Cultural Matters Research Articles

The Inherent Political Current in Arun Gupto's Culture Thought

The human society has different religion, thought and cultures. The religion is to make the human race as more civilized and disciplined than other beings. The different human societies have their peculiarities in these manners but the similarity among different cultures and communities brings harmony in the society. This article objectifies to have a great respect to all the culture and religions without any biasness. It is notable that the two perspectives of seeing a thing or event in our culture give different meanings which are purely a cultural perspective, and the political perspective. Despite having good ideas on these two heads, sometimes an excellent author even can slip erroneously to blend the pure event with the politics. This article selects a very recent Nepali literary text, Culture Thought, as an experimental material to examine the question raised here. This qualitative research renders throughout the text as per the set of definition of culture and its traits to bring out the political manner as crystal clear from the mixed ideas. It is essential for a healthy relation among religions, countries and their diversified cultures. As this selected experimental book, Culture Thought, has richness in cultural matter, it has some political ideas underlying throughout it which draw a line among nations of South Asia.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Is Not a One-Time Fix: An Enduring Program Requires Ongoing Efforts By Nurse Leaders in the Workplace

Anti-diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) sentiment has been on the rise over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, this negativism, referred to as the “anti-woke” movement by some states, has sustained and expanded these feelings. With the escalation of global migration, it is imperative that nurse leaders build awareness of the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in their workplaces if they are to maintain a workforce that mirrors the communities they serve. A supportive and inclusive workplace culture can improve team engagement if robust training initiatives that address unconscious bias are ongoing, and changes to policies that address underrepresented groups are addressed. Cultural humility and responsiveness matters at all levels in the health care workplace and must be supported by senior management and nurse leaders from the bedside to the boardroom if a sustainable culture of diversity is possible.

History, heritage, and the site-specific in contemporary Iranian art

ABSTRACT Emerging in the context of American and European art during the 1960s, the term ‘site-specific’ has been employed to characterize art projects created with a specific location in mind. This departure from traditional artistic expressions within galleries and museums primarily focused on formal considerations, often divorced from the socio-political context of the site. In Iran, where site-specific art has flourished for nearly as long as in America, the concept of ‘site’ is deeply intertwined with history and heritage. Here, while formal aspects remain relevant, the shape and meaning of art are primarily shaped by the historical significance of the site. By primarily examining the work of Tehran-based artist Pooya Aryanpour, this article explores how Iranian site-specific artists have expanded the boundaries of art by establishing a dialogue between art objects and the rich history and cultural significance of specific sites. This practice has enabled Iranian artists to transcend the constraints of governmental institutions. Above all, site specificity empowers Iranian artists to facilitate intimate dialogues between art objects, history, heritage, and the people for whom heritage and cultural identity matter, further enriching the connection between art and history.

Traditional bullying, cyberbullying, and quality of life among adolescents in 35 countries: Do cultural values matter?

RationaleSubstantial evidence indicates that involvement in school bullying has been linked to lower quality of life (QoL). Yet there is little information elucidating the link between bullying involvement and QoL in different cultures. ObjectiveThis study investigated the associations between different types of bullying involvement and QoL among adolescents. The moderating roles of cultural values in the relationship between bullying involvement and QoL were examined. MethodsThis study included representative samples from 35 countries (N = 184,017) using data from the 2017/2018 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) survey and the new 2023 World Cultural Map Scores from the World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017/2021). Multilevel mixed-effects analysis was employed to examine individual-level and country-level effects simultaneously. ResultsAll types of bullying involvement were associated with lower QoL, with being a victim having the lowest QoL. Adolescents in societies that prioritize higher self-expression values exhibited a reduced propensity to engage in school bullying. In countries with higher self-expression values, there was a more pronounced negative association between bullying involvement and QoL. Traditional/Secular-rational values had no significant and consistent moderating effect on the association between bullying involvement and QoL. Those results were quite similar for both traditional bullying and cyberbullying. ConclusionThese findings imply that cultural values are closely intertwined with adolescent bullying and quality of life. Therefore, prevention and intervention programs should pay more attention to addressing bullying and promoting the QoL of adolescents according to various cultural values.

The linkage between sanctions and infrastructure: How national culture matters

ABSTRACT This study examines how national culture matters for infrastructure, especially in a severe and uncertain environment arising from the imposition of an economic sanction. To do so, I use the largest and most recent cross-country panel dataset consisting of worldwide countries during the 2013–2019 period and the dynamic difference-in-differences technique to obtain the research aims. Overall, I uncover evidence that the development of infrastructure in the domestic countries is negatively impacted by economic sanctions. More importantly, I highlight the fact that countries with masculinity culture do better in terms of electricity and telecommunication infrastructure in a business environment where sanctions are applied. In contrast, the individualism culture may worsen the negative impact of sanction on the development of transportation infrastructure. In brief, by evaluating the impact of sanctions on infrastructure development from a cultural perspective, this study may make a variety of contributions to the economic literature.

Book Review: Manga: A Critical Guide

In Shige Suzuki and Ronald Stewart’s book, Manga: A Critical Guide, Suzuki and Stewart set out to provide an analytical overview of manga with particular attention to social, historical, cultural, and aesthetic matters surrounding the medium. This publication modernizes previous frameworks and research published on the topic to introduce an updated survey of the amazingly diverse and ever-evolving field of manga and Japanese comics studies.

Letter on “Humanism”

Letter on “Humanism”

Procedural fairness in ethnic-cultural decision-making: Benefits, processes and minority and majority group perspectives

ABSTRACT As nations worldwide diversify, societal institutions are increasingly faced with the challenging task to resolve issues regarding ethnic, cultural, and linguistic matters. In the present contribution, we review evidence for a theoretical model that highlights the relevance of procedural fairness for dealing with such ethnic-cultural issues. Our collective model of procedural fairness (CPF) explains the reactions to fairness enactment of different stakeholders: Minority groups that receive fair treatment, third-party minority groups, and the majority. For minority groups, ethnic-cultural procedural fairness effects emerge through self-categorisation processes, leading to positive leader evaluations and decision acceptance, as well as increased feelings of societal inclusion, well-being, and social trust. For the majority group, CPF holds that responses to ethnic-cultural procedural fairness are driven by higher-order moral standards of rightful conduct towards disadvantaged group members. Taken together, the present contribution accentuates the usefulness of ethnic-cultural procedural fairness as a social engineering tool in diverse societies.

Does Technological Intensity Matter for Global Cross‐Border Mergers and Acquisitions in Manufacturing, 1998–2018?

AbstractDespite being a key feature of the globalising world since the 1980s, the patterns and relationships between acquirer and target firms in cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have only gained attention in recent years. By examining the data between 1998 and 2018 through multinomial logistic regression models, this paper investigates the goodness of match on technological intensity (the closeness of technological capabilities) between acquirer and target firms and the effects of geographical, cultural and institutional proximity in global cross‐border M&As in manufacturing sectors. Our results suggest that firms are more likely to acquire overseas counterparts with similar levels of technological intensity in manufacturing. Moreover, geographical proximity is significant in the M&As of target firms in low‐tech and medium‐low‐tech sectors, while cultural and institutional proximity matter for cross‐border M&As among medium‐high‐tech and high‐tech firms. High‐tech acquirer firms in advanced economies tend to acquire their high‐tech counterparts located in larger economies, while technological intensity is more important for high‐tech acquirer firms based in non‐advanced economies, as the closeness of technological knowledge with potential target firms allows them to generate potential synergies and overcome cultural gaps and foreignness in distant host countries.

Why Inuit culture and language matter: decolonizing English second language learning

Why Inuit culture and language matter: decolonizing English second language learning

Máté Tóth, A könyvtárak társadalmi szerepei empirikus kutatási adatok tükrében, Szentendre, Hamvas Béla Pest Megyei Könyvtár 2022, ss. 193 ISBN 978-963-7521-91-1

The article is a discussion of the Hungarian book by Máté Tóth, a researcher and librarian in Hungary: ”Social Roles of Libraries in the Light of empirical research data” (Szentendre, Hamvas Béla Pest Megyei Könyvtár, 2022), in which he draws attention to the social roles of libraries. The author substantiates the raison of this role with his empirical research. The book is a broad overview of one of the most exciting and much-discussed matters of today's Hungarian culture, the world and role of reading, books, the press, electronic media, mobile phones, the Internet, and comprehensively Hungarian reading culture. The author attempts to prove the legitimacy and social role of libraries based on the statistics, library sociology measurements and empirical research of recent decades.

Negative and positive contamination in secondhand fashion consumption: does culture matter?

PurposeDespite the growing popularity of online secondhand platforms globally, there is a lack of studies exploring how consumers worldwide perceive contamination and the use of secondhand goods differently according to the culture. Based on the consumer contamination theory, this study aims to investigate the cultural differences of South Koreans and Americans by examining three variables (e.g. transaction type, ownership duration and physical attractiveness) related to consumers' perception of contamination and purchase intentions for a secondhand apparel item.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 422 US and South Korean female consumers who were assigned to an experimental scenario, and their secondhand purchase intentions and perceived contamination were compared through independent t-tests and moderated regression analyses.FindingsConsumers' purchase intentions increased, and perceived contamination decreased when the transaction type was business-to-consumer (vs consumer-to-consumer), when the item had been owned for a shorter period of time and when the item was sold by an attractive seller. Such effect was more pronounced for South Korean consumers than the US consumers in the negative contamination contexts (i.e. transaction type, ownership duration), but not in the positive contamination context (i.e. attractiveness).Originality/valueThe findings of the study add to the literature on consumer contamination theory through an examination of several negative and positive contamination factors in retail contexts and highlight the role of culture as a critical moderator.

Indigenizing Food System Planning for Food System Resiliency

Problem, research strategy and findings Planners conduct community food assessments for the purpose of supporting community food security efforts. However, assessments of community food assets, including their availability and access, are often limited in their consideration of ecological and cultural assets that are central to Indigenous food systems. Moreover, what are considered mainstream food assets may not reflect the everyday lived experiences of Indigenous peoples and traditional food sources. In this study we applied a citizen science–led photovoice food assessment, involving six Indigenous participants from Kitselas (Ts’msyen) First Nation in Canada. Using practice theory, the findings show how Indigenous concepts of relationality and reciprocity are intertwined in land-based food-related practices, which highlights the need for a holistic approach in documenting and planning around local food assets. Takeaway for practice The field of planning needs to respect and support Indigenous food sovereignty in planning policies. We recommend a more inclusive approach to community food assessment in planning, understanding how cultural food assets matter, and increasing community support to revitalize Indigenous food systems in culturally relevant ways.

Does culture matter? Corporate reputation and sustainable satisfaction in the Chinese and German banking sector

AbstractCorporate reputation is important for all types of banks across the world, despite these countries differing culturally. Building on an extended corporate reputation model, we identify the key drivers of customer-based reputation and sustainable customer satisfaction in two culturally different countries, namely China and Germany. We also consider two reputation dimensions—perceived competence and likeability—and their effects on the target construct. Empirical data from 625 German and 734 Chinese commercial bank customers allow us to estimate the corporate reputation model with the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method, and by substantiating the relationships by means of a necessary condition analysis (NCA) and a predictive power analysis. By comparing the two countries’ results, we identify their cultural differences. Overall, we confirm the model’s relevance for the two cultures, finding that banks’ perceived attractiveness is the most important driver of both cultures’ customer-perceived bank reputation. By means of an importance-performance map analysis, we identify a large overlap between the two cultures’ set of important constructs, likeability’s much greater importance in Germany, and the perceived quality construct’s relevance in both countries. We contribute to research and scientific knowledge about corporate reputation models by identifying the similarities in and differences between two countries’ markets with respect to the banking sector, all of which have implications for international banks’ management.

Challenging the Muslimification of Muslims in research on ‘liberal democratic values’: why culture matters beyond religion

ABSTRACT This study critiques the use of ‘Muslim’ as an analytic category and overfocus on religiosity as an explanatory variable in studies on conflicts between Muslims and national majorities over ‘liberal democratic values’. We call this tendency the Muslimification of Muslims. We demonstrate how this research reproduces and reinforces stereotypes drawn from dominant resonant public debates. To challenge these assumptions, we turn the research inquiry around so that ‘Muslim’ and religiosity become objects not tools for analysis. Revisiting the EurIslam survey data-set, explicitly designed for studying socio-cultural distances between Muslims and majorities, we examine boundary construction over ‘liberal democratic values’. For Muslims, first, we test for differences between four ethnonational family origin groups – Ex-Yugoslavians, Moroccans, Turks, Pakistanis- and second, for the explanatory power of religiosity compared to non-religious cultural variables. Findings are clear-cut: family ethnonational origin matters and there are different group trajectories of acculturation; religiosity has a very modest impact and much less than self-identification with settlement-country which pushes in the opposite acculturative direction. Simply put, regarding the construction of differences over ‘liberal democratic values’, not all Muslims are the same, and it is not all about practicing Islam. It is time for a re-think and a de-Muslimification of academic research.

Foreign market exit in family firms: Do historical military and cultural frictions matter?

In a fast-changing world, strategic decisions to exit a foreign market become more complex for family firms, owing to their vulnerability to uncertainty in internationalization. However, there is scant research on family firms’ foreign market exit with respect to their responses to contextual influences from home and host countries. This study reconciles the socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective and the friction lens to address this gap. Using a sample of 1,455 subsidiaries established by 413 Chinese family firms in 2009-2018, we find that historical military friction increases family firms’ foreign market exit, while cultural friction leads to a lower exit propensity. We also find that family management reinforces the friction-exit relationships, and this effect is strengthened when the family firm is controlled by the first generation. Our theory and related findings deepen our understanding of the foreign market exit decision of family firms while offering important theoretical and managerial implications.

Design at the intersection between culture and innovation

PurposeNarratives underscoring the necessity of innovation for success are pervasive. Yet, many new products fail or fail to produce their intended impacts. Conventional views typically promote the functional view of innovation, which focuses on identifying and meeting customer needs. The authors argue, however, that culture is an overlooked explanation of innovation success.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a conceptual approach, grounded in cultural sociology, to illustrate the ways in which innovation success is influenced by cultural beliefs. Accordingly, this study develops a cultural view of innovation and compare it with the functional view.FindingsThis study shows that novel products are successful to the extent their meanings and value resonate with relevant stakeholders. Not only does culture matter, but customers’ needs are often shaped by cultural values in the first place.Research limitations/implicationsMore systematic qualitative and quantitative research is needed to better understand the best processes for incorporating cultural beliefs into product features.Practical implicationsIn addition to customer needs, innovators should include cultural beliefs as design requirements to ensure the product resonates with the values and everyday practices of users. One way to do this is by implementing the productive method, which provides the resources for the relevant potential users to design the product themselves.Originality/valueIt is not always enough to learn and solicit feedback from potential users. To fully understand the obstacles that may inhibit innovation, this study advocates for providing potential users, local engineers and other relevant stakeholders the autonomy to design, manufacture, market and distribute the product.

Social Responsibility of Advertising and Female Beauty: A Document Analysis of Laws and Regulations in Brazil and Portugal

This work sought to verify - from an exploratory, intuitive, and empirical view -, how advertising has been regulated in Brazil and Portugal in a non-exhaustive way, observing laws and regulatory guidelines that already exist in these countries and those that are in process, checking its social responsibility in the face of the representativeness and diversity of female beauty. Through qualitative Document Analysis, highlighting the main public documents online found in recent reports, newspapers, official government websites, blogs, and social media, an attempt was made to observe and compare these countries that are historically and culturally linked, differing in cultural, social, political and economic matters. Therefore, in Brazil, there are already some norms to indicate the use of image editing and guidelines to avoid stereotyping of female beauty in advertising. In Portugal, there are already amendments to the advertising code to make beauty standards real and ensure the principle of veracity with the consumer. Both countries already have similar protective laws regarding the “non-objectification” of the woman's body in advertising. However, it was observed that despite the existence of these progresses, there is still a long way to change the deconstruction of the collective imagination about the aesthetic pressure on the female body. Brands/companies need to be aware of these laws/norms and apply them in practice, as well as the need to apply an educational form of awareness for society in general, aiming to be more aligned in the search for more responsible advertising directed to women and for all.

The Itemic View on Culture

Since the naturalistic turn in the late 20th century the social sciences understood culture as anevolutionary process in its own right. This perspective brought new conceptual tools andmethods to our understanding of culture, and its transmission. This article reviews the mainapproaches in cultural evolution: memetics; the standard evolution approach and the epidemiology ofrepresentations. It argues that those approaches share a common view of what the subject matterof culture is. In short, these approaches have an Itemic View on Culture: they understand andtreat culture as a collection of items that are in people’s brains and environment that aretransmitted by the individuals of a population by non-genetic means, so that over time, theyare stabilized.

Citizen political participation in Kenya: a cross-sectional analysis

ABSTRACTCitizen participation in politics continues to be an issue of concern for the Kenyan democracy, which needs to be understood to be addressed. Much of the existing literature on this topic focuses on demographic factors, with no sufficient scholarship interrogating political culture and its influence on citizen political participation. In this thesis, I employ an empirical analysis of the determinants of political participation among Kenyans using primary data I collected through an online survey. My main argument is that political culture matters in determining the patterns of political participation among Kenyans. Results from probit regression analyses illustrate that political culture significantly predicts the levels of political participation among Kenyans, across age cohorts. These findings bring up the discussion on the current rate of citizen participation in politics in Kenya, especially in a world in which democracy is increasingly under threat, and promotes case study analyses, and understanding of participatory democracy.