Topic Modelling of Tourist Dining Experiences Based on the GLOBE Model

The needs of travellers vary across cultures. When it comes to culinary aspects, there is a strong connection between gastronomy and culture. To optimise service offerings, investigation of the essential aspects of dining experiences in relation to cultural backgrounds is of great importance. In the age of digitalisation, tourists share their dining experiences throughout their multiphasic travel journey via online platforms. By considering nine distinct cultural backgrounds, this research aims to investigate tourist experiences based on TripAdvisor restaurant reviews through topic modelling, using the city of Salzburg as its study context. Depending on one’s cultural circumstances, the findings demonstrate that the most important aspects include staff, food-menu items, value for money, restaurant physical appearance, food authenticity, overall service, menu offers, food quality, atmosphere, and recommendations. This study advances the state-of-the-art knowledge of societal culture as a variable in the target market analysis of restaurant customers. Findings allow restaurant owners, other tourism service providers, and destination management organisations to analyse and adapt their service offerings and strategies accordingly.

Empower me or not? Influence of societal culture

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationships between societal culture value dimensions and employee preferences for empowerment behaviors by managerial leaders across societal cultures. To do this, the authors synthesize the extant literature to underpin this study and to set the research agenda for future empirical work.Design/methodology/approachUsing field survey research method, the authors obtain and analyze data from ten samples in eight geographically and culturally diverse societies from a global longitudinal study of preferred managerial leader behavior.FindingsCultural value dimension predictor variables affect employee preferences for leader empowerment behaviors in the societies studied. Some significant effects of gender and organizational factors on these relationships were found.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research should expand upon variations in the meaning of employee empowerment across cultures, consider other cultural models and theories, and a more extensive set of personal, organizational and relational factors.Practical implicationsEmployee preferences for leader empowerment behaviors are more likely the result of the interplay, exchange and trade-offs between cultural, personal and organizational values. The effectiveness of employee empowerment is contingent upon well-designed training programs aligning management and worker values, goals and tasks.Originality/valueThe authors offer more realistic, objective and evidence-based insights into the cultural influences on the effectiveness of empowerment and employee cognitions towards it than the extant, conceptually and methodologically compromised, strategic cross-cultural studies.

The Ties that Bind: Kymlicka and the Problem of Political Unity in Multination States

As asserted by Will Kymlicka, the recognition and accommodation of national minorities leads to a dilemma. Indeed, if denying them these rights can contribute to their willingness to secede, allowing them to self-govern can also ultimately lead to the weakening of their ties with the state in which they are integrated. This tension well described in Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship and in his later works remains nonetheless without an explicit solution. This text addresses this question by suggesting that the dialogical dynamic behind the recognition and accommodation of national minorities hides a purely political patriotism stemming from the neo-republican tradition that is complementary to the nationalist sense of attachment that members of national minorities will inevitably come to feel toward their societal culture.

Seeking and explaining culturally meaningful within-country regions: A functional, institutional and critical event analysis

Cross-cultural management scholars traditionally use country boundaries to study societal culture, while recognizing that regions within many countries show cultural differences. We review survey studies published in business journals between 1991 and 2021 that assess within-country cultural differences among administrative regions. We classify the articles according to their theoretical bases, methodological approaches, and outcomes. We use a functional, institutional, and critical event framework to suggest direction for theory that is and can be used to seek and explain within-country cultural regions. We also evaluate currently used databases, measurement, and analysis approaches to suggest ways forward.

Ethnocultural Neutrality and Nation-Building: A Critical Evaluation of Will Kymlicka's Fairness Based Argument for Minority Cultural Rights

<p>This thesis looks at an argument by Will Kymlicka in which he claims that the idea of an ethnoculturally neutral state is "manifestly false" and should be replaced by liberal political theorists with a model of the state as engaging in "nation-building" (Kymlicka 2001 pp23 - 27). Once we do this, Kymlicka argues, we see that the burden of proof regarding minority cultural rights has shifted away from the defender of such rights and falls equally on those who seek to deny those rights. We see this, Kymlicka claims, because the nation-building model of the state highlights a number of burdens that are placed on cultural minorities, burdens which are otherwise disguised by a norm of ethnocultural neutrality. Kymlicka argues that this means that the debate over minority cultural rights has moved on from substantive debates about the worth of cultural units (including his well known argument that we have a fundamental interest in the success of our own culture). In this thesis I argue for two main claims. The first is that the idea of ethnocultural neutrality is not manifestly false so long as it is understood as part of a requirement that state institutions and policies should be capable of an appropriate justification. Moreover I shall suggest that acceptance of such a norm can in fact be used by Kymlicka in order to ground the specific fairness based claims that he wants to make about majority nation-building in liberal democratic states. Secondly I shall argue that Kymlicka's claims about the fairness of majority nation-building rely upon the kind of substantive account supplied by his earlier argument that we have a fundamental, autonomy based, interest in the survival of our own societal-culture. In this respect, then, Kymlicka is wrong to suggest that the debate has moved on. My defence of ethnocultural neutrality helps us to see where there is underlying agreement amongst liberals on a number of multicultural policies and also highlights the areas of substantive disagreement which, I shall suggest, do not revolve around acceptance, or not, of a norm of ethnocultural neutrality but instead are deep rooted disagreements about the worth of our cultural and national attachments and how they are to be weighed against each other and against other interests that we have. On this score I suggest that Kymlicka's own autonomy argument is unconvincing.</p>

Ethnocultural Neutrality and Nation-Building: A Critical Evaluation of Will Kymlicka's Fairness Based Argument for Minority Cultural Rights

<p>This thesis looks at an argument by Will Kymlicka in which he claims that the idea of an ethnoculturally neutral state is "manifestly false" and should be replaced by liberal political theorists with a model of the state as engaging in "nation-building" (Kymlicka 2001 pp23 - 27). Once we do this, Kymlicka argues, we see that the burden of proof regarding minority cultural rights has shifted away from the defender of such rights and falls equally on those who seek to deny those rights. We see this, Kymlicka claims, because the nation-building model of the state highlights a number of burdens that are placed on cultural minorities, burdens which are otherwise disguised by a norm of ethnocultural neutrality. Kymlicka argues that this means that the debate over minority cultural rights has moved on from substantive debates about the worth of cultural units (including his well known argument that we have a fundamental interest in the success of our own culture). In this thesis I argue for two main claims. The first is that the idea of ethnocultural neutrality is not manifestly false so long as it is understood as part of a requirement that state institutions and policies should be capable of an appropriate justification. Moreover I shall suggest that acceptance of such a norm can in fact be used by Kymlicka in order to ground the specific fairness based claims that he wants to make about majority nation-building in liberal democratic states. Secondly I shall argue that Kymlicka's claims about the fairness of majority nation-building rely upon the kind of substantive account supplied by his earlier argument that we have a fundamental, autonomy based, interest in the survival of our own societal-culture. In this respect, then, Kymlicka is wrong to suggest that the debate has moved on. My defence of ethnocultural neutrality helps us to see where there is underlying agreement amongst liberals on a number of multicultural policies and also highlights the areas of substantive disagreement which, I shall suggest, do not revolve around acceptance, or not, of a norm of ethnocultural neutrality but instead are deep rooted disagreements about the worth of our cultural and national attachments and how they are to be weighed against each other and against other interests that we have. On this score I suggest that Kymlicka's own autonomy argument is unconvincing.</p>

Stakeholders’ Risk Perceptions of Decarbonised Energy System: Insights into Patterns of Behaviour

According to EU goals and the Paris Agreement, an urgent need exists for reducing CO2 emissions while still securing energy supply. Thus, the timely deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seemingly unavoidable, especially for the cement and steel industries. However, diverse perceptions of CCS among stakeholders such as experts, politicians, and laypeople exist that could hinder the deployment of the technology. Hence, it is worthwhile to recognise these diverse perceptions and their roots. In the studies on risk perceptions, the emphasis has been mostly on the public, as well as factors that influence the public, such as knowledge dissemination and trust. Although these are crucial elements, they are not enough to explain the complexity of risk perceptions. In contrast to the mainstream research, this paper hypothesises that both laypeople and experts are affected by common cultural denominators, therefore, might have similar patterns of risk perceptions. This research suggests a framework that explains the role of societal culture in risk governance, arguing that thrifty, uncertainty avoidant, hierarchical societies tend to have a higher risk perception of CCS. This study is based on a synthesis of the earlier research, an extensive literature review, and an analysis of interviews data.

Disability Sensitivity and Sensibility: A Nondisabled Lecturer Perspective on Inclusive Lecturing Opportunities

Disability is a social force that arguably creates more education problems for students with disabilities than their impairments. Understanding it as a form of social oppression can lead to less exclusionary teaching and learning attitudes, beliefs, expectations and practices. Numerous studies have looked at the experiences of staff and students with disabilities as well as the experiences of teaching students with disabilities. However, more studies are needed to better understand and address disability in higher education. Nondisabled perspectives have a role to play in opposing disabling educational practices and cultures to make higher education more inclusive. Many opportunities especially exist for nondisabled lecturers to contribute to addressing the higher education barriers and discrimination which often affect students with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to use a disability perspective to present my lecturing practices during the move to emergency remote teaching and learning in response to COVID-19 while working at an HDI. An autoethnographic method was used. Content analysis of my accounts exposed the exclusionary nature of my practices in terms of how they facilitated ableism and suppressed disability discourse. Recommendations are made, in light of the results, on ways to not only make higher education spaces more accommodating but counter a wider societal culture that oppresses and even seeks to eradicate the value of those who live with impairments.

Public-Sector Honesty and Corruption: Field Evidence from 40 Countries

This study presents a theoretical model of honest behavior in the public sector (public-sector honesty) and its relationship with corruption. We test this model empirically by utilizing and extending a unique data set of honest behavior of public- and private-sector workers across 40 countries, gathered in a field experiment conducted by Cohn et al. (N = 17,303). We find that public-sector honesty is determined by country-level societal culture and public-sector culture; public-sector honesty predicts corruption levels, independently from the effect of incentive structures—in line with the Becker–Stigler model. We find no support for a global mean difference in honest behavior between public- and private-sector workers, alongside substantive cross-country variation in sector differences in honest behavior. The emphasis assigned to honesty of public-sector workers within each country appears to be locally determined by the prevailing public-sector culture. These results imply that beyond cross-national variation in the scope of publicness, it is very content may vary across countries. Lastly, the results of this study consistently fail to support the selection thesis, and we discuss the practical implications of this result for anticorruption policy.