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In Flanders, the subventions in the cultural sector are mainly divided and decided upon within the framework of the Arts Decree. Within this policy framework, art organizations may choose in their funding applications for “participation” as one of the five possible functions to describe their artistic and cultural practices. However, questions need to be raised about the different interpretations of the notion of participation within this policy framework. The growing trend of evidence-based policy-making implies that participation risks to become a “target” that needs to be achieved instrumentally, which paradoxically ignores the fact that participatory practices within culture and the arts are very often diverse, multi-layered and context-specific practices. Starting from this paradox, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the current policy framework is translated into different “participatory” art practices by art organizations and specifically how cultural practitioners themselves conceptualize it.

In this paper, the authors discuss the results of a qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with cultural practitioners about how they grapple with the notion of participation within their organizations and practices.

The results clearly show that practitioners use micro-politics of resistance to deal with different, and often conflicting, conceptualizations of participation in relation to this cultural policy framework.

The implications of the findings are vital for the discussion about cultural policy. These micro-politics of resistance do not only have an impact on the development of individual participatory art practices but also on the broader participatory arts landscape and on how the function of participation is perceived within the renewed policy framework.

The original contribution of this paper is to explore the perspective of practitioners in cultural organizations about the function of participation in the Arts Decree in Flanders and specifically how the notion of participation is operationalized in their practices in relation to this cultural policy framework.

This manuscript focuses on theoretical past, present and future models for defining food culture and cuisine, comparing these principles with contemporary literature evidence of transformative global food practices during public health and environmental crisis. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explain the point at which traditional practices are discernible from the effects of modern technology, globalization, marketing and the virtualization of consumption. The paper explains how current local and global ecologies contribute to the retainment or disassembly of established culinary borders.

This is a theoretical paper that highlights seminal and present discourse on food cultural practices. Furthermore, it underlines the cultural changes during environmental crises and whether these cultural transformations in food practices will be lasting. The authors suggest a perspective model for the future.

Deciphering whether traditional foodways are moderated by modernity and environmental changes is very complex and multifactorial. This is likely nuanced by the availability of commodities and the steadfastness of particular cultures. Whether or not consumers embrace a new food product is likely contingent on their fundamental familiarity with and availability of the product's traditional components. The integrity of traditional foodstuffs will continue to be valued and demanded by broad groups of consumers into the foreseeable future.

As a primary objective, food producers, manufacturers and governments should not seek to actively diminish cultural borders and markets. Industry and governmental strategists should embrace and promote cultural food messages in any interventional strategies on household food security or marketing strategies and campaigns. The gathering of information from grassroot cultural groups about traditional food practices should ground the development of new policies and products.

Understanding the complexities surrounding traditional cuisines and food ways gives insight into the future of traditional food cultures and how they change. The food industry is undergoing profound transformation due to climate change; the decrease of arable land; environmental crisis, such as floods and droughts; war; food insecurity; aging populations; and chronic food-related diseases and disorders. Therefore, new food products are essential to adjust to these issues. However, the use and effectiveness of these foods would likely be enhanced if they were tailored with ingredients and techniques that have meaning to particular cultural groups.

Social connectivity, the shared experiences of eating together (and the contingent health benefits) may have been subject to contemporaneous or permanent change due to transformation in local and global food ecologies. Whether or not consumers embrace new food products may be contingent on their fundamental familiarity with its traditional components. The integrity of traditional foodstuffs is likely to continue to be valued and demanded by broad groups of consumers into the foreseeable future.

Seminal food culture theories are still being utilized in recent publications to explain contemporary practices, particularly in times of crisis such as the recent pandemic. Current scholarship has indicated, to degrees, that links to traditional food practices may be strong, evolving or are becoming more obscure as they are incorporated into a global fabric. There are gaps in the literature that necessitate more exportation of the impact of environmental changes and health crisis on cultural and traditional food practices. This further raises questions about how the formative theories on food culture apply to modern and future food practices.

The consumer acculturation literature argues that reconstituting familiar embodied practices from the culture of origin leads to a comforting sense of home for consumers who move from one cultural context to another. This paper aims to extend this thesis by examining further dimensions in migrant consumers’ experiences of home culture consumption.

This paper analyses data gathered through multi-modal depth interviews with Southeast Asian skilled migrants in New Zealand through the conceptual lens of embodiment.

Building on Dion et al.’s (2011) framework of ethnic embodiment, the analysis uncovers home culture consumption as multi-layered experiences of anchoring, de-stabilisation and estrangement, characterised by convergence and divergence between the embodied dimensions of being-in-the-world, being-in-the-world with others and remembering being-in-the-world.

This paper underscores home culture consumption in migration as an ambivalent embodied experience. Further research should investigate how other types of acculturating consumers experience and negotiate the changing meanings of home.

Marketers in migrant-receiving and migrant-sending cultural contexts should be sensitised to disjunctures in migrants’ embodied experience of consuming home and their role in heightening or mitigating these disjunctures.

This paper helps contribute to consumer acculturation theory in two ways. First, the authors show how migrants experience not only comfort and connection but also displacement, in practices of home culture consumption. Second, the authors show how migrant communities do not only encourage cultural maintenance and gatekeeping but also contribute to cultural identity de-stabilisation.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the cultural values – how things should be – and the cultural practices – how things are – of Angolan society. The authors expected to find: a gap between practices and values; high levels of power distance, institutional and in-group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, future and humane orientation; and low to medium levels of performance orientation, gender equality and assertiveness.

In all, 235 employees in Angola responded to a questionnaire using GLOBE’s cultural scales.

There is a gap between cultural practices and values. Within Angola, humane and performance orientations are the most valued cultural dimensions. Power distance and in-group collectivism are the most prevailing cultural practices. Compared to other countries, Angola has high levels of humane orientation, institutional collectivism and uncertainty avoidance values and high levels of assertiveness and performance orientation practices.

Higher than desired levels of assertiveness and power distance, on the one hand, and lower than desired levels of humane orientation and uncertainty avoidance on the other, are key aspects that should be taken into account by HRM in this context.

These results may have important implications for HRM in Angola. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first analysis of Angola’s culture from a business research perspective.

The primary purpose of this research paper is to understand the role of national cultural dimensions on “best” HRM (human resource management) practices in India. India is considered a major emerging economy in the world today. US multinationals are significantly increasing their presence in India. An understanding of “best” local HRM practices will help global practitioners adopt better HRM strategies.

This qualitative paper uses a multiple‐case design method of three “best” Indian companies. The interviews were tape‐recorded and transcribed to understand the interview material clearly. The cases were analyzed independently followed by a cross‐case synthesis of the results. Construct validity, internal reliability, and external validity were followed according to scholarly guidelines required for a quality case analysis.

This research identifies the role of national cultural dimensions of power distance, uncertainty‐avoidance, in‐group collectivism, and future‐orientation on “best” HRM practices. It was observed that these three organizations have a strong focus on employee referrals (collectivist orientation), elaborate training and development (future orientation), developmental performance management (collectivist orientation), egalitarian practices (power‐distance), and family friendly practices (collectivist orientation). The various HRM practices are elaborated in the results section.

This study provides preliminary guidelines for global practitioners who may be interested in doing business in India. The paper provides a model of “best” HRM practices adopted by these three companies and also a strategic model integrating the national cultural dimensions to understand the HRM practices better.

This qualitative research integrates national cultural dimensions and “best” practices to provide a better understanding of culture. Studies have not examined the role of national cultural dimensions and best practices per se. Traditionally most studies on culture adopt the national cultural dimensions of Hofstede's – this study uses the scores of the GLOBE cultural study which is considered contemporary and distinguished in its research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how accountability practices are affected and potentially transformed when mediated by translation. Adopting a postcolonial lens, the authors consider the ways in which translation functions and how intermediaries act as cultural translators in the context of microfinance.

The authors take a qualitative approach to a case study of a microfinance organization based in South Africa. Fieldwork allowed for the collection of data by means of direct observations, interviews, documents and a fieldwork diary.

The study demonstrates the presence of spaces of hybridity that co-exist within the same organizational context (Bhabha, 1994). Two spaces of hybridity are highlighted, in which translation processes were possible because of the proximity between borrowers and fieldworkers. The first space of hybridity was found locally and here translation shaped an accountability that aimed at leveraging local cultures and favoring cultural framing. The second space of hybridity was characterized by the interaction between oral and written cultures and the translation of responsibilities and expectations was predominantly unidirectional, prioritizing accountability practices consistent with organizational requirements.

This research offers in-depth insights into the links between intermediation, translation and accountability practices. It differs from prior research in considering intermediaries as active translators of accountability practices who act in-between cultures. The authors contend that the translation process reinscribes culture allowing dominant accountability practices to prevail and local cultural traditions to merely contextualize accountability practices.

This study aims to explore how professional–cultural knowledge is reciprocally shared between experienced expatriates and novice local nurses. To address this, the situated learning in practice lens is combined with social exchange lens.

An interpretive case study methodology enabled an exploratory approach into the knowledge-sharing practices between experienced expatriates and novice local nurses in Saudi Arabia.

Insights gained in the fieldwork suggest that professional–cultural knowledge sharing (KS) often occurred through three primary practices, namely, developing a professional–cultural meaning, forming clinical competency development opportunities and intervening in unfamiliar professional–cultural situations. In addition, two micro-level conditions shaped the reciprocity of professional–cultural KS practices between expatriate and local nurses, which were individual differences and situational conditions.

This study advances and improves the understanding of two intertwined but rarely studied aspects of knowledge-sharing practices. The exploratory lens sought and gained rich insights into the knowledge-sharing practices between experienced and novice individuals and expatriate and local individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to benchmark national culture in the context of decent work practices in project-based industry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This should help in achieving successful short-term migration. The study also aims to validate the decent work practice indicators for Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian and Pakistani construction labourers working in the UAE.

This study takes an ethnographic approach in its qualitative research methodology. The research involves observational methodology for its data collection during the execution of construction projects, semi-structured interviews to confirm the data collection during observational approach and a narrative methodology for the data collection within the labour camps, grassy fields and town streets. The qualitative data were expressed in quantitative terms to signify statistically the effect of the national culture in the context of decent work practices in this industry. Hence, the research involved triangulation in its data collection and analysis.

The study reveals that the national cultures of the migrant construction labourers in this context are not the same as identified by Geert Hofstede about four decades earlier. It was found that Indians were high in uncertainty avoidance, Pakistani construction labourers were high in masculinity, Bangladeshi construction labourers were low in long-term orientation (LTO) and individualism and Chinese labourers were found to have high individualism and LTO. This study verified decent work practice indicators for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi construction labourers and identified different decent work practice indicators for Chinese construction labourers in the UAE than Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi construction labourers.

The study was limited to the construction labourers in the UAE. The data were collected during observation while execution construction projects and limited to visiting construction labour camps, grassy fields and town streets.

The differences in the national culture of the migrant construction labourers and the decent construction practices in the UAE have economic, social and environmental implications for construction labourers in the Arab world, for both migrant sending and receiving countries. Understanding and managing various national cultures and improving prevalent decent work practices would help to improve economic and social condition of the migrant construction labourers and help to arrest the advance of looming health problems.

The study identifies the national cultures of the migrant construction labourers in the context of decent work practices in the UAE. Improvement in the decent work practices of the migrant sending countries and the UAE and understanding of the culture of the migrants will help in preparing effective migration policy by both migrant sending and receiving countries. No study was found to have identified national cultures in the context of decent work practices and assessed the need for improvement in this regard.

Despite the growing economic importance of Africa, the region has received scant attention in the international human resource management literature. The purpose of this paper is to address the gap in examining human resource management (HRM) practices in Western multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) subsidiary operations in Ghana, which is a significant foreign direct investment market in Africa. Focusing on recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, and rewards management viewed through the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework, the research emphasizes that effectiveness of the MNEs’ cross-cultural operations has necessitated embracing localization across a range of practices in accordance with the Ghanaian cultural landscape and specificities.

The paper draws on 37 in-depth interviews with managers and employees in eight subsidiaries of British, European and US MNEs in Ghana. Interviews were conducted in 2015 in three locations – the capital city Accra, Tema (in the south) and Tamale (in the north).

The research reinforces earlier literature emphasizing the importance of paternalism and family and to a lesser extent patronage, but presents new findings in highlighting the erstwhile unexplored role of local chiefs in influencing HRM practices in Western MNEs in Ghana. Utilizing the AMO framework, this paper highlights practices within each HR area that influences performance through impact on employee AMO.

The research informs MNE managers about the strategic importance of observing local cultural practices and designing appropriate strategies for ensuring both operational effectiveness and successful cross-cultural collaboration with local managers and employees in Ghana. It is suggested that if managers implement practices that foster and enhance employee AMO, subsidiaries may benefit from employee potential and discretionary judgment.

This paper contributes to a dearth of literature on HRM practices of Western MNEs’ subsidiaries in Africa by examining the extent to which MNEs strategically localize their practices to accommodate specificities of the host country cultural context and operate successfully.

This study aims to investigate accounting practices within a non-Western (Indigenous) context and provide insights into alternative accounting approaches and perspectives.

This study adopts an interpretive research approach to gain an in-depth insight into the functioning of accounting in Solomon Islands’ unique cultural and social-political context. In-depth interviews were conducted to gain insights into the perceptions and meanings held by participants concerning Western accounting practices and their limitations.

The findings provide unique insights into different interpretations of accounting and accountability through two distinct cultural lenses – Western and non-Western. The complementary and rival explanations on what accounting and accountability are doing and what accounting and accountability should be doing will help close the gap in knowledge and contribute to shaping a better world for Indigenous people.

Implications for practice involve fostering collaborative efforts among individuals, communities, leaders and institutions to harness cultural strengths through accounting. Additionally, continuous capacity building and education are essential to develop accounting skills, enhance financial literacy, promote professional expertise and build a pool of skilled accountants with local knowledge to support Indigenous communities.

This study is original and provides novel insights supporting the need for accounting to recognise the importance of Indigenous perspectives, adapt to cultural sensitivity and integrate cultural norms and values into accounting practices to make an impact and achieve greater social and moral accountability.