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Different forms of inter-organisational encounters, including joint ventures, alliances, mergers and acquisitions, have over the last decades become fashionable and much-sought means of globalisation. A continuous concern shared by managers involved in these different forms of inter-organisational encounters is the challenge of making them work in practice – their successful implementation and management. The cultural dimensions of these different kinds of inter-organisational encounters, particularly in cross-border contexts, have been deplored as being particularly difficult. This paper builds on prior research and aims to understand how the cultural dimensions of inter-organisational encounters have been approached by researchers on mergers and acquisitions on the one hand and researchers on alliances and joint ventures on the other hand. Based on a comparative literature review, the findings suggest that the two fields, despite their valuable contributions and the similarities in the phenomena they study, have remained surprisingly isolated from one another and would offer opportunities for cross-fertilisation. Through its theoretical contribution, the paper intends to offer insights to researchers in both streams of research.

Traditionally, organizational theory has been a receptacle of methods and mechanisms from network theory. In this paper, we argue that organizational theory can also be an active contributor to network theory’s conceptual development. To that end, we make explicit a theoretical strategy that has only been used informally by network theorists so far, which – following Vaughan (2002) – we refer to as analogical theorizing. Using the basic correspondence between dyadic relationships as the most minimal form of “organization,” we show that processes and mechanisms extracted from various theoretical strands of organizational theory can be mapped onto the dynamics of social relationships. This allows us to build novel theoretical insight as it pertains to issue of relationship emergence, maintenance, and decay in social networks.

The purpose of this study was to examine the learning experiences of high school Black males participating in an academy of engineering that was configured as a magnet school. We followed a qualitative case study design to explore the experiences of 16 Black male academies of engineering students. We identified three recurring themes from the interviews with the Black male academy of engineering students: Promoting Interests in STEM, Drawing Connections to Core Academic Concepts, and An Affinity for Hands-on Learning through the Engineering Curriculum. The results of our study helped us to better understand how academies provide a platform for Black male students' interest in engineering as a viable college and career pathway.

The colonial history of Australia has been a struggle between Indigenous peoples and the colonisers over Country. This is often represented as a struggle over land – it's control and use. Yet, for Indigenous people, land was never simply an economic commodity to be exploited. It was and is ‘Country’ in a deeper sense of the word, a fundamental part of Indigenous cosmology and a necessary foundation to a person's and group's ontology or being in the world. Country, then, can be conceptualised as both a physical and metaphysical domain. Indeed, both domains are inseparably intertwined. The struggle over Country remains core to understanding the social and political place of Indigenous people within Aboriginal law and within the criminal law and institutions of the coloniser. Further, this ongoing struggle goes to the heart of understanding why Indigenous people start their discussions on reform and change within the criminal justice system with a demand for recognition, negotiation and respect for Indigenous self-determination and a demand to see Indigenous people as colonised peoples.

In high-end interactive service work settings, asymmetries between workers and customers are typically reflected in the service interaction. Workers must carefully control their emotional and aesthetic displays towards customers by relying on protocol provided by management. Customers, in turn, need not reciprocate such acts. By contrast, this paper theorizes service interactions that, paradoxically, aim to narrow the social distance between those on either side of the counter. Drawing on ethnographic data from a higher-end Los Angeles restaurant, I introduce the concept of proximal service as performed relationships in which server and served engage in peer-like interactions in a commercial setting. I show how management structures this drama through hiring, training, and shopfloor policies, all of which encourage select workers to approach customers using informal, flexible, and peer-like performances. I close by discussing how a branded experience of service amongst equals relates to symbolic exclusion and social inequality, and suggest that proximal service may be on the rise within upscale, urban service establishments seeking to offer a more “authentic” consumption experience.

The role of everyday citizens in the production of knowledge has become central to the study of media sociology. This interest is fueled by the growth of information communication technologies that have made it easier for amateurs to produce and disseminate content. The world of book reviewing – an exemplar of a field transformed by digitalization – concerns about the rise of amateurs manifests in the grievance that, “Nowadays, everyone’s a critic.” This chapter empirically investigates this idea by asking: Who is qualified to be a reviewer? The chapter draws on in-depth interviews with review editors, critics, and bloggers who have successfully crossed over to publish in some of the most important outlets in the English-publishing field. Analysis reveals that openness is central to ideas of what qualifies someone to be a book reviewer and how reviewers subsequently get work. Openness, however, is an example of noncertifiable skills, which are ascertained primarily through informal methods such as turning toward one’s personal and professional networks for recommendations from peers or relying on personal face-to-face encounters. A practical consequence of this selection criterion is that only reviewers who are known to book review editors in this specific way (i.e., their tastes and esthetic openness) are eligible candidates for professional review assignments. In this way, the commitment to openness as a professional value among book reviewers actually operates as a mechanism of closing their occupational boundaries.

This paper presents the safety case for the consideration of cross-cultural factors in aviation by focusing on cultural interfaces, those situations where members of one culture encounter people or artifacts from other cultures. Global aviation is strongly influenced by the USA and Western Europe as the largest manufacturers and largest customers; hence almost all cultural interfaces are weighted in favor of the dominant users. The challenge for safety is not to ignore or eliminate these interfaces but to manage the potential threats they pose. To move forward, there is a role for those inside and outside the dominant model.

Since much of the design work for vessels and offshore installations occurs in countries other than where the vessel may operate or where the installation may be located, it is particularly important that the expected user be considered and accommodated through the design and operational phases of a project.

Within the framework of engineering design and marine operations, this chapter will discuss “soft” issues, such as organizational and line management decisions and personnel selection procedures, as well as “hardware” issues related to design of living and working environments. In particular, the chapter will address how culture should be considered while identifying “user” needs and requirements.