Search results

Culture is a central concept broadly studied in social anthropology and sociology. It has been gaining increasing attention in economics, appearing in research on labor market discrimination, identity, gender, and social preferences. Most experimental economics research on culture studies cross-national or cross-ethnic differences in economic behavior. In contrast, we explain laboratory behavior using two cultural dimensions adopted from a prominent general cultural framework in contemporary social anthropology: group commitment and grid control. Groupness measures the extent to which individual identity is incorporated into group or collective identity; gridness measures the extent to which social and political prescriptions intrinsically influence individual behavior. Grid-group characteristics are measured for each individual using selected items from the World Values Survey. We hypothesize that these attributes allow us to systematically predict behavior in a way that discriminates among multiple forms of social preferences using a simple, parsimonious deductive model. The theoretical predictions are further tested in the economics laboratory by applying them to the dictator, ultimatum, and trust games. We find that these predictions are confirmed overall for most experimental games, although the strength of empirical support varies across games. We conclude that grid-group cultural theory is a viable predictor of people’s economic behavior, then discuss potential limitations of the current approach and ways to improve it.

Many managers of Indo‐French alliances consider culture to be a failure, rather than a success factor because they address the national or corporate level for cross‐cultural comparisons. In contrast, this study proposes using the Douglasian Cultural Theory (CT) to address the transactional level of culture. In so doing, it aims to overcome some of the limitations of the national, corporate and transactional approaches and provide a systematic framework for discussing the viability of international alliances.

An analysis of 48 ethnographic interviews and field studies was conducted in 25 Indo‐French alliances.

Through an analysis of the ethnographic interviews and field studies conducted, the paper offers the following guidelines to managers for the design of viable alliances: the commonly‐cited interdependence of the hierarchical and competitive solidarities is not sufficient to ensure the viability of international alliances; the presence of a third solidarity seems essential; an analysis of failed alliances reveals that fatalism is not the third solidarity we are looking for; and an analysis of viable alliances shows that the egalitarian solidarity plays a role in ensuring the viability of international alliances by building a bridge between the hierarchical and competitive solidarity, thereby preventing gridlocks.

Major methodological limitations of this study include over‐emphasis on ethnographic interviews for data and use of unsystematic criteria for identifying solidarities in Indo‐French alliances

Unlike the paper's predecessors, it recommends that cultural plurality, not cultural domination, leads to viable alliances. International managers often tend to impose their own thought styles on others, thereby neglecting the inherent wisdom of other thought styles. The paper stresses that cultural diversity without duality leads to viability.

Simon, in his Administrative Behavior presents a systematic theory of administration which emphasizes correct decision‐making. Decision‐making has a factual and an ethical content; it always requires the comparison of alternative means in terms of the likely consequences. Thus a policy‐making body must have ready access to advice and information, particularly on the consequences of alternatives. Some universities in Britain, U.S.A. and Australia have set out deliberately to formulate their values or ultimate objectives. In Australia the publication of the Murray Report and of the reports of the Universities Commission have made much more likely the formulation of a set of values acceptable to university administrators as a guide for decision‐making. Further, a beginning has been made in the collation of factual data which might bear on these values, for example in the area of staff‐student ratios. With the general acceptance of computers and offices of institutional research there is a greater likelihood of clarifying objectives and of testing the extent to which they are being met, as a guide to effective decision‐making.

The purpose of this paper is to compare three cultural approaches from anthropology and business literature: National Culture Approach (NCA), Corporate Culture Approach (CCA), and Transactional Culture Approach (TCA). The author grounds these approaches in different epistemological standpoints and locate them at different positions on the unity-infinity continuum. The author outlines their strengths and weaknesses, and offer the Douglasian Cultural Framework (DCF) as a transactional tool for cultural sense-making.

Reviewing conventional NCA/CCA frameworks reveals that while their simplicity renders them attractive to users, their assumption of stable, internally homogenous and coherent cultures has its limitations. Conversely, reviewing anthropology-based TCA literature reveals that while TCA overcomes some limitations of NCA/CCA frameworks, it also has its weaknesses – it overemphasizes “self-interest” as the preferred form of rationality, and some TCA scholars render cultural comparisons impossible by supporting cultural infinity. Finally, examining DCF reveals that it overcomes some limitations of NCA/CCA frameworks, while simultaneously advancing TCA. Nevertheless, DCF too has limitations which are also exposed.

Most NCA/CCA scholars support the “unity” argument of culture, while some transactional scholars support the “infinity” argument. DCF finds a perfect balance between the two through “constrained relativism”. Also, since DCF focuses on human transactions, it is not limited in its applications to specific levels and scales. It can therefore be applied to scenarios spanning across levels and scales. Finally, it offers a compromise between the differentiation and fragmentation perspectives of corporate culture, and brings out the best of the interpretivist and post-modernistic traditions.

The exposition of DCF opens up new avenues for research which have hitherto remained unexplored for want of appropriate frameworks, for instance the UN Peace Corps., NATO, Medecins Sans Frontiers, etc.

By focusing on human transactions, the paper allows for a much more dynamic conceptualization of culture as compared to static NCA/CCA frameworks.

Some 40 years ago Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber published a seminal paper in which they discussed the “wicked problems” facing those who sought to develop solutions to urban planning challenges. Their work recognised that many of the decisions faced by modern management are multi‐faceted, and involve a plethora of stakeholders each with a diverse view of what good might look like. The aim of this paper is to consider how the ensuing rich vein of literature relating to the management of such problems might be applied to the logistic challenges of preparing for and responding to a disaster.

This paper first examines the issues, dilemmas and decisions facing the humanitarian logistician, as a key component of the preparation and response to a disaster, and concludes that they fall firmly into the ambit of a wicked problem. The paper then reviews the literature that proposes methods for management of such problems, and applies it to the humanitarian logistics field.

The paper concludes that further research is needed to understand the ways in which the three primary approaches of employing authoritative, competitive and collaborative strategies might be best evaluated and employed. In doing so, it recognises that it is essential to engage with the broader disaster management and humanitarian logistic communities in order to help operationalise this theoretical approach.

While the concept of a wicked problem and the associated broad spectrum of literature has developed over a considerable period of time, this has not previously been applied to the challenge of humanitarian logistics which, it is argued, meets all the criteria to be considered as a truly wicked problem.

No Olympics in recent history have come in on or under budget, with past Olympics having overrun their budgets by an average of 172% (Flyvbjerg et al., 2021). Growing concerns among taxpayers about the expense have led many cities to drop out of the bidding process for the Olympics: for the 2024 Olympic Games, bids were withdrawn by Boston, Budapest, Hamburg, and Rome (Okada & Greyser, 2018). Sports infrastructure, including the main stadium, is a major cost category for the Olympic Games. Building or renovating venues to Olympic specifications can leave cities with heavy costs of long-term maintenance as well as the cost of initial construction (Baade & Matheson, 2016). In practice, cities tend to overestimate the size and suitability of existing venues, leading to underestimated costs and budget overruns (Preuß et al., 2019). The Brisbane 2032 Olympic bid says that Brisbane’s Olympics are confident of breaking even, and avoiding building stadiums that end up as white elephants. But does the choice of Olympic stadium make a difference to the final cost overrun? This study finds that cost overruns for past Olympics have been predicted using a few characteristics of the main stadium: its age, its distance from the city centre, and its seating capacity. This has important policy implications for selecting stadiums to be used at the Olympic Games and particularly for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games where a stadium has been earmarked for selection without data-driven evidence to support the decision.

This paper aims to set out several of the key issues and areas of the inter‐disciplinary field of climate change research based in accounting and accountability, and to introduce the papers that compose this AAAJ special issue.

The paper provides an overview of issues in the science of climate, as well as an eclectic collection of independent and inter‐disciplinary contributions to accounting for climate change. Through additional accounting analysis, and a shadow carbon account, it also illustrates how organisations and nations account for and communicate their greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints and emissions behaviour.

The research shows that accounting for carbon and other GHG emissions is immensely challenging because of uncertainties in estimation methods. The research also shows the enormity of the challenge associated with reducing those emissions in the near future.

The paper surveys past work on a wide variety of perspectives associated with climate change science, politics and policy, as well as organisational and national emissions and accounting behaviour. It provides an overview of challenges in the area, and seeks to set an agenda for future research that remains interesting and different.

The purpose of this paper is to address four questions: what are the drawbacks of an over reliance on the objectivist tradition in culture in international business (CIB) scholarship? Is a shift from mono-paradigmatic to multi-paradigmatic cultural research justified? What explains scholars’ hesitation in engaging in multi-paradigmatic studies? What arguments can we offer to convince them otherwise?

Informed by the critical perspective, this paper encourages a shift from mono-paradigmatic to multi-paradigmatic cultural studies. Guided by an emancipatory interest, and treating the field of culture studies as a complex system, this paper offers an integrative complexity (IC) based argument in favor of multi-paradigmatic studies. It argues that multi-paradigmatic studies allow scholars to employ higher IC than mono-paradigmatic studies, resulting in more innovative research outputs.

While mono-paradigmatic studies can achieve either predictability of output or in-depth understanding of cultural phenomena, multi-paradigmatic studies are capable of attaining both. The authors illustrate this through the example of a recent multi-paradigmatic study.

This paper does not offer insights for operationalizing multi-paradigmatic research, nor does it address factors other than IC that may impede scholars from engaging in such studies.

Shifting from mono-paradigmatic to multi-paradigmatic studies will enable scholars to address questions hitherto left unaddressed in CIB literature, facilitate a better understanding of new organizational forms, and redress the power disequilibrium between different paradigmatic schools. Implications are also offered for the training of cultural researchers in business schools.

This paper is the first of its kind to relate IC to merits of multi-paradigmatic cultural studies.