This study examined the relationship between entrepreneurship level and scanning source usage in an emerging industry composed of very small businesses. The sample included 450 randomly selected private physical therapy businesses. Data were gathered using a structured questionnaire. Results suggest that very small businesses differentiate their scanning behaviors according to their level of entrepreneurship. Specifically, the “high” entrepreneurial group used human sources to gain information to a significantly greater degree than did either the “low” or “middle” groups. Written sources were used to the same degree by all groups.
These essays take a second look at Joseph Needham (1900-1995), the British biochemist whose colossal publishing project with Cambridge University Press, Science and Civilisation in China (1954-), attracts and frustrates historians of science, medicine, and technology in equal measure. Current reflections on the state of play in these fields address the themes, methods, and approaches that Needham took seriously and, in many cases, pioneered. This Second Look section probes the contributions that Needham's work can still make to ongoing debates. I n 1954, Joseph Needham published the first installment of Science and Civilisation in China (SCC) with Cambridge University Press as a down payment on his exploration of "China's hitherto unrecognized contributions to science, technology, and scientific thought." The productive challenges to a Eurocentric field that Needham unspooled over the following years succeeded-perhaps too well. While Needham professed confidence that the series' ensuing volumes-those that he would not live to see-would not alter his views, the posthumously published General Conclusions and Reflections (2004) to SCC gave ample evidence that both Needham's framing questions and his answers were losing their conceptual and methodological grip on the profession. 1 While some researchers continue to wrestle with the perennial "Needham question"-Why did modern science develop in Renaissance Europe, and not elsewhere?-others refute its counterfactual, comparativist, or civilizational premises in order to
Inscriptions have mainly been discussed as an important source to aid the analysis of the nature and extent of state control over production and manufacture in Chinese history. This essay takes a different approach and discusses the conceptual development of inscriptions with a view toward their potential as an instrument to inspire trust. The aim is new insight into how Chinese culture historically implemented, expressed, and received rights within material production. This reveals some of the factors that affected practical knowledge transmission in Chinese culture. Starting with inscribed bricks, the article dissects textual sources and the complex world of inscribed artifacts and their purposes. The Ming state originally established the practice of inscribing names and dates to regulate responsibilities and rights within material production. Toward the end of the Ming period, the private sector increasingly focused on inscriptions as a means to propagate the origin and ownership of goods. Inscriptions thus were utilized to regulate both production and use. How did the Ming state conceptualize inscriptions? On which basis could the shift from production marker to ownership claim take place, and how was it received? The answers to these and similar questions are highly relevant, as methods of control and their implementation indicate actual practices of appropriation, in contrast to the ideals pursued in official or private documentation. Situating utilitarian usages within the larger landscape of inscription practices and regulatory mechanisms indicates the broader landscape within which technological development took place in Chinese culture.
Keywords InscriptionsÁbrandÁmarkingsÁtrustÁstate regulationsÁcraftÁMing dynastyIn the year 1372 (Hongwu 5), about five years after assuming the throne, Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 (1328 -98, start of reign 1368) ordered his people to fortify his chosen capital, Yingtian fu (modern Nanjing) (Zhang Tingyu et al. 1991[1736: juan 74, Zhiguan 3, 1821). He decreed that the wall was to be built both up-and downhill
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