2011-2012 USCI Faculty Research Grants

Faculty Research Project Abstracts

Mark Harris (School of Cinematic Arts) and Marsha Kinder (School of Cinematic Arts)
“Documenting the Global City: Enhancing Cultural Understanding between China and the USA”
记录全球化城市: 增强中美之间的文化理解

This summer marks the fifth year of the unique collaboration between USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and the Communication University of China in Beijing. The Global Workshop, which pairs novice filmmakers from each country to make short documentaries on Los Angeles and Beijing, has been enormously successful in breaking down cultural stereotypes and promoting better understanding between both nations.  This year the workshop will take place in Los Angeles and has been expanded to include more students and lengthened to allow more time to refine the films. Plans are underway to air the documentaries in both China and the U.S.

Daniel Lynch (School of International Relations)
“Chinese Elites Envision the Future”
中国的精英对未来的展望

How do Chinese political and academic elites expect China to change in the years leading up to 2030 in five distinct issue-areas: political processes and institutions; national identity under globalization; role in international relations; economic structure/level of development; and environmental sustainability?  How do these expectations conform to or diverge from the dominant forecasts in Western social science writing?  Why?  What are the implications—both for China and for social science?  The methodologies used to address these questions center on (1) analysis of elite writings in neibu (“internal circulation only”) policy journals, prestigious academic journals, and books published by university and other influential presses, and (2) focused discussions with Chinese elites (mostly academics) in Beijing and Shanghai.  I am requesting in this proposal funding for two research trips: Hong and Shanghai in October 2011, and Beijing in May 2012.  The primary outcome of the project will be a book manuscript in the summer of 2012.

Merril Silverstein (Davis School of Gerontology and Department of Sociology) and Iris Chi (School of Social Work)
“Grandparents and Grandchildren “Left Behind” in Rural China: Implications for the Well-being of Older and Younger Generations”
祖孙留守农村: 对中国老少两代生活状况的启示

This application requests support to expand on-going research activities underway at USC on the topic of aging families in China. The aims of the award are (1) to initiate planning meetings among scholars from USC, Xi’an Jaotong University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong around a novel multi-generational research design to study family dynamics in rural China, (2) collect data from grandparents who have participated in an eight-year longitudinal study, and their co-resident grandchildren, (3) plan a symposium on the impact of migration on multiple generations in the Chinese family who are “left behind”.

Yongxiang Wang (Marshall School of Business)
“Organizational Dynamics within Business Groups: Evidence from Related Party Transactions in China”
企业集团内的组织动态:来自中国有关方交易的证据

The business group is a common organizational form in many countries, however, little is known about its internal operations due to lack of data and/or a proper research setting (Khanna and Yafeh, 2007). In this project, by using transaction-level data between the parent firm and its member firms and also by taking advantage of unexpected policy changes in China, we take the first step to investigate some critical questions.This research also has important policy implications for (contingent) regulations on related party transactions within business groups; furthermore, it is a timely issue since business groups across the world now face similar situations due to the current financial crisis.