Cross-national Research Research Articles

Beyond “culture”: A comparative study of forces structuring tourism consumption

Knowledge informing tourism management originating in Anglo-Western and/or capitalist societies is ill-fitted for understanding consumptive practices of tourists from societies with different socio-economic and political systems. Based on 75 interviews, this cross-national (China, Russia, U.S.A.) comparative research aims to delineate how tourism consumption is reflective of the broader social reality. Results shed lights on influential factors beyond personal agencies that include four society- (Economic development, Political shifts, Ideology, Wars/disasters) and three individual-level (Family, Life course mobility, Religion) consumption forming forces. We discuss the extent of these influences across the national contexts. Although the modus operandi in tourism is to understand tourism markets as global affecting a local environment, we argue that tourism consumption remains ingrained within a tourist's local societal contexts.

Cross-national digital humanities research collaborations: structure, patterns and themes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the structure, patterns and themes of cross-national collaborations in Digital Humanities research through the application of social network analysis and visualization tools.Design/methodology/approachThe sample includes articles containing Digital Humanities research in the Web of Science Core Collection as of December 2018. First, co-occurrence data representing collaborations among nations were extracted from author affiliations. Second, the descriptive statistics, network indicators and international communities were calculated. Third, the research topics of different cross-national collaboration communities based on ISI keywords, author keywords, title and abstracts were detected.FindingsThe results show that the scope of international collaborations in Digital Humanities research is broad, but the distribution among nations is unbalanced. The USA, Germany and England were identified as the major contributors. Five research communities are identified, led by the USA, Germany, England, Belgium and France. The communities share common research topics such as history, GIS, text mining, visualization, while each has its own research emphasis.Originality/valueThis study applied various informetric methods and tools to reveal the collaboration structure, patterns and themes among nations in Digital Humanities research.

Mentors' approach to practicum mentoring in the Spanish and Thai contexts: a two-cohort comparison using the Mentoring Profile Inventory

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to better understand the work of mentors or cooperating teachers (CTs) in Spain and Thailand, by comparing how mentors in both contexts conceive of their work in teacher education.Design/methodology/approachA comparative study based on a crossnational research (CNR) approach was used. An internationally validated instrument, the Mentoring Profile Inventory (MPI), was given to 171 Spanish and 170 Thai CTs, and an analysis using t tests and constant comparative methods was conducted.FindingsThe main results indicate that the Spanish cohort reported being significantly more challenged than their Thai counterparts in working with preservice teachers (PSTs). Both groups indicated a similar degree of motivation. The comparative analysis revealed that the Thai CTs emphasized the importance of ethics in teaching and being a role model for PSTs, whereas the Spanish CTs emphasized the need for strong interpersonal relationships as being central to successful mentoring.Research limitations/implicationsUnderstanding mentors' challenges and motivations can form the basis for reflecting upon the essential components of teacher preparation in both contexts. Furthermore, comparative cross-context analyses, as demonstrated in this paper, are vital for the identification of important differences that might otherwise remain invisible or unrecognized from a single-context perspective.Originality/valueThe study is original in its focus in that it offers insights that help better understand attitudes and performance within and across contexts – in this case, a European and an Asian country – using a common metric, the MPI. This study serves as an exemplar for other comparison studies for countries of mentors.

HUBUNGAN PENGETAHUAN DENGAN SIKAP REMAJA PUTRI TENTANG PEMERIKSAAN PAYUDARAH SENDIRI DI SMA NEGERI 7 TANJUNG BALAI TAHUN 2019

Breast cancer is the most feared breast disorder for women, because this disease can not be cured if found at an advanced stage of women is needed to know about breast cancer the purpose of this study is to know there is a Relationship between Knowledge and Attitudes of Young Women About Breast Examination at 7 Tanjung High School Balai Balai 2019 ". This study uses cross-national research design. The population in this study were all students of Tanjung Balai 7th Senior High School in class XI with a sample of 60 students, with the sampling technique of total sampling the number of smapels in this study was 60 people. Data analysis techniques were carried out using univariant and bivariate statistical analysis. The statistical test in this study, used the chi square formula (kai squared) to estimate or evaluate the frequency under investigation has a significant or no relationship, with a 95% confidence level. Based on the results of the study There is a positive and significant relationship between the knowledge and attitudes of young women about breast self-examination in Tanjung Balai 7 High School in 2019, where the p value = 0.032 (p <0.05). For this study can add insight and knowledge for young women to pay more attention to the Dengan gers of breast cancer and prevention by examining their own breasts and can apply to everyday life.

Transnational governance of cybersecurity: policy challenges and global inequalities in cyber capacity building

Connectivity infrastructure is constantly expanding, increasing internet access across countries, regions and socio-political contexts. Given the fast-changing geography of the internet, there is a growing demand to strengthen cyber capacity beyond national frameworks, in order to develop a transnationally coherent and coordinated governance approach to cybersecurity. In this context, cyber capacity building initiatives are increasingly central in international debates, with the ambition to support countries in the Global South in fostering their cybersecurity strategy from technical and policy perspectives. This article discusses the key factors explaining states’ efforts to enhance their cyber capacity. Based on a cross-national quantitative research approach, the findings contradict international relations (IR)-derived approaches to cybersecurity, which assume that countries develop their cyber capacity according to external security threats, domestic politics or norms. In line with existing research on the role that science plays in policymaking processes more broadly, our results suggest instead that a country’s science and technical knowledge is the most robust explanation for that state’s cyber capacity level. These findings emphasise the need for policymakers to support countries in the Global South in developing their cyber capacity beyond national security paradigms by strengthening education and technical skills in contexts lacking in this resource.

Exporting Forest Loss? A Cross-National Analysis of the United States Export–Import Bank Financing in Low- and Middle-Income Nations

Dependency theory argues that due to unequal economic relationships, including exports, multinational corporations, and loans from multilateral lending institutions, high-income nations exploit the labor and resources of low- and middle-income nations. We extend this line of reasoning to the United States Export–Import Bank, as it has recently come under scrutiny for its lending in the forestry sector of low- and middle-income nations. Although this concern has been raised, we are not aware of any cross-national research that empirically evaluates if their investments adversely impact forests. Therefore, we examine the impact of the United States Export–Import Bank lending in the forestry sector on forest loss. Using a two-stage instrumental variable regression model to account for possible donor selection bias as well as ordinary least squares regression to analyze data for 78 low- and middle-income nations, we find that export credit agency financing is related to increased forest loss from 2001 to 2014. Our findings are consistent with dependency theory ideas that economic linkages with high-income nations increase forest loss in low- and middle-income nations.

Social trust and satisfaction with life: A cross-lagged panel analysis based on representative samples from 18 societies.

This study examined the longitudinal associations between two types of social trust and satisfaction with life. Trust in community, an individual-level trust in a less intimate circle of people with shared physical and/or symbolic group membership, is proposed side by side with trust in close relations, which captures trust in one's intimate circle of people. Using two-wave representative samples from 18 societies with a six-month interval (N=8587), I first conducted measurement invariance tests and then a cross-lagged panel analysis to examine the associations. Results showed that all latent variables were metrically invariant across countries and across time. Trust in community, but not trust in close relations, had a positive longitudinal association with satisfaction with life. The reverse associations were also found, where satisfaction with life was longitudinally associated with both types of social trust. These findings may help to clarify the causality of the link between social trust and well-being and suggest the two-factor model of social trust is a robust and useful tool in cross-national well-being research.

Creating Sustainable Innovativeness through Big Data and Big Data Analytics Capability: From the Perspective of the Information Processing Theory

Service innovativeness is a key sustainable competitive advantage that increases sustainability of enterprise development. Literature suggests that big data and big data analytics capability (BDAC) enhance sustainable performance. Yet, no studies have examined how big data and BDAC affect service innovativeness. To fill this research gap, based on the information processing theory (IPT), we examine how fits and misfits between big data and BDAC affect service innovativeness. To increase cross-national generalizability of the study results, we collected data from 1403 new service development (NSD) projects in the United States, China and Singapore. Dummy regression method was used to test the model. The results indicate that for all three countries, high big data and high BDAC has the greatest effect on sustainable innovativeness. In China, fits are always better than misfits for creating sustainable innovativeness. In the U.S., high big data is always better for increasing sustainable innovativeness than low big data is. In contrast, in Singapore, high BDAC is always better for enhancing sustainable innovativeness than low BDAC is. This study extends the IPT and enriches cross-national research of big data and BDAC. We conclude the article with suggestions of research limitations and future research directions.

A comparative study of food waste management in full service restaurants of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands

The EU-28’s food service sector generates excessive amounts of food waste. This notwithstanding, no comparative, cross-national research has ever been undertaken to understand how food waste is managed in restaurants across the EU-28. This study contributes to knowledge by presenting a first attempt to conduct a comparative analysis of restaurant food waste management practices in the UK and the Netherlands. It finds that although restaurateurs in both countries use demand forecasting as a prime approach to prevent food waste, forecasting does not always work. When this happens, food waste management programmes such as repurposing excess foodstuffs, redistribution of surplus food and consumer choice architecture are mostly considered commercially unviable. To improve the effectiveness of food waste management in the food service sectors of the UK and the Netherlands it is necessary to ensure that food waste mitigation becomes a corporate target for restaurateurs and the progress towards its achievement is regularly monitored by top management. This corporate commitment should be facilitated by national policy-makers, but also by EU regulators, by raising consumer awareness of food waste, incentivising surplus food redistribution and enabling food waste recycling.

Community Influences on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Comparison of Four Francophone West African Countries.

Despite long-term efforts to encourage abandonment of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGMC), the practice remains widespread globally. FGMC is situated in specific social and historical contexts, and both prevalence and rates of decline vary widely across practicing countries. However, cross-national comparative research on the determinants of FGMC is sparse. This paper adds to the limited body of rigorous, theoretically grounded quantitative studies of FGMC and takes a step toward advancing cross-national comparative research. We apply an integrated theoretical framework that brings together norms-based and gender-based explanations of community-level influences on FGMC. We test this framework in four francophone West African countries, drawing on comparable nationally representative data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in Burkina Faso (2010), Côte d'Ivoire (2011-2012), Guinea (2012), and Mali (2012-2013). Results show that community-level FGMC norms and community-level gendered opportunities are associated with girls' risk of FGMC, but that the direct and moderating associations vary qualitatively across countries. Our findings highlight the contribution of context-specific social and institutional processes to the decline or persistence of FGMC.

How Do Filtering Choices Impact the Structures of Audience Networks? A Simulation Study Using Data from 26 Countries

ABSTRACT Although communication scholars have increasingly studied audience fragmentation by analyzing audience networks, recent cross-national research has spurred a methodological debate about how to construct these audience networks from media use data. One point of contention lies in the choice of filtering procedures that only keep meaningful ties, where the traditional deviation-from-random-duplication filter has been replaced by alternatives such as backbone extraction. Using survey data from the 2016 Reuters Institute Digital News Report on news usage in 26 countries, we examined how filtering choices impact the structures of audience networks through a resampling simulation experiment. The simulation revealed a strong divergence between the filtering approaches, which invited disparate interpretations regarding the fragmentation of modern news audiences. The backbone extraction approach produced the most distinct results, while dealing most effectively with randomness in the media use data. As the filtering approaches mapped the structural features of audiences to different values of the same network metrics, the findings imply that studies diverging in these analytical decisions do not produce compatible results.

Introducing Offlineness: Theorizing (Digital) Literacy Engagements

In this Insights essay, we propose a new concept of offlineness that builds on current language around digital practices, yet addresses an element of young people’s experience that is not adequately represented in current research or educational discourse. This work is informed by a recent cross-national arts-based research project that highlighted the limitations of the discourse ascribed to the nature of young people’s engagement with digital literacies. We propose a (re)theorization, which builds on a critical review of current conceptual research and digital commentaries. Theorizing offlineness as a continuum between online and offline practices is tantamount to a paradigm shift toward more nuanced understandings of young people’s digital practices. It offers researchers and educators a more precise way to speak to young people’s digital experiences, providing a productive tool to (re)construct learning and inquiry spaces in literacy research and education.

Resilience to Online Disinformation: A Framework for Cross-National Comparative Research

Online disinformation is considered a major challenge for modern democracies. It is widely understood as misleading content produced to generate profits, pursue political goals, or maliciously deceive. Our starting point is the assumption that some countries are more resilient to online disinformation than others. To understand what conditions influence this resilience, we choose a comparative cross-national approach. In the first step, we develop a theoretical framework that presents these country conditions as theoretical dimensions. In the second step, we translate the dimensions into quantifiable indicators that allow us to measure their significance on a comparative cross-country basis. In the third part of the study, we empirically examine eighteen Western democracies. A cluster analysis yields three country groups: one group with high resilience to online disinformation (including the Northern European systems, for instance) and two country groups with low resilience (including the polarized Southern European countries and the United States). In the final part, we discuss the heuristic value of the framework for comparative political communication research in the age of information pollution.

Poverty, Inequality, and Suicide Rates: A Cross-National Assessment of the Durkheim Theory and the Stream Analogy of Lethal Violence

ABSTRACT This study draws on the theories of Emile Durkheim and the Stream Analogy of Lethal Violence to examine the effect of poverty on suicide rates across 15 Western European nations and the United States between 1993 and 2000. To achieve our goal, we take advantage of absolute and relative poverty measures, along with infant mortality rates, utilized in recent cross-national research on homicide rates. The results from fixed-effects regression models reveal that relative poverty rather than absolute poverty and infant mortality rates are positively related to suicide rates, net of economic development. In addition, we find relative poverty and infant mortality rates to yield significant effects on the suicide-homicide ratio and total violence rates. This study concludes with a discussion of the role of relative poverty in predicting different manifestations of lethal violence.

Getting the Teacher’s Attention: Parent-Teacher Contact and Teachers’ Behavior in the Classroom

AbstractStudies suggest that both parental involvement and support from teachers matter for students’ academic success. Although cross-national research has revealed numerous ways in which parents shape the schooling process, less clear is whether parental involvement at school can influence teachers’ daily behavior toward students in class. In this study, I draw on data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS)—a nationally representative survey of Chinese middle-school students with unusually detailed information on parental involvement and teachers’ daily behaviors—to test a conceptual model that proposes a link between parent-teacher contact in China and attention students receive from teachers during daily lessons. In support of the conceptual model, I find that students whose parents cultivate relationships with teachers through frequent contact are more likely to be cold-called on and praised by teachers in class, even after controlling for family background, student academic performance, and student behavior. Moreover, I observe social class differences in parent-teacher contact, as well as some evidence that parent-teacher contact is linked to improved student performance through its impact on teachers’ attention. Overall, the findings point to a potential new pathway through which social class influences schooling by way of school-based parental involvement and in a broader set of contexts than previously imagined. I conclude with a discussion of implications for social reproduction theory, as well as challenges this situation presents for combatting educational inequality.

Attitudes toward welfare spending in urban China: evidence from a survey in two provinces and social policy implications

What explains divergent levels of support for welfare spending in a non-Western authoritarian state? Can self-interest and ideology, two major theoretical frameworks from cross-national research, explain attitudinal patterns in China? Using data collected from an original survey in two provinces in 2017, we examined urban Chinese attitudes toward welfare spending. We focused on three social policy domains with distinctive characteristics: education, healthcare, and poverty alleviation. All domains received fairly high levels of support for increased spending from our sample. Our regression models suggest that self-interest and ideology are both associated with welfare attitudes in urban China, but self-interest variables operate in unexpected ways, reflecting the distinctive socio-economic and cultural context in which welfare attitudes are formed. This study concludes with broad policy implications for social policy reform in China.

Social Networks, Community Integration and Recovery for Individuals with Severe Mental Illnesses in India and the U.S: A Comparative Study.

Community integration is central to recovery for individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMIs). However, cross-national research on community experiences of persons with SMIs is limited. Utilizing quantitative and social network data from a sample of individuals with SMIs, the current study (1) examined the social networks and experiences of community integration in India (n = 56) and (2) compared India and U.S. (n = 30) participants on social network characteristics, community integration, and psychosocial functioning. Results showed significant differences in demographic and psychosocial functioning between the samples. Regarding community integration, U.S. participants were more integrated into the mental health community than Indian participants. Differences in social networks revealed that Indian participants had significantly more family members and colleagues while U.S. participants had significantly more friends. Results suggest that caution be taken in generalizing mental health research cross-nationally and highlight the importance of sociocultural contexts of recovery and community integration of individuals with SMIs.

Do First-Movers in Marketing Sustainable Products Enjoy Sustainable Advantages? A Seven-Country Comparative Study

The literature suggests that first-movers enjoy sustainable competitive advantages but suffer some disadvantages. The timing of new product introduction is a major decision for executives who are concerned about sustainability issues. These executives must simultaneously strive for environmental protection, social welfare, the timing of product introduction, and the economic viability of decisions. However, few academic studies have examined how executives balance sustainable first-mover advantages and sustainable development goals in order to achieve sustainable organizational growth and performance. This study develops nine research hypotheses to examine what sustainable advantages first-movers gain by being first to market sustainable products in five industries that are important for advancing sustainable development goals. Using data collected from 1437 executives who are concerned about sustainability issues in seven countries, this study uses Duncan multiple-range tests to examine cross-national similarities and differences between Asian and Western countries. The study results reveal some interesting cross-national similarities and differences. The cross-national differences suggest some competing and signaling strategies for sustainable enterprise development. This study contributes to the existing cross-national research on first-mover advantages, provides a richer understanding of how executives who are concerned about sustainability issues perceive sustainability first-mover advantages and disadvantages, and further expands the theory of sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship.

On Social Capital and Health: The Moderating Role of Income Inequality in Comparative Perspective

Past cross-national research has shown that health status does not exclusively depend on biology-related variables, but also on social capital measures, such as interpersonal trust and social participation. However, this literature has not considered network support, an important pillar of social capital when it is understood as access to resources within members of a network. In this article, we add this variable to the analysis to verify if previous findings still hold. We use data for 30 countries from ISSP's 2017 Social Networks survey module and multilevel modeling to show that network support is a relevant predictor of self-rated health status cross-nationally, while social participation and interpersonal trust are robust to its addition. We also find that income inequality moderates the association of social capital and self-rated health, indicating that a disintegrated society negatively affects the health of individuals, more so in countries where income inequality is high.

Pre-election violence and territorial control: Political dominance and subnational election violence in polarized African electoral systems

Cross-national research on African electoral politics has argued that competition increases the prospects for pre-election violence. However, there is a dearth of systematic research on the effect of political competition on pre-election violence at the subnational level. We theorize that in African democracies characterized by competition at the national level but low subnational competitiveness (polarization), violence is often a manifestation of turf war and a tool to maintain and disrupt political territorial control. Consequently, contrary to expectations derived from the cross-national literature, pre-election violence is more likely in uncompetitive than competitive constituencies. Locally dominant as well as locally weak parties have incentives to perpetrate violence in uncompetitive constituencies. For locally dominant parties, violence is a tool to shrink the democratic space in their strongholds and maintain territorial control. For locally weak parties, violence can disturb the dominance of the opponent and protect their presence in hostile territory. We hypothesize that pre-election violence will be particularly common in opposition strongholds. In such locations, ruling parties can leverage their superior repressive resources to defend their ability to campaign, while the opposition can use their local capacity to reinforce the politics of territoriality. We test our hypotheses with original constituency-level election violence data from the 2016 Zambian elections. Data come from expert surveys of domestic election observers and represent a novel way of measuring low-level variations in election violence. Our analysis shows patterns of pre-election violence consistent with our theory on pre-election violence as a territorial tool.