as series of principles for moral criteria.

1. INTRODUCTION

In the early 2000s, corporate scandals seriously affected Taiwanese and global economic development and governance stability. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, reformers followed the tradition of modern political philosophy, developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, in its insistence that pro-social outcomes are best produced through institutional mechanisms (Bragues, 2008). Chinese culture influences to demonstrate corporate ethics and moral becoming the important research topics. Good corporate governance to ensure the inflow of capital and the outflow of products for understanding corporate governance standards and issues in China is also important to executives of foreign multinationals doing business (Li and Nair, 2009). Ip (2008) surveyed 1996-2005 on the 700 publicly listed companies, the numbers of corporate scandals and corruption have dramatically increased and the findings in context of Taiwan’s business ethos, especially its Confucian. Meng (2013) suggested that holding leadership roles in governance are influenced by a set of processes, customs, policies, laws and institutions affecting the way a corporation. Chan (2008) examines Confucian ethics provides interesting parallels with contemporary western-oriented business ethics that Confucian ethics is able to provide some unique philosophical and intellectual perspectives in order to forge a richer understanding and analysis. This study looks at the founder of Confucian stream of Confucius (551-479 BCE). Confucius and his students wrote a book named Analects which records of Confucius lifetime thought and conversation which influenced Chinese political thought, moral ideals, and social psychology. Confucianism understood as a warm human feeling between people and strongly emphasizes reciprocity on humanism and social relations (Yum, 1998) . Confucius’ position in Chinese history is similar to Socrates’s position in western history (Feng, 2000) . Chinese humanism led primarily by Confucian which focuses on humanistic coloration (Wang and Juslin, 2009; Meng, 2013) and Confucius is famous for claiming to strong impact on interpersonal relationships and on communication patterns of basing government on humaneness (Yum, 1998; Zhou, 2010). This study first emphasizes how the character of a leader reflects the virtues view of the ancient philosopher of Confucius. Instead it offers some empirical testing from the viewpoint of stakeholders in the maritime industry in Taiwan to evaluate leader’s humaneness characteristic and leader’s moral spirit and leader’s manhood soul according to Confucian philosophy.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Park and Chesla (2007) proved that Confucian values are five principal relationships, through which each person defines a sense of identity, duty, and responsibility and Confucianism as a theoretical base focus almost exclusively on filial piety and collectivism on east Asian family. An ethics and moral orientation of Confucian created an important impact on historical governance. Graham (1989) mentioned Confucian having three elements of teleology, virtue theory, and moral psychology. The empirical governance evidence suggests that building a good Confucian order should be guaranteeing the running of an ideal corporation. Ip (2009) proved that Confucian is able to practice reasonable norms of business ethics through the organizational implications of the Confucian familial collectivism for Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore where Confucian tradition is endorsed and practiced. Wang and Juslin (2009) argued that Confucian interpersonal harmony and Taoist harmony between man and nature to fit the characteristics of the Chinese market by traditional Chinese wisdom to will guide corporations to a new way of improving their corporate social responsibility performance. The moral leaders should clearly describe values of humaneness into the governance realm, their moral and preach is the externalization and expansion of self-cultivation. The book of Analects comprised twenty chapters: Hsio R, Wei Chang, Pa Yih, Le Jin, Kung Ye Chang, Yung Yey, Shu R, Tai Po, Tsze Han, Heang Tang, Hsien Tsin, Yen Yuan, Tsze-Lu, Hsien Wan, Wei Ling Kung, Ke She, Yang Ho, Wei Tsze, Tsze Chang, and Yao Yueh. This study argues for the Analects’ precepts to be applied to today’s maritime leader’s humaneness characteristics and defines ten measurement items in Table 1.

This study quotes Analects on the maddeningly inscrutable philosophy of Confucius of Confucian. There is, however, a scarcity of in-depth studies addressing the moral spirit of Taiwanese maritime leaders and their most fundamental intentions with regard to moral governance from a Confucian viewpoint. Li (2007) stated that Analects has been over the relation between two central concepts humanity and rituals of propriety about society cultivates its persons of manifest their human excellence through their practice. It consists of moral cultivation of communicating complete, rituals and ceremonies, where there is embodied political, ethical view on human life. Meng (2013) proved Mencius of Confucian selected humaneness, righteousness, ritual courtesy, and wisdom. From this we may observe that humaneness and righteousness are the most fundamental components in Confucius’ moral system, and wisdom and ritual courtesy are the self-awareness and practice of humaneness and righteousness, as well as the means through which to enter the moral realm of happiness (Xu and David, 2010).

Table-1. Analects’ tables are defined in terms of maritime leader’s humaneness characteristics.

Humaneness characteristics Precepts Measure Items  
Ritual Confucius said, Unless man had the spirit of the rites, in being careful he become timid, in having courage he will become unruly, and it being forthright he will become unrelenting; let yourself be seen when the way prevails in the empire, but keep out of sight when it does not; Don’t concern yourself with matter of government unless they are the responsibility of the office you are (Analects, chapter Tai Po). Leader behaves with ritual heart.  
Ceremony Confucius said, Don’t worry about your lack of official position worry about what would earn you a position. Don’t worry about the lack of appreciation of your abilities on the part of other. Seek to be worthy of appreciation; the noble person is versed in what is moral. The ignoble person is versed in what is profitable (Analects, chapter Le Jin ). Leader is moral to be worthy of appreciation. 
Charity Confucius said, While the noble person cherishes benign rule, the ignoble person cherishes his native land. While noble person cherishes a respect for the law, the ignoble person cherishes generous treatment; In instruction there is no grading into categories (Analects, chapter Le Jin and Wei Ling Kung). Leader is committed to within the class of charity.
Benevolence Confucius said, Is benevolence really far away? No sooner do I desire it than it is here; The noble person is easy of mind, while the ignoble person is ever full of anxiety; The master is cordial yet stem, awe-inspiring yet not fierce, and respectful yet at ease (Analects, chapter Shu R). The benevolence and mercy of leader’s mind.
Honesty Confucius said, Man lives if he is honesty on word his fellow men will entrust him with responsibility (Analects, chapter Yung Yey, Yang Ho). Honesty mind from leader. 
Kindness  Zi-gong said, While I don’t wish others to impose on me, I wish not to impose on other either; Can you love anyone without making him work hard? (Analects, chapter Kung Ye Chang, Hsien Wan). Leader is kindness to society. 
Faithfulness Confucius said, For gentlemen of purpose and men of faithfulness while it is inconceivable that they should seek to stay alive at the expense of faithfulness, it may happen that they have to accept death in order to have faithfulness accomplished   (Analects, chapter Yang Ho). Leader stays alive at the expense of faithfulness. 
Culture Confucius said, Man manages to make himself correct, what is there to taking governance for him? If he can’t make himself correct, what issue has he with making others correct; While by the age of forty a man is still disliked there is no hope for him (Analects, chapter Tsze Lu, Yang Ho). Leader is determined intellectual man. 
Nature Zeng Zi said, I examine myself on three counts every day. In what I have undertaken on another’s behalf; Confucius said, the Odes are three hundred in number. It can be summed up in one phrase, swerving not from the right path; The noble person is no vessel; Puts into effect his words before them to follow the deed.  (Analects, chapter Hsio R, Wei Chang). Leader put into effect to follow the deed.
Broad-Learning  Confucius said, Is it not a pleasure? Having learned something, to try out at due interval? At fifteen I set my heart on learning, at thirty I took my stand; at forty I was never in two minds; at fifty I understood the Decree of Heaven; at sixty my ear was attuned; at seventy I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the line (Analects, chapter Hsio R). Board-learning with the decree of mind.

 Source: this study. Analects Chinese-English translated by Lau and Yang (2011)

The philosophical Confucian becomes part of Chinese community that takes a more careful route to polities and rulers. Analects can be regarded as a scripture that instructs the maritime leaders in interpreting and interacting with the moral and ethics. Confucianism advances seven developmental goals for children knowledge, social norms, modesty, shame, self-restraint, filial piety, and harmonious relationships and unique beliefs about parents’ role and the global context that have led to marked changes in Chinese parenting, Luo et al. (2013). This study argues that Analects’ precepts are returning to modern maritime leader’s manhood soul and ten measure items are described in Table 2.

Table-2. Analects’precepts are defined in terms of maritime leader’s manhood soul

Manhood   soul Precepts Measure Items  
Trustworthy   Confucius instructs under four heads: culture, moral conduct, doing human best, and being trustworthy in what one says; the noble person is easy of mind, while the ignoble person is ever full of anxiety (Analects, chapter Shu R) Leader is trustworthy by employees.
Bravery  Confucius said, There are three issues constantly on the lips of the noble person none of which I have succeeded in following: A man of benevolence never worries; a man of wisdom is never in two minds; a man of courage is never afraid(Analects, chapter Hsien Wan) Leader purses the goal being a bravery man.
Loyalty Confucius said, Don’t concern yourself with matters of government unless they are the responsibility of the office you are in; the noble person is conscious of his own superiority without being contentious, and comes together with other noble person without forming cliques (Analects, chapter Hsien Wan, Wei Ling Kung). Leader without forming cliques.
Sage Confucius said the wise find joy in water, the benevolent find joy in mountains. The wise are active, the benevolent are still. The wise are joyful, the benevolent are long lived; The Governor of She consulted Confucius about governance, Confucius said, ensure that those who are near are pleased and those who are far away are attracted (Analects, chapter Yung Yey, Tsze Lu). Leader protects employee benefits.
Governance  Ji Kang Zi asked Confucius about governance, saying “What would you think if, in order to move closer to those who possess the way, I kill those who don’t follow the way?” Confucius answered, “In administering your governance, what need is there for you to kill? Just desire the good yourself and the common people will be good. Nature the noble person is like wind and the ignoble person like grass. Let the wind sweep over the grass and it is sure to bend (Analects, chapter Yen Yuan). Leader achieves the humane governance.
Reciprocity Confucius said, Look at the means a man employs, observe the path he takes and examine where he feels at home. In what way is a man’s true character hidden from view? In what is a man’s true character hidden from view?; it is only the most intelligent  and the most stupid can’t ne budged(Analects, chapter Wei Chang, Yang Ho) Emphasis on reciprocity principle working environment.
Love Confucius said, How true is saying that after a state has been ruled for a hundred years by good men it is possible to get the better of cruelty and to do away with killing; Even with a true king it is bound to take a generation for benevolence to become a reality.( Analects, chapter Tsze Lu) Leader takes care of humane love.
Self-cultivation Zi-Zhang said, Wherein can a man be said either to have anything or not to have anything who fails to hold on to virtue with all his might or to believer in the way with all his heart; Zi-Xia said, man can, indeed, be said to be eager to learn who is conscious, in course of a day, of what he lacks and who never forgets, in the course of a month, what he has mastered (Analects, chapter Tsze Chang).  Leader arouses the mind to self-cultivation.
Balance Confucius said, You can educate those whose knowledge are above the means about the best, but not those whose knowledge are below the means; the noble person helps others to effect what is good; he doesn’t help them to effect what is bed. The ignoble person des the opposite (Analects, chapter Yung Yey, Yen Yuan) Leader produces balance on governance.
Commonality Confucius said, Have firm faith and be fond of learning, and abide to the death in the good way. Enter not a state that is in peril; stay not in a state that is in danger. Let yourself be seen when the way prevails in the empire, but keep out of sight when it does not. It is shameful matter to be poor and humble when the way prevails in the state. Equally, it is a shameful matter to be rich and noble when the way does not prevail in the state; don’t involve yourself with position of government unless you have the obligation in it (Analects, chapter Tai Po). Leader dedicates to commonality position.

Source: This study,  Analects Chinese-English translated by Lau and Yang (2011)

3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD

The data for this study were collected from a survey questionnaire. In the process of determining the questionnaire items, it was crucial to ensure their content validity, which reflects survey accuracy. There are more literatures on corporate governance that have been done a better job in arguing stakeholders can influence corporate leaders (Aguilera and Jackson, 2003; Meng and Liang, 2011) . Campbell (2007) suggested researchers might conduct subjective criteria and moral perspective of the stakeholders who interact with a corporation. Therefore, this sample population of the study consisted of a list of organizers representing a wide variety of entities in maritime industry. First, the content of the questionnaire used in this study was established through Analects, ten leader’s humaneness characteristics items and ten leader’s manhood soul items were selected. Next, the content validity of these twenty items was assessed by ethics professors, nine stakeholders from the maritime industry, and four government officers from Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taiwan. The judges were asked to edit and improve the items to enhance their clarity, readability, and content validity, and to identify any items that might be objectionable to respondents. Finally, the twenty measure items depicted in Tables 1 and 2 were used to design the official questionnaire. Of all the scales used in questionnaire collection procedures, the seven-point Likert scale is the most commonly used in measuring Chinese ethical and moral perception (Meng and Liang, 2011; Meng, 2013) . Attitudes to each of the measurement items used in the questionnaire were assessed using the seven-point Likert scale based on ‘1=strongly disagree’ to ‘7=strongly agree’. Then the twenty items were pre-tested on forty stakeholders from maritime industry. After a pre-test, item analysis was carried out. The analysis results showed the item validity of all twenty items to be very good. With the elimination of double listings, a total of 105 stakeholders were generated to serve as the sample basis for the study. This study surveyed the stakeholder members listed by shipping companies in Taiwan. In this study, the statistical analyses and factor analysis were conducted by applying the SPSS. To test the relationship, we used structure equation modeling (SEM) on two structures between the leader’s humaneness characteristics and leader’s manhood soul that were explored by the AMOS.

4. RESULTS

First, Bartlett’s test of SPERICITY was applied, resulting in an approximate value of χ2 as 2835.127, and a corresponding P-value of less than 0.001; it means there are common factors in the correlation matrix of population. By applying the KAISER-MEYER-OLKI (KMO) test, the respective KMO value for LHC and LMS is 0.682 and 0.731. It indicates that our data can be appropriately evaluated by the factor analysis (KMO>0.5). This study adopts a principal component to extract the factors whose Eigen value is greater than one, and then uses the VARIMAX of orthogonal rotation to obtain rotated coefficients. Finally, two factors are extracted, and the accumulated variance explained for LHC and LMS is 68.4% and 76.5%.

The adequacy of the measurement model was examined by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The conceptual model for the test included two constructs of leader’s humaneness characteristics (LHC) and leader’s manhood soul (LMS). All of the model fit indices from CFA indicated a good fit with χ2=745.6, df =177, comparative fit index (CFI)=0.805, goodness of fit index (GFI)=0.614, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI)=0.785, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)=0.208. The results of the CFA satisfy the recommended level of goodness of fit, which indicates that the measurement model fits the sample data well. Composite reliability (CR) of the constructs was utilized to examine the internal consistency of the variables in the measurement model (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). According to Table 3, the CR of each construct ranged from 0.73 to 0.76; all the values exceeded 0.7 recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994). In addition, the Cronbach’s alpha values of the two constructs were well above the threshold value of 0.7 that (Nunnally, 1978) recommended. The results showed that all scale items of the measurement model were internally consistent.

The discriminant validity of a construct is established when its square root of AVE is greater than the correlation coefficients between the construct and all other constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). In addition, discriminant validity can be assessed for each pair of estimated constructs by constraining the estimated correlation parameter between them to one, and a difference test was performed on the values obtained from the constrained and unconstrained models (Jöreskog, 1971; Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).

Table-3. Standardized loadings, t-values, Cronbach’s a, CR and AVE of the model

Constructs Items
Standardized loadings
t-values
Leader’s humaneness characteristics  (LHC; Cronbach’s α=0.851; CR=0.73;AVE=0.78) 
  Leader behaves with ritual heart.  
0.611
7.987
  Leader is moral to be worthy of appreciat on. 
0.781
7.581
  Leader is committed to within the class of charity.
0.641
7.142
  The benevolence and mercy of leader’s mind.
0.541
7.159
  Honesty mind from leader. 
0.687
6.232
  Leader is kindness to society. 
0.711
7.415
  Leader stays alive at the expense of faithfulness. 
0.813
7.154
  Leader is determined intellectual man. 
0.708
7.814
  Leader put into effect to follow the deed.
0.716
7.302
  Board-learning with the decree of mind.
0.787
6.918
Leader’s manhood soul (LMS; Cronbach’s α=0.743; CR=0.76; AVE=0.71)
  Leader is trustworthy by employees.
0.751
8.051
  Leader purses the goal being a bravery man.
0.705
7.652
  Leader without forming cliques.
0.685
7.413
  Leader protects employee benefits.
0.785
7.942
  Leader achieves the humane governance.
0.812
7.852
  Emphasis on reciprocity principle working environment.
0.778
7.745
  Leader takes care of humane love.
0.732
6.987
  Leader arouses the mind to self-cultivation.
0.732
7.127
  Leader produces balance on governance.
0.879
8.478
  Leader dedicates to commonality position.
0.815
8.12

***P < 0.001

The relationship between LHC and LMS is significantly proved in this empirical study. From the statistics in Table 4, we found that LHC was positively linked to LMS (β=0.785, P < 0.001).

Table-4. Results of the relationship between the LHC and LMS

Construct
Construct
Loading
Standardized loading
SE
t-value
P
LMS
LHC
0.785
0.698
0.0798
9.807
0

***P < 0.001

5. DISCUSSIONS

Confucius was called the first sage and his philosophy position is similar to Socrates (470-399 BCE) view which attempts improve the regarding legal, cultural, ethical, education, and human rights issues in ancient China (Rodgers, 1999). Confucius and his students have much to say about the morals of the public administration and the market institutions in a more macro level (Lam, 2003). Leader’s humaneness characteristics (LHC) contains the humaneness virtues of Ritual, Ceremony, Charity, Benevolence, Honesty, Kindness, Faithfulness, Culture, Nature, and Broad-Learning. Leader’s manhood soul contains manhood power of Trustworthy, Bravery, Loyalty, Sage, Governance, Reciprocity, Love, Self-Cultivation, Balance, and Commonality. Consequently, we look to the ancient philosophy stream of Confucius, the ancient tradition of Confucian, applying the ancient viewpoint to today’s maritime leaders. This study consistent to Meng (2013) study that maritime leaders are follow a series of moral principles with to Chinese ancient saints to treat all people as one would treat oneself. Confucian governance proposed its modern meanings in the context of business is governance by benevolence and moral rightness or appropriateness (Ip, 2013). This empirical evidence proves that LHC has a significant effect on LMS, while also offering empirical results applicable to some of the ethics problems faced by the human race today and in the future. The East Asian preoccupation with social relationships stems from the doctrines of Confucian, which considers proper human relationships on Chinese society (Yum, 1998). In Chinese ancient political communications, Confucius thought was self-cultivation to become a first sage. In today’s business leaders must make moral decisions put forward as series of principles for moral rule. This research proposes twenty virtues ties to Bragues (2008) that corporations led by individuals of good character for applying the ancient view to today’s  commercial realities to connect virtuous character with enlightened self-interest offers a compelling ethic at achieving the ancient goal of good characters to take place through moral education emphasizing role models. This paper concludes that Confucius’ thought is connected with maritime leaders who enlightened such moral and ethical conceptions as humaneness and manhood rule to pursue virtuous characters. The moral leader accesses the healing and energizing power of manhood passions comes from soul, serve and support, and honesty is so essential for moral leadership. This study is one of very few studies which have explored to Confucius of Analects to today’s moral criteria of maritime leader in Taiwan. The paper's conclusion to today’s maritime leaders confront with moral decisions of Analects put forward as series of principles for moral criteria.

Funding: This study received no specific financial support.   
Competing Interests: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

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