The management of strategic alliances: cultural resistance. Comparing the cases of a Dutch telecom operator in the Netherlands Antilles and Indonesia

Since the early 1990s, European telecom operators have expanded their activities to international markets in South America, Asia and Eastern Europe and formed complex networks of strategic alliances and joint ventures. This paper examines potential dynamics in such alliances and explores the developments in the strategic alliances of a Dutch telecom operator (KPN) in the Netherlands Antilles and Indonesia. The case studies examine how local partners responded to the cross‐cultural strategies used by KPN to manage the alliances. In particular, the studies reveal that ethnocentric cross‐cultural management strategies, used by KPN to establish a dominant position in the alliances, triggered a new awareness of the cultural identities of local telecom operators. In turn, this increased cultural awareness stimulated the patters of resistance towards KPN as the dominant partner. This paper introduces the concept of ‘ethnicization’ to describe this strategy of resistance by the less dominant partner. The paper calls for more research to understand the strategic use of cultural identity in transnational alliances.     

Coming to terms with inequality and exploitation in an African state: researching disability in Sierra Leone

In this article, I describe how during my anthropological research in post‐conflict Sierra Leone with a disabled community, I was confronted by experiences of inequality and exploitation. Many disabled people had previous disabling contact with other researchers, organisations and journalists. Others described difficulties surviving the disabling socio‐economic conditions and were not viewed as ‘development’ partners, despite the fact that their images and stories had played a big role in the rebuilding and ‘healing’ of the Sierra Leonean nation state. I ask whether we as researchers and an international community are still not colluding with structures and institutions that exploit disabled people in post‐conflict and post‐disaster countries.     

Qualitative research on homosexual and bisexual behavior relevant to HIV/AIDS

The spread of the international AIDS pandemic has drawn attention to the urgent need for data on human sexual behavior; yet the lack of an established tradition of theory and method in sex research has limited the development of research initiatives in this area. This has been particularly true in the study of homosexual and bisexual behavior, which has relied heavily on the use of quantitative survey methods that largely fail to address cross‐cultural differences in the structure and meaning of same‐sex sexual experience. More qualitative approaches offer the possibility of investigating homosexual and bisexual behavior within a broader social and cultural context and can therefore play an important role in developing a framework for the comparative analysis of behavioral data. This article seeks to contribute to the development of theory and method in sex research by outlining key research issues and possible methodologies for the qualitative investigation of homosexual and bisexual behavior in relation to HIV/AIDS.     

Conflicts over knowledge transfer across the border: Korean international students and the conversion of cultural capital

It is common knowledge that international students are a major conduit of international knowledge transfer and that they become transnational managerial elites and highly skilled migrants. However, few studies show how this transfer occurs. Moreover, people often assume that knowledge transfer is a smooth process. Drawing on in‐depth interviews of former and current Korean international students and non‐migrant Koreans in the United States and South Korea, my study shows that knowledge transfer can, in fact, be highly conflictual. I argue that conflicts in the country of origin between international students (the transferors) and non‐migrants (the recipients) mediate knowledge transfer. I see the conflicts as struggles over the conversion of cultural capital from the Global North into local power and wealth, which reworks Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital for transnational social fields. In so doing, I develop a framework that links knowledge transfer and transnational social reproduction.     

Trajectories of adjustment of international students: U‐curve,learning curve,or Third Space 1

International students may need to adapt their approaches to learning and their views of themselves as learners in their new situation. The research reported on in this paper concerns a pre‐sessional English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course for international students entering Higher Education in the UK—mostly Masters students entering a Business School—having a focus on assisting change rather than addressing deficit. Theories of cultural adaptation—U‐curve and learning curve—are discussed in the light of theories of place and space taken from phenomenological geography, and of identity and ‘third space’ taken from cultural studies. The seminar—as this is understood in UK Higher Education—is described as an existential space, and reflective accounts of international students are analysed to see how these narratives both record and create their varying feelings of identifying with the epistemological requirements of seminars. The conclusions drawn are that interventions should be designed to encourage reflective learning, should accept that hybridity rather than complete acculturation is the most likely result, and that synergy—combining elements of different epistemologies—could become a target for all universities.     

Substitution and Stratification: The Interplay between Dyadic and Systemic Proximity in Global Trade, 1993–2005

This article examines the interplay of homophily (similarity breeds connection) at two levels in international trade—dyadic similarity (geographic, political, and cultural proximity) and systemic similarity (structural equivalence and world‐system status). First, there is a substitution effect between dyadic homophily and systemic homophily from structural equivalence. Both types of homophily generate favorable social structure that facilitates international trade. The existence of structural equivalence lessens the dependence of bilateral trade on dyadic homophily. Second, there is a stratification effect of world‐system status on dyadic homophily. Geographic homophily matters the most for bilateral trade between two noncore countries, while political and cultural homophily is the most influential for trade between a core country and a noncore country. These two findings have important implications. The substitution effect of structural equivalence prevents international trade from complete fragmentation along geographic, political, and cultural lines, while the stratification effect of world‐system status reveals unequal capacity across countries to overcome the structural constraints imposed by dyadic homophily.     

上海文化创意产业投融资模式与政策研究

文化创意产业的投融资是产业金融领域的一大普遍性难题。上海致力于打造国际金融中心和国际文化大都市,有责任也有义务加快文化金融服务创新,成为全国文化金融创新的领头者。但从银行贷款、投资基金、上市融资、政府投资等几种模式比较来看,上海文化投融资现状不容乐观。调研发现,上海文化创意产业投融资难有着自身的特殊原因,需要在突破投融资模式政策举措的选择上引起关注。鉴此,综合已有研究及国内外成功经验,从信息对接、重点聚焦、主体示范等方面提出若干对策建议。     

Civic and Political Participation of Children and Adolescents: A Lifestyle Analysis for Positive Youth Developmental Programs

Social participation plays a key role in predicting positive youth development (PYD). As a previous step of this link, this research examined how children and adolescents' relational lifestyles influenced their participation in political and civic activities. This research provides a multi‐dimensional approach to the study of children's social participation, based on six children's lifestyles factors (i.e. family dialogue, risky behaviours, cultural activities, civic values, family supervision and peer group relationships). Using data from an international survey that included 6130 participants (2198 Spanish, 3932 Italian, Mage = 13.8), this study's results show that relational lifestyles (especially family dialogue and out‐of‐school cultural activities) are positively related to political and civic participation among children and adolescents. On the contrary, some peer group relationships decreased their social participation in those key dimensions for PYD. Limitations of the current study, implications for future policy decisions and applications to children social programs are discussed.     

Immigrants,Cultural Differences,and Trade Costs

We examine the effects of immigrants and cross‐societal cultural differences on bilateral trade costs using two alternative measures of cultural differences (i.e. cultural distance and genetic distance). We find that bilateral trade costs generally increase with a rise in the cultural distance between trading partners but fall with a rise in the stock of immigrants. This implies that immigrants counter bilateral trade costs that are associated with greater cultural differences. Our observation is relevant from both migration and trade policy perspectives as it provides further evidence that immigrants serve as conduits for bridging cultural differences, facilitate international transactions, and enhance global economic integration.     

A critical cross‐cultural perspective for developing nonprofit international management capacity

Issues of the effectiveness of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are becoming critical among a claim that cultural sensitivity to people's needs and the appropriateness of interventions is a competitive advantage of the sector. Here, the cross‐cultural management agenda is set out, particularly in terms of the transferability or appropriateness of management knowledge and development interventions. Research propositions are presented that, if supported through future empirical findings, suggest cultural hybridization is a process that can be managed through greater stakeholder involvement, leading to greater appropriateness as well as effectiveness of international NGOs.     

Public relations in Ghana: Work-related cultural values and public relations models

This study explores cultural influences on public relations practices in Ghana. This survey research brief reports data collected from Ghanaian public relations practitioners (n = 64) and describes work-related cultural values as well as the practices of public relations models in Ghana. The result reveals that Ghanaian public professionals tend to utilize international public relations and two-way communication models. The study extends knowledge of international public relations in African cultures.     

Cultural Capital of Recruitment Decision‐Makers and its Influence on their Perception of Person‐Organisation Fit of Skilled Migrants

This article examines how recruitment decision‐makers’ cultural capital can influence their concerns about the organizational fit of skilled migrants (SM). We used survey data and interviews with Information Technology organizations in Australia. The study highlights the decision‐makers’ relatively poor understanding of non‐western cultures and how it negatively influences their perception of candidates from non‐western backgrounds. Furthermore, this study also notes how organisational cultural values and decision‐makers’ exposure to diverse cultures can influence their assumptions about the value of international qualifications and work experiences. Similarly, it can also influence how they assess the perception of fit based on a candidate's appearance and communication style. Consequently, the cognitive biases and judgements of resource acquisition managers can act as gatekeepers who keep non‐western SM out of the organizational resource pool. The article concludes by noting the importance of human resource practices that seek to develop cultural capital of decision‐makers.     

The greening of the booth: Environmental awareness,movements and policies in Italy

This paper presents a comprehensive, if only sketchy, case‐study of environmental awareness, movements and policies in Italy. For brevity's sake, no attempt is made to draw explicit international comparison or to use the case as a starting point for theoretical generalizations; although both are implicit. The history of Italian environmentalism is divided into five periods: pre‐history (1900–1950), early history (1950–1967), the ‘ecological spring’ (1968–1973), the seventies and the eighties. The growth of environmentalism in the seventies is analyzed at three levels: institutional, cultural, and political. Developments in the last decade are studied in several sectors: laws and institutions, business, professions and research, public opinion, movements, organizations and parties. A section is devoted to the anti‐nuclear campaign.     

Cultural Imperialism Versus Globalization of Culture: Riding the Structure‐Agency Dialectic in Global Communication and Media Studies

This article discusses and analyzes the dialectic between so‐called cultural imperialism and globalization of culture perspectives in global communication and media studies. At an extreme, cultural imperialism is cast as the international extension of the long‐discredited hypodermic needle theory which views cultural consumers as passive automatons. At the other end of the extreme, the globalization of culture perspective is cast as a wildly postmodern standpoint in which free‐floating individuals are said to be able to make an infinite set of localized meanings from cultural products. There has been a growing trend among many global communication and media scholars to locate a productive middle ground between cultural imperialism and globalization of culture. In this author’s view, the most effective melding of the two perspectives would situate local, creative appropriation of cultural objects against the backdrop of larger, hegemonic regional and global macro‐forces. This approach ought also to acknowledge the many complexities that characterize the intersections among globalization, culture, and media, including the ways in which the local, national, regional, and global constitute one another and the ways in which resistance to local hegemony can paradoxically fuel national or global hegemony.     

Expatriate Cultural Antecedents and Outcomes

This field note is based upon a case study of US expatriates working for a multinational nonprofit organization in North and Central Africa. The purpose of this study was to examine expatriate culture adjustment from two vantage points. First, the study tested the impact of three organizational conditions on expatriate culture adjustment. Second, the study examined the relationship between an expatriate's culture adjustment and (1) their intention to prematurely leave the international assignment and (2) their effectiveness in host country relationships. In the first phase of analysis, the study found that the expatriate's alignment with organizational mission and values, level of team esprit‐de‐corps, and job satisfaction were significant predictors of national cultural adjustment. In the second phase, the study found that higher levels of expatriate cultural adjustment (1) yielded lower levels of employees’ premature turnover intention and (2) enhanced the expatriate's ability to work with host country nationals and their organizations. The validated survey instrument in this study provides managers with a tool to measure the organizational conditions, expatriate's level of cultural adjustment, turnover intention, and relationships with host ‐country nationals. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The relationality of law and culture: Dominant approaches and new directions for cultural sociologists

Much of the cultural sociological research in law and culture falls into one of the following approaches: (1) law as a structure that enables and constrains culture; (2) culture as a structure that enables and constrains law; and (3) law as a cultural toolkit or repertoire upon which actors draw to orient strategies for action. This article briefly reviews these approaches, then, drawing from the generative socio‐legal tradition in law as culture, highlights a fourth approach. While law and culture are often analyzed as autonomous forces in ongoing contention, negotiation, and reconciliation, the socio‐legal approach conceptualizes the relationality of law and culture as constituted by ongoing contention. I argue that this relational approach may offer cultural sociologists who do not study law a framework for better analyzing how power undergirds, enables and constrains cultural meaning. I offer examples to illustrate the utility of this research agenda through three areas of interest for cultural sociologists: (1) embodiment; (2) emotions; and (3) political culture. Such an approach encourages a two‐way bridge between cultural sociology and socio‐legal studies conceptualizing culture as a dynamic system of power relations.     

Raymond Williams and sociology

The purpose of this article is to recover Williams as a major theoretical inspiration for the social sciences, specifically, as the inaugurator of what might be regarded as a research paradigm, cultural materialism. In the first section, Williams's encounter with the discipline of sociology is traced and distinguished as a critical alternative to the presently ascendant – at least in the USA – neo‐Durkeimian school of ‘cultural sociology’. In the second section, his cultural‐materialist programme is proposed as a powerful analytical framework for the study of culture and society today. In the final section, a key concept of Williams's cultural materialism, mobile privatization, is selected illustratively and proposed as a powerful analytical tool for studying the production and technological mediation of typical modes of communicative sociality in the early twenty‐first century.     

A rejoinder to the comments of Hartman & fithian and pomeroy & brown on the female sexological examination

The spread of the international AIDS pandemic has drawn attention to the urgent need for data on human sexual behavior; yet the absence of an established tradition of theory and method in sex research has limited the development of initiatives in this area. This has been particularly evident in the lack of attention given to the ways in which cross‐cultural differences structure the meaning of sexual experience. While survey research can play an important role in documenting sexual behavior, qualitative research on sexual culture is equally important in order to develop a framework for the comparative analysis of behavioral data. This article seeks to contribute to the development of theory and method in sex research by outlining key research issues and possible methodologies for the qualitative investigation of sexual culture in relation to HIV/AIDS.     

Training experiences of international doctoral students in marriage and family therapy

Recognizing mental health needs of diverse populations, emphasizing cultural diversity, and recruiting ethnic minority students are important foci of current of marriage and family therapy training programs. However, the profession has made little progress in identifying the needs and experiences of its international students and practitioners. This research examines the experiences of doctoral-level international students across the areas of theory, clinical training, supervision, practice, and research. A qualitative methodological approach was used to explore the research questions. Thirteen in-depth interviews were conducted. Findings revealed that most respondents experienced some adjustment problems, want more academic and career support, and need increased recognition for their cultural differences. Recommendations for training international students are included.     

An Assessment of Supply and Demand‐side Theorizations of International Student Mobility

As a group of mobile people, international students have been under‐studied. This is despite their numerical importance. This paper examines the changing characteristics of international student mobility, differentiating between social demand theories that seek explanation in terms of the power of social and cultural capital in driving middle class families to seek to get their children into the best western universities, and supply‐side theories that argue that the global flow of students is powered to a large extent by the financial interests of those who can supply elite higher education opportunities to a world market. Student mobility towards the United Kingdom is used as case study material to investigate these issues.