Cultural Consequences Research Articles

Investigating the Social, Cultural, and Moral Consequences of the formalistity theology in Mulla Sadra's View

Investigating the Social, Cultural, and Moral Consequences of the formalistity theology in Mulla Sadra's View

How does Buddhism affect corporate cash holdings?

PurposeThis study explores whether and how Buddhism impacts corporate cash holdings. Buddhist culture affects investors' perception of how cash is deployed and then influences corporate cash holdings. This study first examines the impact of Buddhism on corporate cash holdings and then investigates whether formal governance mechanisms such as legal institutions and institutional ownership influence the relationship between Buddhism and corporate cash holdings.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct empirical tests with data on Chinese listed companies between 2006 and 2019. Buddhism is measured with the natural logarithm of the number of Buddhist temples within a radius of a certain distance around a firm's headquarters. The authors adopt the OLS method to regress and take the 2SLS method, Heckman selection model and FEVD approach to address the endogeneity issue.FindingsThe results show a positive relationship between Buddhism and corporate cash holdings. This positive relation is more prominent for firms located in regions with weak legal institutions and for firms with low institutional ownership. Further analysis shows that Buddhism works through the channel of alleviating agency problems and finally improves the value of cash to investors.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ findings have important implications. First, this study provides inspiration for incorporating the ethical values of traditional cultures, such as Buddhism, into the corporate governance system. Second, the findings imply that informal institutions can influence corporate financial decisions beyond the effect of formal institutions, suggesting that informal systems should be emphasized when dealing with business affairs in countries where legal institutions are relatively weak. Third, the results suggest the significance of encouraging research on religious culture to explore its active role in corporate governance.Originality/valueThis study illustrates the positive value of religious culture in advancing corporate governance by relating Buddhism to corporate cash holdings based on the explanation of investors' perception. It makes a marginal contribution to the literature that investigates the determinants of cash policies and explores the firm-level consequences of religious culture, adding to the research area of culture and corporate finance.

Freedom as Virus: A Critique of the Neoliberal Notion of Freedom and an Analysis of its Cultural Consequences

The extent to which the COVID pandemic has been shaped by communication is enigmatic as the very term “viral” has become a term of information science as much as of biology. Insofar as sizable populations have become cynical about information regarding COVID, their behavior has accelerated the threat of the virus. This paper proposes that this pandemic is fundamentally a crisis of communication emerging from antagonisms and inconsistencies latent within a general concept of “freedom”. The notion of freedom that has emerged with neoliberalism is one of a lack of regulation. Such a naive idea of freedom becomes particularly problematic when compounded with the classical liberal value of freedom of speech. This paper addresses the impossibility of unlimited speech, particularly on the internet, focusing on the desire such impossibility stimulates. This desire is an economic fuel for social media platforms. Insofar as artists share their practices via social media and generally use these platforms for networking, their practices inherit contradictions that artists must become conscious of to prevent a web-based practice from becoming emotionally exploitive and economically complicit. This crisis amplifies those contradictions that drive the artist to the point of despair.

Body Image in the Middle East: Cultural Aspects and Health Consequences for Women in the Region

Body Image in the Middle East: Cultural Aspects and Health Consequences for Women in the Region

Институт интеллектуальной собственности в культурно-историческом и стратегическом залоге

Relevance. The rapid expansion of the space of action of the relations of the «knowledge economy», the institution of intellectual property (IP) is enhanced by «digitalization», the whole economic architecture of the world is changing. The high dynamics and complexity of changes in economic systems and the world order, «knowledge circulation », complicate effective adaptation and constructive participation in these processes. The world is faced with the need to assess the cultural, historical and strategic consequences of all the effects of the institutionalization of IP relations. Methods. The article uses a systemic, cultural and historical analysis, based on global political economy and historical («old») institutionalism. The initial formulation of questions in this area should be of a qualitative, conceptual nature. This article uses this approach, but relying on available statistics and the possibility of a qualitative comparison of the consequences of the institutionalization of IP rights. Results. The contours of the institutionalization process, the introduction of IP relations into the global political and economic turnover, its main groups of interests and beneficiaries are considered. Qualified consequences for the economic architecture of the world and the redistribution of «world knowledge». The role of the Agreement on IP Regimes (TRIPS) in the formation of intellectual-monopoly capitalism has been determined. The effects generated by the regime of «closed science» and «closed markets» are highlighted. The mechanism of making a profit based on IP rights is considered. Signified of the importance of the advanced development of the ability to use the appropriate institutions, adequate to features of historical Russia’s cultural ecumene and civilizational characteristics of the peoples of Eurasia, and the need for a strategic transformation of personnel training systems. Discussion. The change in the economic architecture of the world and the unforeseen effects of the redistribution of «world knowledge» as a result of formation of intellectual-monopoly capitalism is an indisputable historical fact. Its consequences for the future of humanity have not been studied, uncertainty and risks are growing. It requires its awareness, consideration of the cultural and historical significance of the effects, requires the involvement of researchers from various subjects and civilizational perspectives.

Foreign Ownership of Production Companies as a New Mechanism of Internationalizating Television: The Case of Australian Scripted Television

This article explores the rise in foreign television production company ownership at the beginning of the twenty-first century as a new mechanism of internationalization. It joins mechanisms such as foreign program sales and transnational satellite channels in shifting television further from its domestic origins. To date, examination of television’s internationalization has focused on programs and programming. Foreign ownership may be a less obvious “cultural” form of business internationalization, but it nevertheless affects the television culture made available in many places and poses consequences for cultures of consumption. Foreign ownership also opens up new avenues of inquiry for global television scholars to question the shifting geographies of power in the field of television production.

Replies to Leidenhag and Trakakis

In this essay, I reply to the comments of Joanna Leidenhag and Nick Trakakis on my book Religion After Science: The Cultural Consequences of Religious Immaturity.

Mise en intrigue, énonciation, pragmatique.

According to Paul Ricœur the "third time" which would be likely to mediate between lived time and cosmic time for an individual divided between identity-idem and identity-ipse, narration would play an essential role of configuration. However, from the third volume of Temps et récit (1985) to Soi-même comme un autre (1990), narrative identity as conceived by the philosopher — in particular in dialogue with A. J. Greimas’ semiotics — is based on emplotment (conceived in terms of structuralist narratology) and not on discursive features, which implies enunciative strategies and pragmatism. However, all cultures have forms of narrative that fall short of the mediated and textual communication presupposed by Ricœur, who choses to focus on different forms of novels or historical writings. These narrative forms correspond to acts of enunciation: they are performances that are generally ritualized and whose narrative temporality coincides with the temporality of enunciation itself. We will explore the consequences of this form of narrative for the question of narrative identity, which encompasses individual as well as collective identity with their practical and cultural consequences.

Continual proteomic divergence of HepG2 cells as a consequence of long-term spheroid culture

Three-dimensional models are considered a powerful tool for improving the concordance between in vitro and in vivo phenotypes. However, the duration of spheroid culture may influence the degree of correlation between these counterparts. When using immortalised cell lines as model systems, the assumption for consistency and reproducibility is often made without adequate characterization or validation. It is therefore essential to define the biology of each spheroid model by investigating proteomic dynamics, which may be altered relative to culture duration. As an example, we assessed the influence of culture duration on the relative proteome abundance of HepG2 cells cultured as spheroids, which are routinely used to model aspects of the liver. Quantitative proteomic profiling of whole cell lysates labelled with tandem-mass tags was conducted using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). In excess of 4800 proteins were confidently identified, which were shared across three consecutive time points over 28 days. The HepG2 spheroid proteome was divergent from the monolayer proteome after 14 days in culture and continued to change over the successive culture time points. Proteins representing the recognised core hepatic proteome, cell junction, extracellular matrix, and cell adhesion proteins were found to be continually modulated.

Tapping Into the ABT Treasury

Tapping Into the <i>ABT</i> Treasury

“We Planted Rice and Killed People:” Symbiogenetic Destruction in the Cambodian Genocide

In recent years, genocide scholars have given greater attention to the dangers posed by climate change for increasing the prevalence or intensity of genocide. Challenges related to forced migration, resource scarcity, famine, and other threats of the Anthropocene are identified as sources of present and future risk, especially for those committed to genocide prevention. We approach the connection between the natural and social aspects of genocide from a different angle. Our research emanates out of a North American Indigenous studies and new materialist rather than Euro-genocide studies framework, meaning we see the natural and the social (or cultural) as inseparable, deeply imbricated, phenomena. We argue that those entities designated natural are often engaged in co-constitutive relations with the social and cultural groups that are the focus of genocide studies. Simply put, groups become what they are through interaction—or symbiogenesis—with their natural world(s). Symbiogenetic destruction, then, is the destruction of this symbiogenesis. We use this term to draw attention to how relations with more-than-human entities are integral components of the ongoing formation of group life, and how they are put at risk by genocide. In particular, we examine testimony that centers on the relationship between Khmer people and rice, including rice cultivation and consumption, as it was impacted by the Khmer Rouge. In so doing, we highlight the cultural consequences of social/natural death in the Cambodian genocide.

NEGATIVE TRENDS OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN THE CONTEXT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

This article examines the negative aspects of digital marketing on the example of some consequences of the application and development of digital technologies in recent years. The main attention is paid to the socio-cultural component. The concept of digital marketing primarily extends to the Internet, and certainly has an impact on it. The consequences of this impact can be both positive and negative, and some of them may not appear immediately, but over time, having a gradual and cumulative nature. Today, digital marketing is no longer an innovation. This type of marketing is becoming usual and commonplace. Marketers, manufacturers and consumers are already accustomed to its positive aspects, but not everyone pays attention to its negative trends. Recognizing such trends and avoiding them is a matter of corporate social responsibility. The websites and apps have successfully invaded the traditional territory of many sectors of the “old economy”. The main negative trends of digital marketing are related to implicit cultural consequences, the transparency illusion and the illusion of control. Marketing problems of a global society are not limited to purely tactical areas, for instance, techniques for maximizing conversions, or promoting a specific product, brand or company. The systematic ignorance of the obvious effects of activity leads to the accumulation of problems, which may threaten the emergence of a crisis in a strategic perspective. If the social responsibility of marketing under certain conditions can hardly be called a competitive advantage in the context of an enterprise’s competitiveness, then in a broader, civilizational view, it is certainly an advantage.

Impact of Three Different Serum Sources on Functional Properties of Equine Mesenchymal Stromal Cells.

Culture and expansion of equine mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are routinely performed using fetal bovine serum (FBS) as a source of growth factors, nutrients, and extracellular matrix proteins. However, the desire to minimize introduction of xenogeneic bovine proteins or pathogens and to standardize cellular products intended for clinical application has driven evaluation of alternatives to FBS. Replacement of FBS in culture for several days before administration has been proposed to reduce antigenicity and potentially prolong survival after injection. However, the functional consequences of MSC culture in different serum types have not been fully evaluated. The objective of this study was to compare the immunomodulatory and antibacterial properties of MSCs cultured in three serum sources: FBS or autologous or allogeneic equine serum. We hypothesized that continuous culture in FBS would generate MSCs with improved functionality compared to equine serum and that there would not be important differences between MSCs cultured in autologous vs. allogeneic equine serum. To address these questions, MSCs from three healthy donor horses were expanded in medium with FBS and then switched to culture in FBS or autologous or allogeneic equine serum for 72 h. The impact of this 72-h culture period in different sera on cell viability, cell doubling time, cell morphology, bactericidal capability, chondrogenic differentiation, and production of cytokines and antimicrobial peptides was assessed. Altering serum source did not affect cell viability or morphology. However, cells cultured in FBS had shorter cell doubling times and secreted more interleukin 4 (IL-4), IL-5, IL-17, RANTES, granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor, fibroblast growth factor 2, eotaxin, and antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin/LL-37 than cells cultured in either source of equine serum. Cells cultured in FBS also exhibited greater spontaneous bactericidal activity. Notably, significant differences in any of these parameters were not observed when autologous vs. allogeneic equine serum was used for cell culture. Chondrogenic differentiation was not different between different serum sources. These results indicate that MSC culture in FBS will generate more functional cells based on a number of parameters and that the theoretical risks of FBS use in MSC culture should be weighed against the loss of MSC function likely to be incurred from culture in equine serum.

Stage fright and romanticism in Il Giro del Mondo

This paper addresses the local cultural consequences of the tourist quest for authenticity through an ethnographic study of an ancient Christianized pagan spring ritual in Northern Italy. Rather than embracing its Christian features, tourists and local inhabitants alike define its meaning in romanticist terms. This informs “stage fright” at both ends, i.e., concerns that it may degenerate into a staged folklore show. Defining the event as celebrating their community and its ancient ties to the land, local inhabitants even dismiss tourist attendance altogether. Contradicting theories of culture loss, cultural tourism here moreover strengthens rather than weakens local culture and identity, albeit not by accommodating the tourist quest for authenticity, as theories of cultural sustenance suggest, but in opposition to it.

South African Guidelines on the Determination of Death

Death is a medical occurrence that has social, legal, religious and cultural consequences requiring common clinical standards for its diagnosis and legal regulation. The following document compiled by the Critical Care Society of Southern Africa outlines the core standards for determination of death in the hospital context. It aligns with the latest evidence-based research and international guidelines and is applicable to the South African context and legal system. The aim is to provide clear medical standards for health care providers to follow in the determination of death, thereby promoting safe practices and high-quality care through the use of uniform standards. Adherence to such guidelines will provide assurance to medical staff, patients, their families and the South African public that the determination of death is always undertaken with diligence, integrity, respect and compassion, and is in accordance with accepted medical standards and latest scientific evidence. The consensus guidelines were compiled using the AGREE II checklist with an 18-member expert panel participating in a three round modified Delphi process. Checklists and advice sheets were created to assist with application of these guidelines in the clinical environment.

South African guidelines on the determination of death.

Death is a medical occurrence that has social, legal, religious and cultural consequences requiring common clinical standards for its diagnosis and legal regulation. This document compiled by the Critical Care Society of Southern Africa outlines the core standards for determination of death in the hospital context. It aligns with the latest evidence-based research and international guidelines and is applicable to the South African context and legal system. The aim is to provide clear medical standards for healthcare providers to follow in the determination of death, thereby promoting safe practices and high-quality care through the use of uniform standards. Adherence to such guidelines will provide assurance to medical staff, patients, their families and the South African public that the determination of death is always undertaken with diligence, integrity, respect and compassion, and is in accordance with accepted medical standards and latest scientific evidence. The consensus guidelines were compiled using the AGREE II checklist with an 18-member expert panel participating in a three-round modified Delphi process. Checklists and advice sheets were created to assist with application of these guidelines in the clinical environment (https://criticalcare.org.za/resource/death-determination-checklists/). Key points • Brain death and circulatory death are the accepted terms for defining death in the hospital context. • Death determination is a clinical diagnosis which can be made with complete certainty provided that all preconditions are met. • The determination of death in children is held to the same standard as in adults but cannot be diagnosed in children <36 weeks' corrected gestation. • Brain-death testing while on extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation is outlined. • Recommendations are given on handling family requests for accommodation and on consideration of the potential for organ donation. • The use of a checklist combined with a rigorous testing process, comprehensive documentation and adequate counselling of the family are core tenets of death determination. This is a standard of practice to which all clinicians should adhere in end-of-life care.

South African guidelines on the determination of death.

Death is a medical occurrence that has social, legal, religious and cultural consequences requiring common clinical standards for its diagnosis and legal regulation. This document compiled by the Critical Care Society of Southern Africa outlines the core standards for determination of death in the hospital context. It aligns with the latest evidence-based research and international guidelines and is applicable to the South African context and legal system. The aim is to provide clear medical standards for healthcare providers to follow in the determination of death, thereby promoting safe practices and high-quality care through the use of uniform standards. Adherence to such guidelines will provide assurance to medical staff, patients, their families and the South African public that the determination of death is always undertaken with diligence, integrity, respect and compassion, and is in accordance with accepted medical standards and latest scientific evidence. The consensus guidelines were compiled using the AGREE II checklist with an 18-member expert panel participating in a three-round modified Delphi process. Checklists and advice sheets were created to assist with application of these guidelines in the clinical environment (https://criticalcare.org.za/resource/death-determination-checklists/). Brain death and circulatory death are the accepted terms for defining death in the hospital context.Death determination is a clinical diagnosis which can be made with complete certainty provided that all preconditions are met.The determination of death in children is held to the same standard as in adults but cannot be diagnosed in children <36 weeks' corrected gestation.Brain-death testing while on extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation is outlined.Recommendations are given on handling family requests for accommodation and on consideration of the potential for organ donation.The use of a checklist combined with a rigorous testing process, comprehensive documentation and adequate counselling of the family are core tenets of death determination. This is a standard of practice to which all clinicians should adhere in end-of-life care.

Revisiting Safety Culture: The Benefits of a New Cultural Analysis Framework for Safety Management

Many initiatives intended to improve safety in nuclear facilities have used the concept of “safety culture,” which focuses on human and organizational factors and emphasizes the importance of the perceptions, interpretations, and behaviors of the individuals and groups within organizations. Particularly when it comes to risk management, it is widely believed that safety culture can be a used as a lever to strengthen a company’s overall structure and organization. But how is it possible to ensure that a new safety policy or organizational infrastructure really will promote safe and reliable operations without unforeseen and undesired cultural consequences? Once recommendations have been issued, how is it possible to assess the extent to which safety culture has (or has not) improved? This paper argues that using what we call a “cultural analysis framework” can be a powerful way to identify and understand cultural elements that have an impact on reliability and safety within organizations. We will use a case study of the introduction of a safety management system in a nuclear facility to present this original approach. Because safety culture is a highly complex topic that can be challenging to address directly, our cultural analysis framework approaches a system at three levels, which, when explored together, can help to develop a comprehensive understanding of the cultural aspects of safety in an organization. First, at the macro level this approach examines the cultural background of a system and how it is integrated into an existing organizational culture. Second, at the meso level it looks at the collective aspects of a given system within an organization. Third, at the micro level it investigates collective and social life (modes of socialization, relationships, trust, practice sharing), as well as the symbolic and identity-related aspects of a system. Based on the findings of our study, this paper concludes that a socio-comprehensive approach to safety can be an effective means to identify “reasonable” actions to be taken in any organization seeking to improve risk management.

On the reciprocity between one’s language and identity

Language learning is a life-changing event with far-reaching individual, social, and cultural consequences. Along with advancing linguistic abilities comes enhanced awareness of one’s identity and development of a (renewed) language self. On the more general level, it determines one’s identification with particular social groups and impacts on educational, social, economic, and cultural processes such as inclusion, acceptance, recognition, and integration. On a narrower scale, becoming familiar with even a single linguistic item opens up new perspectives and thus enriches one’s everyday life experience. In either case, the expansion of one’s identity via language is inevitably a holistic and comprehensive individual experience, cutting across one’s views, actions, emotions, and conceptualisations of the world. The very existence of linguistic varieties (identities) poses a significant challenge to be addressed by modern educational systems, which – in order to remain relevant and consequently practical, too – need to adopt novel, transdisciplinary approaches and methods of teaching and learning. Such is the case with (Django and Paris’s) concept of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP), the emergence of which we have recently observed as a respectful and productive critique of previous formulations of asset pedagogies. As one of the proposals admitting linguistic identities into education, it exemplifies concepts which point out the salience of language not only for one’s multi-faceted development, but also the advancement of education and society as a whole. It is through this admission of linguistic identities that the diversity of linguistic capital is recognised, which is of paramount importance in light of the fact that the linguistic dimension of learners’ and teachers’ identities proves to determine their status, success, and quality of life.

Towards digital society management and \u2018capitalism 4.0\u2019 in contemporary Russia

Conceptualizing the complexities of the Russian political economy strikingly illustrates the challenging but essential role of the State in the new process of capitalist reforms initiated in the 1990s. A missing ingredient in this discourse has been considering the extraordinary impact technology has on society and how it affects the process. Accordingly, this paper focuses on the current development of culturally unique capitalist theory in Russia, together with the practical application of proven quantitative landmarks and policy implications for managing digital society’s development to optimize capitalism in Russia. The paper performs a quantitative analysis of the considerable influence that the digital society has on Russian capitalism and how the latter can be systemically optimized through the former’s development. This contribution’s originality lies in its consideration of the consequences of digital culture on the unique model of capitalism shaping contemporary Russia. Currently, Russia is implementing a particular and unique model of capitalism model where the digital society’s influence is limited and contradictory. We argue that the Russian model of capitalism could experience rapid development in the foreseeable future with effective digital society management.