On the strength of corporate cultures

We model corporate culture(s) as production technologies for which employees have to undertake culture-specific investments that improve their effectiveness. At a later date, the organization can adopt cultural changes that make this investment partially redundant. This leads to under-investment. However, as agents invest more, the organization's opportunity cost of a change increases, which in turn increases each agents' incentives to invest. This externality among agents leads to multiple equilibria. Otherwise similar organizations can thus exhibit either high investment levels and low probability of changes (strong culture) or low investment levels and high probability of changes (weak culture). We also explore some implications for the nature and management of corporate culture.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRIVATE BENEFITS IN FUNDRAISING OF LOCAL CHARITIES*

This article provides an empirical analysis of the role that private benefits play in explaining charitable donations to large cultural and environmental organizations. We develop a multiple discrete choice model with differentiated products. We estimate the model using a unique data set of donor lists for the 10 largest cultural and environmental charitable organizations in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. We find that some private benefits such as invitations to private dinner parties and special events are effective tools for fundraising. Our policy simulations suggests that the composition of private benefits has a potentially large impact on donor behavior.     

江西省特色农业产业集群形成与发展的文化生态机理

在促使江西省特色农业产业集群的形成与发展过程中,文化生态的作用非常重要。传统农业文化催生了江西省特色农产品农户种植群;在传统农业文化与现代商业文化的交融中,催生了各种形式的农村合作经济组织;作为社会网络根植性与社会资本的集群文化,降低了农户与农户、农户与企业之间的交易成本,同时增加了交易收益,从而使得集群产生巨大的协同效应。在特色农业产业集群的发展过程中,文化生态的内部结构优化、外联结构优化及纵向结构优化是集群发展的文化根源,并以江西泰和乌鸡产业集群为例进行了阐释。     

大遗址保护与区域经济和谐发展的途径:建立大遗址文化产业集群

在科学界定相关关键概念的基础上,对国内外相关研究成果进行了梳理和分析,获得的重要启示是:可以通过发展大遗址文化产业集群实现大遗址保护与区域经济和谐发展;依据产业集群理论,对发展大遗址文化产业集群的基本前提条件,集群的目标,集群模式选择的约束条件,主导型文化产业的确定,集群中各类组织的确定及功能定位,以及集群的基本结构模型进行了理论分析;最后指出,建立大遗址文化产业集群是一个相当复杂的过程,在这个过程中,政府规划引导、制定政策支持体系、加强公共基础设施建设等必须优先到位,才能引导其他组织有序进入和多组织和谐运作,这是大遗址区发展可持续性遗址文化产业集群的关键。     

Linking nursing unit's culture to organizational effectiveness: a measurement tool

Organizational culture consists of the deep underlying assumptions, beliefs, and values that are shared by members of the organization and typically operate unconsciously. The four organizational culture traits of the Denison Organizational Culture Model (DOCM) are characteristics of organizational effectiveness, which include adaptability, involvement, consistency, and mission. Effective organizations demonstrate high levels of the four cultural traits which reflect their ability to balance the dynamic tension between the need for stability and the need for flexibility within the organization. The Denison Organizational Culture Survey (DOCS) is a measurement tool that was founded on the theoretical framework of the DOCM, and in the field of business, is one of the most commonly used tools for measuring organizational culture. The DOCS offers a promising approach to operationalizing and measuring the link between organizational culture and organizational effectiveness in the context of nursing units.     

我国企业“和谐组织”内容结构的实证研究——从国家文化视角探讨易学和谐文化与企业管理

国家文化对跨国员工态度行为的重大影响是全球化时代管理学的重要议题。本文从组织行为学的国际视角与我国国家和谐文化的观点出发，以我国企业员工为研究对象，运用因素分析与结构方程模型，得到“和谐组织”八因素模型。其八个维度完全符合易学八卦象逻辑，表明我国员工的确深受中国易学文化的影响。本研究除验证了国家文化在组织行为学中的重要意义，有助于企业有效管理与整合跨文化的人力资源，也在一定程度上支持了Hofstede与Bond（1988）提出的儒家动力论（Confucian Dynamism）文化特征的意义与价值。     

Digitization of heritage collections as indicator of innovation

Heritage institutions house cultural and research content, which is the key source to stimulate soft innovation. Despite the potential, heritage collections are mostly inaccessible via digital mediums. We analyse the macro, meso and micro conditions of heritage organizations across Europe to identify the key determinants that foster soft innovation as reflected by the share of collection digitization and online publication. We find that organizations respond positively to an environment of high consumer digital literacy and sustainable resource allocation that enables slack, skilled staff and long-term strategic planning. Innovation is thus, in fact, enhanced by digital literacy from both producers and consumers.     

A fragmented patient safety concept: the structure and culture of safety management in health care

The uniform and visible commitment to safety management is a cultural and structural change that health care organizations have not typically attempted. Committee structures are just one example of how culture drives structure in managing health care safety. The question is: "Are we interested in making nonpatient safety programs as well understood and as culturally significant as patient safety programs?" Models exist to institutionalize safety management in health care. We need only look to the JCAHO or OSHA and other high-hazard industry models for examples of safety management. Change requires a focus on safety, not occupational safety or patient safety, but just safety. In health care, safety would be a key characteristic of organizational culture. The organizational expectation is then that all employees will work safely and practice safety. Employees will apply safe practices when handling chemicals, in lifting, and when giving medications. Only when safety imbues the work and decisions of each employee in this way will the highest level of safety be attained.     

Peers and Culture*

We analyze the evolution of culture when parents socialize children to the cultural variants that maximize child lifetime utility. Parents invest in cultural transmission by taking into account that children are also influenced by peers. We model the influence of peers by assuming that children observe different cultural variants in their peer group, assign merit to them and adopt one variant, following a probabilistic adoption rule. We show that cultural diversity is sustainable even if all parents strive to transmit the same variant. We also show that a parental demand for cultural pluralism does not guarantee cultural diversity.     

Jewish emancipation and schism: Economic development and religious change

This paper studies the impact of Jewish Emancipation and economic development on Jewish religious culture in 19th century Europe. In Germany, a liberal Reform movement developed in response to emancipation, while Ultra-Orthodox Judaism emerged in eastern Europe. We develop a historical narrative and model of religious organization that accounts for the polarized responses by Jewish communities. Our explanation is based on a tradeoff between time and money contributions. A religious organization chooses between a relatively affluent community that expends little effort on religious participation and a poorer community that devotes a large amount of time and effort to religious activity. Political and economic development shape this tradeoff in unexpected ways, leading to complex forms of behavior such as religious schisms and cycles. When preferences are transmitted intergenerationally, organizations tend to be more conservative. Our historical narrative points to further extensions of extant models of religion, as well as providing broader insights into cultural integration and religious change.     

乡村文化与乡村旅游开发

乡村文化是人类与乡村自然相互作用过程中所创造出来的所有事物和现象的总和,它具有自然性、生产性和脆弱性等特性。乡村文化对游客的旅游决策产生重要影响,并可满足人们的乡村旅游需求,是产生乡村旅游的动因。乡村旅游的本质是乡村文化,在乡村旅游开发中应注意强化浓郁的乡村文化意象,可采用文化观光型模式、文化体验型模式或文化综合型模式开发出乡村文化旅游系列产品。     

Culture and human capital in a two-sector endogenous growth model

Recent literature in the field of cultural economics highlights a possible inversion in the usual causality relation (from economic growth to culture) and points out that culture may represent an important driver of economic growth. By viewing culture in line with Throsby’s (2001) definition of cultural capital (i.e., an asset of tangible and intangible cultural expressions), in this article we analyze one possible channel through which culture may positively affect economic growth, namely the existence of a relationship of complementarity between cultural and human capital investments. Using a two-sector endogenous growth model, we find that in the long run a higher growth rate of real per-capita income can be attained the more cultural and human capital investments are complementary for each other in the process leading to agents’ skill acquisition. We also analyze the conditions under which an increase of the cultural capital share in total GDP can be conducive to a rise of real per-capita income.     

A corporation’s culture as an impetus for spinoffs and a driving force of industry evolution

We offer a theory of spinoffs that explains some salient aspects of these important market entrants. In infant industries, a great share of new market opportunities is depleted by firms that spinoff from incumbents. A model emphasizing the relation between incumbents’ evolving corporate cultures and the generation of spinoffs explains this regularity in industry evolution. By doing so, we capture different patterns in firm development that finally will help explain the evolutionary paths that industries may follow. We show that organizations reach a critical size that entails the collapse of a cooperative culture and triggers the exodus of personnel founding own firms. Thereby, organizations with a cooperative culture active in a dynamic business environment provide ideal training grounds for potential founders. Moreover, we argue that cooperative firm cultures and processes of “entrepreneurial imprinting” are important sources of spinoffs’ superior capabilities concerning their later market performance. We relate our findings to empirical evidence on developmental patterns in industries, such as genealogies and performance of spinoffs.     

关于农村文化产业品牌发展的若干思考——兼谈益阳农村文化产业发展

农村文明需要文化,而文化繁荣是公共文化与文化产业的共同繁荣。文化产业的发展离不开文化产业品牌。发展农村文化产业,打造文化产业品牌具有重要意义。而目前农村文化产业的发展刚刚起步,其产业品牌的打造和使用现状不容乐观。打造农村文化产业品牌,要注意把握策略。     

中国会计国际化的战略选择

经济全球化必然要求会计标准走向统一,全球会计准则正以势不可挡的速度向我们涌来,中国会计国际化的进程相对滞后.中国会计标准与国际会计标准之间还存在着系统的差异,差异对上市公司的财务信息披露形成了重大影响.中国资本市场的持续发展和对外开放、WTO的加入、国际贸易的日益扩大等,迫切需要采用全球化会计标准的支持.     

Breaking Up Old Marriages: The Political Process of Change and Continuity at Work

This article contends that political processes are essential dynamics in creating continuity and change in organizations. A central aim is to inform the debate on change in organizations by conceptualizing and exploring the interplay between actors' political rationales, organizational culture, and new management concepts. Attention is given to the introduction of technical-bureaucratic management concepts for Occupational Health and Safety and the environment through presenting a case study, where both managers' and shop-floor personnel's political behaviour can be examined. The findings illustrate how continuity rather than change often prevails through the existence of more stabilized patterns of politics. The establishment of shared systems of meaning, conceived as the social constitution of the company, is shown to be a central mechanism for the regulation of politics, explaining the selectivity of politics regarding issues, arenas, arguments and actors. In particular, the relative importance of shop-floor personnel's politicking is discussed, and it is shown how their way of politicking differs from the forms found in management. Consequently it is suggested, that studies of political processes, which seek to encompass these forms of politics would benefit from the insights gained in cultural studies.     

基于文化生态视角的影响评价制度探讨

面对文化生态危机和全球化背景下的外来文化渗透,参照环境影响评价模式,建立文化影响评价制度,从决策、规划、项目建设等多层面开展文化影响的预测和评估,有助于维护健康和谐的文化生态,最大限度地减少各方面活动对文化带来的消极影响。     

组织间的合作关系:基于嵌入关系的视角

本文在分析市场交换关系与嵌入关系不同特征的基础上,研究了关系性嵌入和结构性嵌入对于组织间合作的影响。研究表明：关系性嵌入影响组织间专业性信息的传递、组织间的互利、事后支持以及组织间的适应;而结构性嵌入通常会产生经济的外部性,并通过多次博弈、重复嵌入等方式使组织获得通过市场交换所不具备的优势。但是,如果组织间的关系嵌入过度则会导致关系从一种资产转变成了一种负担,并产生锁定效应。     

提升我国文化软实力：价值、条件与路径

文化软实力已经成为综合国力的重要组成部分,文化竞争也已经成为国际竞争的战略制高点。提升我国文化软实力的重要价值在于文化软实力越来越深刻地影响着我国在国际上的地位和形象;越来越深刻地改变着我国经济发展的结构和格局;越来越深刻地彰显着我国广大人民的精神世界。我国经济实力的快速增强、文化需求的快速增长、科学技术的突飞猛进为提升我国文化软实力提供了良好的条件。提升我国文化软实力,必须加强社会主义核心价值体系建设,增强我国文化的凝聚力;继承中华民族优秀传统文化,提高我国文化的吸引力;振兴文化产业,增强我国文化的竞争力。     

企业跨国经营中的文化冲突与融合

解决文化冲突是跨国经营企业管理的核心任务,本文简要分析了企业跨国经营中文化冲突产生的主要原因及其不利影响,认为解决跨国经营企业的文化冲突是要做到文化融合,并提出文化融合的两种主要方式:跨文化沟通与文化协同。