The authors investigate the differences in ethical perceptions of Australian and Hong Kong international managers. Ethical perceptions are measured with respect to different industry types, cultures and modes of entry into international markets. Mode of entry refers to how firms select to enter foreign markets. Modes of entry include: exporting (indirect or direct), contractual methods (licensing and franchising) and via direct foreign investment (joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries). It was determined that culture and mode of entry have a significant (...) effect on the perception of ethical problems. (shrink)

The importance of cultural enterprises to the creation of jobs, generating incomes, alleviating poverty and distributing development has long been recognized. Based on empirical research, this article adopts the convergent parallel mixed design to assess extent of influence of cultural values on the type of cultural industry established in Ghana, taking a case of the kente textile industry in Adanwomase. Adanwomase is argued to be a prominent traditional community in the printing of kente cloths in Ghana. Primary data were obtained (...) from 210 weavers and relevant bodies, such as the Business Advisory Council and traditional leaders through direct interviews, observation and focus group discussions. Findings show that the craft industry in Adanwomase is informal and small-scale in nature. Six key cultural values were identified to statistically have significant influence on the establishment of the textile craft industry. Strongest among them were the festival celebrations and customary law/traditional customs. There was strong correlation between the identified cultural values and the establishment of the textile industry in Adanwomase. Urgent policy and creation of the enabling environment to promote entrepreneurship and create employment through support for research and development (R&D) of cultural industries are needed. (shrink)

When Adorno and Horkheimer constructed in the early forties the critical concept of culture industry they had in mind mainly movies and radio as its main media. Even television broad- casting was not developed enough at that time to be considered as an important player in the scene of mass culture. Nevertheless the critical aspects of their contribution were so strong and well structured that even today they cannot be discarded in a fair evaluation of such an import- (...) ant phenomenon of contemporary culture. However there have been since the time of Adorno and Horkheimer’s criticism many models of mass culture critique that took into account the evolution of the technological devices, from analogical video systems to the more recent developments of digital media. Since the consideration of the latter does not always rely on the maintenance of the aforementioned critical point of view, a criterion guiding the choice of a theoretical approach could be the way in which the relation between artworks and cultural commodities is conceived. According to this criterion the author chooses as an updated counterpoint to Adorno and Horkheimer’s mass culture critique Vilém Flusser’s theory of what he calls “post-history,” especially in its approach on communication, entertainment and art tout court. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to describe the general conditions for the development of creative industries in Podlaskie Voivodship from Poland. This region on the background of the country is characterized by the highest level of cultural diversity and multiculturalism policy. However, there are a number of barriers for the creative industries. First article discusses the regional characteristics and then the basic theoretical approaches and conclusions of the author’s own research. The following sections discuss the conclusions and recommendations for (...) regional policy and management of cultural sector entities that may be relevant also for other culturally diverse regions. (shrink)

As a product of the tourism performing arts industry in culture–tourism integration development, to develop a featured culture–tourism town is a new trend for tourism development in the new era. To analyze the social benefit of the culture–tourism industry, in this study, an artificial intelligence model for social benefit evaluation is constructed based on backpropagation neural network and fuzzy comprehensive analysis, with Yiyang Town taken as an example. The criterion layer in the model includes three indexes, and (...) the index layer contains 11 indexes. The weight values of cultural inheritance and protection, ecological environment improvement, and commercial economy development to the social benefit of the town are 0.522, 0.570, and 0.424, respectively. For G1, 41.20% is excellent; for G2, 39.5% is excellent; and for G3, 40.5% is good. In general, 30.76% of the total social benefit is excellent, with 37.69% being good, 21.48% being qualified, and 10.07% being unqualified. It is inferred that the total social benefit level of Yiyang Town is good according to the constructed model. Therefore, the culture inheritance and protection, the ecological environment improvement, and the commercial economy development are the key evaluation factors of social benefit. (shrink)

Our life, by its biological nature, is in an indestructible dependence on energy. At the same time, energy is an important criterion on which we report the progress of humanity. Historically, progress divides our world into distinct stages, called Industrial Revolutions. Each stage has encompassed more fuels, new technologies, inventions, humans behavioural changes and much more worrying environmental issues. Energy techniques, new extractions and transportation improved in nineteenth and during twenty-century energy consumption, especially electricity, rise significantly with, on the one (...) hand, a continuous influx of fossil fuels and, on the other hand, continuous increase of the quantities of toxic waste, visible or not, from the other industrial branches and human activities, consequences of the energetical progress. The purpose of this paper is to point out some aspects regarding ecological footprints of electrical industry and energy industries during their development and to establish connections between the distinct role of energy in each period of industrialization and its impact on the environment, education, science, arts and cultural dimensions of life. (shrink)

With the economy deindustrialized and the working class decentralized, a call for alternative horizons for resistance: the university and the art world. What was once the factory is now the university. As deindustrialization spreads and the working class is decentralized, new means of social resistance and political activism need to be sought in what may be the last places where they are possible: the university and the art world. Gerald Raunig's new book analyzes the potential that cognitive and creative labor (...) has in these two arenas to resist the new regimes of domination imposed by cognitive capitalism. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's concept of “modulation” as the market-driven imperative for the constant transformation and reinvention of subjectivity, in Factories of Knowledge, Industries of Creativity, Raunig charts alternative horizons for resistance. Looking at recent social struggles including the university strikes in Europe, the Spanish ¡Democracia real YA! organization, the Arab revolts, and the Occupy movement, Raunig argues for a reassessment of the importance of cultural and knowledge production. The central role of the university, he asserts, is not as a factory of knowledge but as a place of creative disobedience. (shrink)

The paper discusses various aspects of the concept of “cultural memory” coined by Jan Assmann and related both to the problem of determining the categories of culture that became the first objects of philosophical reflection in the era of the Axial Age and to the issues of the modern crisis of the ideology of globalism and multiculturalism. Using the example of some categories of an archaic myth that have not lost their cultural and social relevance at present, the variability (...) of the genesis of philosophy in various civilizations of the epoch of the “Axial Age” is demonstrated - both those in which it arises as an independent form of worldview and those where this process stops at the stage of a highly speculative myth. Special attention is paid to the cultural and social aspects of memory and recollection of the past as forms of spiritual “resistance” to external cultural influences and the preservation of religious and ethnic identity, which is equally relevant both during the genesis of philosophy and in modern post-industrial society during the crisis of globalist ideology and the philosophy of multiculturalism. (shrink)

What was once the factory is now the university. As deindustrialization spreads and the working class is decentralized, new means of social resistance and political activism need to be sought in what may be the last places where they are possible: the university and the art world. Gerald Raunig's new book analyzes the potential that cognitive and creative labor has in these two arenas to resist the new regimes of domination imposed by cognitive capitalism. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze's concept of (...) "modulation" as the market-driven imperative for the constant transformation and reinvention of subjectivity, in Factories of Knowledge, Industries of Creativity, Raunig charts alternative horizons for resistance. Looking at recent social struggles including the university strikes in Europe, the Spanish ¡Democracia real YA! organization, the Arab revolts, and the Occupy movement, Raunig argues for a reassessment of the importance of cultural and knowledge production. The central role of the university, he asserts, is not as a factory of knowledge but as a place of creative disobedience. (shrink)

This paper introduces the basic principle and application process of simulated annealing algorithm and improves the simulated annealing algorithm so that it can converge faster to get the new parameters of cultural and creative product design and make it more in line with the reality of engineering optimization. In the cultural creative industry, it is necessary to use the creatorʼs creativity and technology to derive and develop the original cultural resources with the help of various materialization means, to refine the (...) abstract and profound contents of cultural resources to make them more visualized, and to produce products with both spiritual and economic values through the multiple development and utilization of their intellectual property contents. By studying the feasibility analysis of the cultural and creative design, the design positioning of the cultural and creative products is determined. In this article, we use the simulated annealing method to simulate and analyse the condition values in the design process of cultural creative products. As the Internet era progresses, people have more diversified requirements for cultural and creative products, and they need to have innovative ideas to follow the trend, so the design of cultural and creative products can spread culture through different design expressions and media. As one of the important pillar industries for future development, cultural and creative products are characterized by a wide range of styles and practicality, which meet the aesthetic needs and fashion trends of modern people. (shrink)

The debate over the influence of American culture upon Europe and the rest of the world is hardly new. Discussions about the cultural effects of video recorders, satellite broadcasting, cable television and their likely content are only the latest episode in a long-running drama in which the young and aggressive culture of America bludgeons the elderly culture of old Europe (or correspondingly overruns and wipes out the quaint but ill-armed ethnic cultures of the less-developed world, dragging the (...) natives from coconuts to Coca-Cola in a generation of identity crisis). But though there has been much written about some aspects of this issue, and most non-Americans who have come into contact with American culture have some awareness of its dimensions, there is also much which remains unclear, and ill- or misunderstood. In this essay two aspects of this large and complex problem will be examined. Firstly, the problem of how the “Americanisation of world culture” has been understood until now will be outlined, by looking at its background in the mass culture critique of the 19th and 20th centuries, with some current notions of what American culture is, and some accounts of how it has been internationalized. My aim in this first section is in particular to try to isolate “American culture” from commercial and industrial culture more generally, for a conflation of these phenomena is widespread and very misleading. Secondly, a normative argument will be outlined from the premises that a “superculture” is indeed developing and that, though it is less threatening than many suspect, it requires a vital measure of resistance if many valuable elements of human experience are not to be relegated to anthropology museums. The central value which will be defended here, however, is not “Europeanism” or “Americanism”, but rather the central liberal virtue of diversity, of which cultural expression is an extremely important form. My attempt to develop a politics of cultural protectionism, then, represents a wish to surpass simplistic rejections of American culture and to come to terms with the confrontation of culture with industrial society itself. This involves going beyond the traditional discussion of culture in one country, however, and trying to extend the mass culture debate to the international arena, where the present debate on this problem is far more complex but often less sophisticated. (shrink)

We assess the organizational culture in the finance industry in relation to the global financial crisis and consider the potential of cultural change to improve the financial sector. To avoid biases, we build on the person–organization fit literature and develop a novel, indirect method for assessing organizational culture that revolves around relationships between employees’ personal traits and their career success in the industry or organization under study. We analyze personal values concerning the pursuit of private gain versus personal (...) values concerning caring for others and consider whether employees that value self-enhancement more and self-transcendence less enjoy more career success relative to their peers when working in finance than when working in other industries. Results do not reveal any sort of cross-industry differences that would implicate the finance industry’s culture in the financial crisis. Instead, we find the opposite, namely that strong self-enhancement values and weak self-transcendence values go together with less career success in the finance industry compared to other industries. Hence, if anything, the culture in the finance industry does not seem to resonate well with professionals that seek to pursue personal gain at the expense of clients’ welfare. Implication is that cultural change has little potential to improve the financial system. Meanwhile, the method for assessing organizational culture indirectly by analyzing relationships between employees’ traits and their career outcomes has wider applicability, particularly when relying on scores or measures obtained directly from the people concerned is likely to render biased evidence. (shrink)

The truth potential of art is realized not only by great art (of educated elites) but also by the cultural industry that has become the art of the masses. Great art and cultural industry do not only contradict one another but often interpenetrate and overlap subversively. Especially in critical periods of crisis (and revolution) great art and cultural industry go together with political action. However, in more counterrevolutionary periods as nowadays post-truth democracy, Adorno's gloomiest interpretation of the cultural industry becomes (...) topical again. (shrink)

In recent years, several remarkable results have shown that certain theorems of finite combinatorics are unprovable in certain logical systems. These developments have been instrumental in stimulating research in both areas, with the interface between logic and combinatorics being especially important because of its relation to crucial issues in the foundations of mathematics which were raised by the work of Kurt Godel. Because of the diversity of the lines of research that have begun to shed light on these issues, there (...) was a need for a comprehensive overview which would tie the lines together. This volume fills that need by presenting a balanced mixture of high quality expository and research articles that were presented at the August 1985 AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference, held at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California.With an introductory survey to put the works into an appropriate context, the collection consists of papers dealing with various aspects of 'unprovable theorems and fast-growing functions'. Among the topics addressed are: ordinal notations, the dynamical systems approach to Ramsey theory, Hindman's finite sums theorem and related ultrafilters, well quasiordering theory, uncountable combinatorics, nonstandard models of set theory, and a length-of-proof analysis of Godel's incompleteness theorem. Many of the articles bring the reader to the frontiers of research in this area, and most assume familiarity with combinatorics and/or mathematical logic only at the senior undergraduate or first-year graduate level. (shrink)

Adorno and Horkheimer critically develop the concept of the “culture industry” in the third chapter of Dialectic of Enlightenment. The treatment there has some right to be considered one of the core texts in Critical Theory's philosophy of art. This essay discusses the main claims and arguments of that work, as well as earlier essays in Adorno's music theory and later essays that turn to film aesthetics. Attention focuses on illuminating the basis for Adorno and Horkheimer's views on the (...) culture industry in light of their social ontology and epistemology, their account of aesthetic form, and their conception of commodity as style. (shrink)

We assess the organizational culture in the finance industry in relation to the global financial crisis and consider the potential of cultural change to improve the financial sector. To avoid biases, we build on the person–organization fit literature and develop a novel, indirect method for assessing organizational culture that revolves around relationships between employees’ personal traits and their career success in the industry or organization under study. We analyze personal values concerning the pursuit of private gain versus personal (...) values concerning caring for others and consider whether employees that value self-enhancement more and self-transcendence less enjoy more career success relative to their peers when working in finance than when working in other industries. Results do not reveal any sort of cross-industry differences that would implicate the finance industry’s culture in the financial crisis. Instead, we find the opposite, namely that strong self-enhancement values and weak self-transcendence values go together with less career success in the finance industry compared to other industries. Hence, if anything, the culture in the finance industry does not seem to resonate well with professionals that seek to pursue personal gain at the expense of clients’ welfare. Implication is that cultural change has little potential to improve the financial system. Meanwhile, the method for assessing organizational culture indirectly by analyzing relationships between employees’ traits and their career outcomes has wider applicability, particularly when relying on scores or measures obtained directly from the people concerned is likely to render biased evidence. (shrink)

As more and more historians acknowledge the central signifcance of science and technology with that of modern society, the need for a good, general history of the achievements of the Scientific Revolution has grown. Scientific Culture and The Making of the Industrial West seeks to explain this historical process by looking at how and why scientific knowledge became such an integral part of the culture of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and how this in turn lead (...) to the Industrial Revolution. This comparative study not only looks at England, and its success, but follows through with the history of France, the Netherlands, and Germany. (shrink)

The implementation of the rural revitalization strategy can effectively inherit the excellent traditional Chinese culture and facilitate the comprehensive development of the cultural industry. At present, China is promoting the transformation and upgrading of its industrial structure. The criterion for measuring the “cultural soft power” of a country or region is the competitiveness of its cultural industry. The cultural industry has grown rapidly in recent years, and the overall economic benefits of the industry have also improved, effectively alleviating the (...) employment pressure across the country. However, there are still many problems. How to accurately measure the level of competitiveness of the regional cultural industry and enhance its competitiveness is the first problem in the development of the cultural industry. It finds out the main factors that affect the competitiveness of the cultural industry in the context of rural revitalization strategy using the relevant theories of cultural industry and industrial competitiveness. Besides, the evaluation index system of cultural industry competitiveness is constructed from the perspective of the system. The projection pursuit model and data envelopment analysis model are established based on the genetic algorithm. The model is used to carry out empirical research on the competitiveness level of cultural industry in a region, and conclusions are drawn. The average projected value of the base competitiveness in the region exceeds 0.8. The average projected value of dominant competitiveness exceeds 0.7. The average projected value of potential competitiveness exceeds 1.1. This research proposes corresponding suggestions for the problems in the current growth of the cultural industry in this region through the competitiveness of this region and the level of other areas. This study can also provide some help for the in-depth study of the Chinese cultural industry. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo toma como punto de partida al concepto de industria cultural desde sus principales exponentes, para exponer sus usos actuales. Este nació como concepto filosófico como parte de la obra de los autores representantes de la llamada Escuela de Frankfurt, Theodor Adorno y Max Horkheimer, con valiosos aportes de Walter Benjamin. En la actualidad ha mutado su definición, siendo utilizado de manera instrumentalpor parte del Estado y organismos internacionales, para definir al grupo de sectores de producción cultural y (...) simbólica de acuerdo a sus parámetros económicos. En este sentido, desde aquél concepto de industria cultural de los años cuarenta podremos ver que hay un recorrido en el cual se van transformando las posturas acerca de lo que el arte y la cultura posibilitan. La función social del arte va escondiéndose detrás de su inmersión cada vez más visible dentro de la producción mercantil, si bien en los últimos años la cultura aparece como motor de desarrollo económico e identitario. Esta transición será ilustrada con el caso argentino, dando cuenta de los cambios en el sector. The following article takes as its starting point the concept of Culture Industry from its leading exponents, and exposes its current uses. The Culture Industry began like a philosophical concept, as part of the work of the Frankfurt School authors, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, with contributions of Walter Benjamin. Nowadays, this concept definition has mutated, being used instrumentally by the state and international organizations, to define the cultural and symbolic production according to economic parameters. In this sense, paying attention to that idea of Culture Industry, we can see that there is a path in which the possibilities of meanings of art and culture are changing. The social function of art is subordinating behind the commodity production, although in recent years the culture appears as an engine of economic development and identity. This transition will be illustrated accounting for changes in the sector in the case of Argentina. (shrink)

A critical retrospective of 'The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Addresses' sheds new light on an often underplayed tension in Adorno's thought concerning the capacity of mass culture to express resistance against domination. In 'Thomas' Adorno moved beyond denouncing mass culture as 'culture industry' by approach ing early Christian right radio in a manner consistent (initially) with his defense of the autonomous dimension of culture in general. At the same time, 'Thomas' accomplished groundwork for (...) the culture industry theory, and this theory ultimately guided the study's conclusions. This critique confirms Adorno's ambivalence regarding the negative capabilities of mass culture while suggesting a new way to analyze the contemporary Christian right. This approach, which I illustrate, draws upon both the culture industry theory and a modified version of Adorno's method of immanent, dialectical criticism to identify ideological elements as well as moments of resistance in Christian right radio today. (shrink)

Our article aims to analyze the different stages of the Fang culture, particularly the one of Equatorial Guinea in order to know the current situation of the aforementioned culture. It should be said that the Fang is a social group, an ethnic group that belongs to the Bantu trunk. These Fangs developed their culture from an original perspective; that is to say in a raw state before they made contact with Westerners. Culture is a concept that (...) has gone through many studies, hence it has a variety of definitions. According to the dictionary of the Spanish language of the Royal Academy, culture is the set of ways of life and customs, knowledge and degree of artistic, scientific, industrial development, in a time, of a social group. It is estimated that the term culture carries with it what is identity, and precisely a culture’s identity. Thus, no culture can develop outside a society. With respect to our reference, which is the Fang culture of Equatorial Guinea, it can be said that a cultural profile has been developed and it is measured through cultural elements and manifestations such as dances, beliefs, art, religion, language, myths, funeral rites, etc. they all constitute a rich knowledge from a raw state. Thanks to this research we are going to look chronologically at the stages of the said culture from its original stage reaching colonization to the end with decolonization. The impact that Western culture has had on Fang culture is analyzed from another angle. In accordance with the general objective that consists of studying the Fang culture. Well, it can be seen that the contact with Western culture has greatly adulterated the Fang culture, and today, with the processes of globalization, it is fading even more. As it is a research that addresses a sociocultural issue such as the current situation of the fang culture, we have found it necessary to adopt a qualitative methodology. Well, the reasons that have led us to take this methodology are due to the fact that said methodology consists of the study of social relations. (shrink)

Against the background of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the question of an effective cultural policy that would support national identity, contribute to the purification of consciousness from propaganda myths and preserve the heritage of Ukrainian culture is becoming more acute. Since cultural policy is related to both aesthetic-artistic and cultural-anthropological dimensions of social life, in order to identify the effective influence of cultural policy on dominant social practices, it is necessary to find out the universal principles of its (...) functioning. The purpose of this article is to identify the relevant philosophical and methodological basis of cultural policy for modern Ukrainian realities. Based on the fundamental ideas of Richard Rorty’s pragmatic philosophy and his analysis of cultural policies, the generally accepted nature of the inferential approach to social reality on the part of individual social groups was ascertained. The variability of cultural policy depending on the type of social organization community/society is demonstrated. In small social groups of the authoritarian type, social epistemological authority is mediated by the individual preferences of the leader of this group, so the tools of cultural policy are weak (patriarchal family, religious or political sect). An authoritarian or totalitarian mass society shows a high propensity for linguistic practices of propaganda, which can be seen as an extreme distorted form of cultural politics. In democratic societies, cultural policy is able to harmonize social life, improving its practices and building a value-symbolic world that constitutes culture in a broad sense. The social institute of education has all the tools, including digital ones, to shape the necessary social practices and educate a critical thinker who is able to generate conceptual knowledge, i.e. see relationships and be aware. Openness in decision-making, interaction of expert groups, public discussions are necessary elements for an effective cultural policy, which should be different from “cultural management”. Creative cultural industries play an important role in modern popular culture societies, and these industries significantly strengthen the economic component of social life. Public projects and initiatives effectively help to preserve Ukrainian culture, influence the level of awareness of Ukrainians and the economic well-being of our country. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe purpose of this essay is revisionist on two counts: first, that the American colonies and early United States republic kept pace with Great Britain in reaching a relatively advanced stage of industrialization by the early nineteenth century and second, that the Middle Atlantic States shared equally with New England the innovative role in creating America's industrial revolution. In both cases the industrial leaders achieved their preeminence by different routes. By concentrating on the importance of the sources of (...) machine power as the defining characteristic of industrialism, scholars have overlooked alternative paths to industrial change. In Britain steam power and the textile industry were the foundations of an industrial revolution. But in American colonies the use of water power and the growth of industries such as woodworking and building led to an equally revolutionary change in the production of machine-made products. Benign geography in colonial America provided abundant wood and water power and an excellent transportation system based on navigable rivers and a hospitable coastline. But the crucial factors were cultural: the compelling urge to do things with less human work, the open reception to new immigration, a younger and more venturesome population, a favorable legal and fiscal environment for enterpreneurs. In the American context the tendency of scholars to emphasize the leadership of New England was largely a result of the greater local availability of manufacturing records. But recent research has demonstrated that Philadelphia, the largest port of entry in the eighteenth century, was quite naturally a center of innovation in construction materials, woodworking machinery and shipbuilding to meet the needs of the expanding agricultural hinterland and the coastal trade. In sum, the values of an expanding, youthful, skilled population replenished by fresh and venturesome sources from abroad helped shape cultural values that were particularly favorable in the geographic environment of North America for alternative paths of rapid industrial growth. (shrink)

The article is focused on the investigation of the impact the corporate culture makes on industrial enterprise development. It demonstrates that the formation of the corporate culture principles contributes to raising the level of staff involvement, its labor activity performance, maintaining and reproduction of human capital assets of an enterprise. Investments in the development of corporate culture are considered as an alternative to traditional methods of increasing the efficiency of an enterprise in an uncertain economic environment. Corporate (...) culture development, which involves a commitment to raising the level of knowledge, innovativeness and organization, has a positive effect on the performance and efficiency of the entire company, and aids in the regulation of internal labor relations, preventing potential critical situations. The introduction and development of corporate culture, which includes a certain system of values and behaviors, in modern domestic industrial enterprises is becoming a necessity. The application of the principles and values of corporate culture leads to the long-term success of an industrial enterprise. (shrink)

In most social species, position in the male social hierarchy and reproductive success are positively correlated; in humans, however, this relationship is less clear, with studies of traditional societies yielding mixed results. In the most economically advanced human populations, the adaptiveness of status vanishes altogether; social status and fertility are uncorrelated. These findings have been interpreted to suggest that evolutionary principles may not be appropriate for the explanation of human behavior, especially in modern environments. The present study tests the adaptiveness (...) of social status with actual mating and reproductive data in a representative sample of males from an industrial society. Reproductive success, even when assessed by a more reliable measure ofactualmale fertility than the one commonly used, fails to correlate with social status. In striking contrast, however, status is found to be highly correlated withpotentialfertility, as estimated from copulation frequency. Status thus accounts for as much as 62% of the variance in thisproximatecomponent of fitness. This pattern is remarkably similar to what is found in many traditional societies and would result in a substantial positive relationship between cultural and reproductive success in industrial populations were it not for the novel conditions imposed by contraception and monogamy. Various underlying mechanisms are suggested for these findings, illustrating the value of current behavioral and reproductive data in the study of adaptation. It is concluded that evolutionary explanations of human behavior remain entirely relevant in modern societies. (shrink)

Often overlooked is the fact that postmodern theory brought to the fore a crisis in the humanities. The implied universalism of the current “iconic turn” in postmodern thinking is a blow to the traditional sciences grouped around national literatures and cultures. In the 1980's, postmodern practitioners in the United States began to assault the discursive practices of the mainstream under the banner of cultural studies. The current crisis in the humanities surfaced in the emancipation of the various studies from their (...) traditional fields in the humanities. The German Studies practiced today in the United States for instance, has no counterpart in Germany's traditional departments of Deutsche Philologie. Whereas the icon in the United States has become an object of investigation for the various studies, it has not yet displaced the littera in Germany's literary sciences. However in the 1990's, the historical sciences in Germany responded to the challenge of the various studies by directing their attention not to cultural studies, but to cultural history, with its well-defined set of methodologies. But what kind of cultural history is it? Is it built on 19th century German foundations, or is it grafted to current North American notions of post-industrial culture? In this paper I show that the supposed opposition between cultural studies and cultural history is artificial. Through a close reading of Hayden White's extremist questioning of historical practice in Metahistory (1973), I demonstrate that there is no opposition between the icon and the littera in this recent radical critique of mainstream humanistic science. The vehement German reaction to his North American assault on European Kultur is based on a misunderstanding of White's premises. Rather than being constructed on a hodgepodge of postmodern approaches, I show that White's postmodern history is in fact conventionally grounded in 19th century Nietzschean thinking. 1 Hans-Peter Söder, Junior Year in Munich Program (Wayne State University). (shrink)

An anthropological approach to the place of culture in the process of man’s humanization will be discussed: what are the benefits of the modern age development and which problems arise in postindustrial and still technological civilization? What has been changed as far as the fundamental role of culture in the human world is concerned: a) when culture has become an industrial product in term of “mass culture”; and b) under the influence of a postmodern relativism ? (...) The consequences of these changes are to be analyzed from the point of view of substantial human potentialities as creativity and imagination, frames of references regarding meaning of life, multidimensional nature of human character structure, freedom of personality vs. vulgarized individualism, etc. The concluding question states: whether culture has become submitted to the economism or to politics, instead of being their fundation? (shrink)

This paper deals with current problems of innovation in manufacturing industries. The shortcomings are analysed as contradictions within the conventional modernity. The main characteristic that makes the transition from modernity to reflexive modernity in an era of not intentional side effects is the omnipresent increase of uncertainties at various societal levels. Furthermore, the emerging need for culturally appropriate regionalized products contributes to the need for a reconsideration of innovation assumptions and goals, which will end up with a reflexive innovation of (...) innovation. Finally, the innovation of innovation is embedded in the concept of culture of manufacturing, which provides a framework for assessing the prospects of trans-disciplinary collaboration between engineers and social scientists. (shrink)

In this article, Strandberg analyses the development of Swedish cultural policy during the last decades. In contradistinction to the first policy proposition from 1974, which emphasised the importance of counteracting the negative impact of the market, the cultural policies that have been in place for the last twenty to thirty years consider the forces of the market to be conducive to the freedom of culture and the arts. This has entailed a paradigm shift in Swedish culture that has (...) opened up the field of cultural policy for the so-called creative industries, equated culture with creativity, and collapsed the distinction between culture and creative forms of entrepreneurship. When analysing this, Strandberg relates the modern history of Swedish cultural policy to the wider international development that has given rise to the paradigm of the creative industries and discusses how the equation of culture with creativity has made the autonomy of culture and the arts more and more difficult to uphold. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Journal of Ancient History Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 280-303.

This article explores the concept of cultural competence and its relevance as an organizational resource in ethical disputes. Empirically, we aim to reveal the cultural competences that a global forest industry company, StoraEnso, and a global environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO), Greenpeace, utilized in forestry conflicts during 1985–2001. Our study is based on data which were collected from corporate and NGO communication outlets and which have gone through a detailed discourse-semiotic analysis. Our reinterpretation of the discourses identified three cultural competences: (1) (...) the ability to understand changing consumer preferences and values, (2) the ability to utilize culturally determined positions of expertise, and (3) the ability to maintain trust and credibility in the community through open communicative practices. We argue that these competences are relevant in industry–NGO disputes for both parties. However, maintaining them all simultaneously is a difficult task, since various discourses which aim at upholding them can sometimes have contradictory effects. (shrink)

Since World War II the concept of Information has received several new definitions. Information can be understood as knowledge in general, as theoretical, formalized knowledge in general or as knowledge related to specific domains or specific representational forms. Because of these mutually inconsistent concepts the common traits are to be found in a perspective transcendent to those theories. The central cultural changes, it is argued, take place on the level of the societal knowledge infrastructure, evolving from the knowledge infrastructure of (...) the industrial societies as a long-term secularization process, resulting in new forms for representation and manipulation of knowledge. The process is seen as rooted in changes of the primary domains for knowledge extraction and in a change in the human relations to the languages in which we interpret the relations to nature. (shrink)

This paper discusses the social effects resulting from the transfer of knowledge and skill both in the spheres of production and machine design. Relevant design determinants and their impact on technological developments are discussed within the theoretical framework of industrial cultures. Two types of skill transfer are analysed in connection with different production philosophies — one more Tayloristic, the other more workshop-oriented. Finally, the paper discusses the relation of both philosophies to the requirements of future production concepts.

The influence of cultural industry competitiveness on economic growth is analyzed by using grey relational degree method. Then, the influence of cultural industry on the three industries is analyzed and compared in the same way. On this basis, further from the cultural industry, the impacts of core layer, outer layer, and related layer on economic growth were compared and analyzed. Finally, the economic growth model is used to measure the impact of investment, labor, and innovation in cultural industry on economic (...) growth. The results show that cultural industry has a great influence on economic growth. The cultural industry has an obvious driving effect on the tertiary industry. The correlative layer of cultural industry has the greatest influence on economic growth. Cultural industry innovation has a huge pulling effect on economic growth. The SPSS software was used to process the data, and the data indicators were screened. Finally, the grey relational degree model was constructed. Then, the improved diamond model was used to select the influential factors of the development of cultural industry, and the main influencing factors were found out through the grey relational degree analysis. This paper analyzes the factors affecting economic benefits and puts forward countermeasures. The results show that it is of great significance to pay attention to the development of cultural manufacturing industry in cultural industry and promote cultural innovation to promote economic growth. (shrink)

There is growing consensus that we need a new paradigm if we are to solve the global problems that are the result of actions and policies stemming from prevailing paradigms or cognitive maps. Theories are cognitive maps. This article summarizes cultural transformation theory, which proposes that to solve our mounting global problems we need a clearer understanding of the self-organizing interaction of two basic movements in cultural evolution. The first consists of technological phase changes, including the most recent shift from (...) industrial to electronic, nuclear, and biochemical technologies. The second consists of shifts in a system's orientation to what, based on three decades of transdisciplinary research, the author identifies as the socio-economic, gender, and cultural configurations characteristic of the dominator and partnership models. The article calls for a reassessment of earlier theories as the basis for effective action to accelerate the shift to a world orienting to the partnership rather than dominator model as a basis for a sustainable, equitable, and peaceful future. (shrink)

This book is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture - Adorno's finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights ...

For those in the so‐called G‐7, G‐8, or G‐20, searching for the formula for economic takeoff, this is a book that deserves a reckoning. It explores the “role of culture,” which hitherto has had “no place in traditional economic explanations” of the history of industrial achievement. It is in the cultural and epistemological transformation of the eighteenth century that Margaret Jacob finds the foundation of industrial revolution. Jacob thereby dismisses the myth of the accidental genius or the inspired semiliterate (...) backyard tinkerer that has reinforced the notion that nothing can be done except by lives of singular initiative.By comparing the British most particularly with the Dutch and the French, Jacob argues it was precisely the utilitarian and egalitarian sentiments found in British scientific and philosophical societies that mattered most. Her theme is the much‐contested vision of the efficacy of natural knowledge and the assimilation of natural philosophy by the utilitarian world of the artisan and the entrepreneur. The advance of mechanical philosophy under Galileo and Descartes notwithstanding, it was during the English Revolution of the mid‐seventeenth century that natural philosophy was explicitly attached to a new social reformation and an inchoate democratic vision.Isaac Newton had nothing but derision for the vulgar “inferior horde of people” . Yet his disciples launched into careers as purveyors of his science in public lectures heavily weighted to mechanical explanation. Often viewed with suspicion elsewhere in Europe, in England such lecturers flourished. Even the engineer James Watt's French contact J. C. Perier, who desperately sought as many British secrets as possible, had initially learned his science from the lecturer abbé Nollet. An increasing awareness of the practical consequences of the new science was essential to the economic achievements of the late Enlightenment. This ultimately is a major thrust of Jacob's argument, for many early industrialists “were smarter than historians have allowed them to be” . Those who sought the new steam engines for their mines were perfectly well aware of the mechanical limitations and natural variables that might affect the success of their enterprise. Jacob is quite correct that “the Baconian vision lived on, eventually subsumed under the larger rubric of Newtonianism” . At the end of the century, the Napoleonic technocrat Jean‐Antoine Chaptal appears as representative of the case for applied science by promoting the Baconian unity of theory and practice.The most innovative part of Jacob's story is the attention she pays to the role of science in the attitudes of Midlands entrepreneurs like James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Both insisted on a scientific education for their sons, and Boulton recommended as much for the sons of foreign visitors to the Soho foundry. Both Watt and Boulton were particularly adept in the experimental laboratory, although they were also highly suspicious of the growing public technical interest and scientific curiosity that they feared might undermine their own patent monopoly. This suspicion grew out of their own deeper unease at the burgeoning democratic sympathies. Boulton and James Watt, senior, were extremely critical of radicalism—so we need not, therefore, draw any simple equation between industrial innovation and political reform. The currents of late eighteenth‐century Britain were far too complicated for that. Jacob, nonetheless, draws broad and interesting conclusions about the ways in which Continental cultural and political factors obstructed the spread of the very natural knowledge that gave the British such advantages. In her view, especially in this age of a “knowledge economy,” it might now do us well to remember the potential effects of “the widest dissemination of scientific knowledge” and “the democratization of learning” . In Jacob's version of the Industrial Revolution, the broadening and deepening of democracy followed the spread of natural learning beyond the uses of traditional elites. (shrink)

We explored the need for an ecosystem approach based on relational systems when conducting research on South Korea’s cultural industry. We used Mollard’s (2009. L’ingeniere culturelle. Paris: PUF) idea of the participants in the French cultural system as a key reference and extended it to the notion of the platform, which is the core concept of South Korea’s cultural industry ecosystem (CIE). We also utilized the idea of the “semiotic square of consumption values” from Floch to explicate each platform and (...) participant, which play a significant role in South Korea’s CIE. By defining a role rooted in the relationship and values for each subject (i.e., the production, consumption, authority, and intermediary subjects), we aimed to better understand the ecosystem of the cultural industry and focused on K-pop as a specific aspect of South Korea’s cultural sector by identifying the current identity of each participant. (shrink)

Digital communication now pervades all spheres of life, creating new possibilities for commodification: personal data and communication are the new resources of surplus value. This in turn brings about a totally new category of threats to privacy. With recourse to the culture industry critique of early critical theory, this article seeks to challenge basic theoretical assumptions held within a liberal account of privacy. It draws the attention to the entanglement of technical and socio-economic transformations and aims at elaborating an (...) alternative framing which takes into account that privacy is not in the first place a pre-political space for individual freedom but a constituted sphere in which social power relations are reproduced in a particularly deceitful way. With recourse to positions of critical theory, this article revisits the conceptual ambiguity of liberation and oppression and looks to draft prospects for a socio-theoretical justification and critique of privacy, updated for the digital age. Following the tradition of critical theory, the argument focuses on (new) forms of domination in and by privacy. It aims to prepare the ground for a critique of the social’s increasing commodification as well as an idea of privacy understood as reflexive participation in social practices. (shrink)

This study is based on the natural resource based view, which examines the impact of holistic marketing orientation on business performance by defining the role of enablers and mediators. The drivers, including corporate social responsibility and environmental culture influence, are tested by analyzing the role of sustainable competitive advantage as a mediator. The analysis is based on 298 samples collected from top and middle-level managers working in the pharmaceutical industry. Structural equation modeling was undertaken using Smart PLS 3.2.8. The (...) research outcomes reveal that corporate social responsibility and environmental culture have a substantial impact on green marketing orientation. The results show that GMO has a significant direct and indirect impact on business performance while a full mediation of sustainable competitive advantage exists between the green marketing orientation and business performance. The outcomes will facilitate managers in green marketing strategy and decision making in the long-term, with 3-fold benefits in addition to strengthening their competitiveness. (shrink)