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This chapter brings new knowledge on the effects of transformation in metropolitan and urban ruralities, as well as focus on social sustainability in these localities. The case study Sundom, Vaasa, Finland, highlights areas under pressure of transformation. ‘Metropolitan ruralities’ is used here as an umbrella concept, subdivided into metropolitan ruralities and smaller (non-metropolitan) urban ruralities. Qualitative and quantitative research methods are combined in a triangular study. An octagon figure (Fig. 4), including the main variables of the triangular study, is configured, to visualize different variables as a whole. The statistical material is more limited in urban ruralities – for example fewer property trades, less inhabitants and fewer voters – which make these case studies more vulnerable for the impact of extremes. The core of the chapter is to study how and if current global trends in metropolitan ruralities are visible in localities further down the urban scale. A stricter rural gentrification is expected in metropolitan ruralities than in urban ruralities, as the Sundom case exemplifies transformation with mild gentrification. Both metropolitan and urban ruralities are considered ‘breeding grounds’ for new rurban identities, with variations on an urban-rural scale. Metropolitan ruralities are expected to attract more exurbanite migrants, and urban ruralities attract more ‘exruralite’ migrants. This chapter also outlines some practical and social implications, argues for strengthening social sustainability in metropolitan ruralities and puts some much needed focus on transformation in metropolitan as well as non-metropolitan urban ruralities.

In this chapter, we consider the impact of an international service-learning experience on six final year pre-service teachers’ preparedness to be inclusive teachers in terms of Kiely’s (2004) “transforming forms” (p. 9). These forms are “political,” “intellectual,” “moral,” “cultural,” “personal,” and “spiritual.” The analysis of the six participants’ reflection logs completed on return to university, and interviews undertaken 12 months after the experience, revealed four categories (personal growth, relationships with others, wider societal views, and impact on teaching) that encompass movement toward these transforming forms. We begin the chapter by considering service-learning frameworks and theories, drawing out our understanding of Kiely’s (2004) “transforming forms” (pp. 9–11). Following this discussion, we provide an overview of our program and the six participants. We then analyze the data from participants’ reflection logs and interviews. From our analysis, we suggest that all six participants showed some movement toward one or more of the “transforming forms.” Finally, we draw conclusions about the usefulness of Kiely’s framework for planning and reflecting on an international service-learning experience to prepare pre-service teachers to be inclusive teachers. We conclude that keeping in mind Kiely’s “transforming forms” when planning, reflecting on, and evaluating an international service-learning experience can better prepare students to be inclusive teachers.

We contribute to the literature on institutional and organizational change by integrating two related areas of study: the theory and methods of analysis informed by the research on institutional logics and historical-event sequencing. Institutional logics provide the theory to understand how the content of culture influences organizational change; historical-event sequencing reveals the underlying patterns of cultural transformation. We apply this dual perspective to the cases of institutional stability and change in organizational governance in three industries: accounting, architecture, and higher-education publishing. Research on governance has focused on changes in organizational design between markets, hierarchies, and networks. Missing from this research is an understanding of how institutions at the wider societal level motivate organizations to adopt one of these governance forms over another. We examine how the governance of firms in these industries has been influenced by the institutional logics of the professions, the market, the state, and the corporation by focusing on three mechanisms – institutional entrepreneurs, structural overlap, and historical-event sequencing. Overall, our findings reveal how accounting was influenced by state regulation producing a punctuated equilibrium model, architecture by professional duality producing a cyclical model, and publishing by market rationalization producing an evolutionary model of institutional change in organizational governance.

The purpose of this chapter is to make sense of the cultural distance paradox through a basic assessment of the cross-cultural comparability of cultural distance measures. Cultural distance between a base country and partner countries is a key construct in international business (IB). However, we propose that what exactly is measured by cultural distance is unique for each country that is chosen as the base country to/from which cultural distance to a set of partner countries is calculated.

We use a mathematical argument to establish that cultural distance may correlate rather differently with the culture of partner countries depending on which base country one considers, for example, the United States or China. We then use empirical analysis to show the relevance of this argument, using Hofstede’s data on national culture for 69 countries.

Results show that cultural distance indeed has very different correlations with partner country culture, depending on which country one selects as the base country in one’s distance calculations.

Implication of our findings is that measured cultural distance is not equivalent across different base countries. The effect of cultural distance on such issues as foreign market entry mode or market selection, therefore, lacks international generalizability.

This chapter presents the first assessment of the cross-cultural comparability of cultural distance. Paradoxical findings that plague extant cultural distance research may be understood from the found lack of measurement equivalence.

Good working relationship between civilians and military has been one of the key priorities of French Politicians in the last decade. President Jacques Chirac has himself in a political speech in 1996 mentioned a professionalisation of the military corpus which has raised concerns of the future of French armed forces and led to the transformation of the relationship between the military and non-military sector. A good example of this cultural transformation could be noted in the creation of the so-called JAPD (Journée d’Appel à la Préparation de Défense) which is a one day event during which the French young population is given the opportunity to have an insight into the military environment.

In this chapter, we have focused on system processing through incoming data and big data and system analysis after data processing and clustering and then intelligent decision-making that can be driven and done entirely through an Internet of Thing (IoT), AI, BI and the future of fourth technologies, so this new and fast processing has direct effect in consumers choices. Based on the 5th wave and i-Sustainability Plus and DCT (Doost Cultural Theroy) theories, SME 5.0/Hybrid SMEs/Tomorrow's SMEs concept, seven pillars of sustainability (7PS) model, nine pillars of sustainable governance (9PSG) model, 3D soci-eco-environment SME model and the related theories, models and concepts which has been invented, introduced and developed by Hamid Doost Mohammadian 2010–2017, to name examples, a new idea of tomorrow's SMEs, the associated theories, models and concepts, it can be assumed that a thriving Industry 4.0 implementation can take place with this comprehensive tool and method kit. The next technical-technological level represents a barrier, whether in the 5th wave theory simply called ‘Industry 5.0’ or made hardly more tangible with artificial intelligence and hyper-networking. Hybrid forms of work, with known forms of online/offline communication, are expanded with communication interfaces that support people not involved but directly and indirectly affected.

Sociology of sport in the United Kingdom is as old as the subdiscipline itself but was uniquely shaped by the prominence of football hooliganism as a major social issue in the 1970s and 1980s. While it remains a somewhat niche activity, the field has been stimulated by the growing cultural centrality of sport in UK society. This quantitative and qualitative development has been recognized in recent governmental evaluations of research expertise. Current research reflects this expanded range of social stratification and social issues in sport both domestically and on a global level, while the legacy of hooligan research is evident in the continuing concentration on studies of association football. Historically, this empirical research has largely been underpinned by figurational, Marxist/neo-Marxist, or feminist sociological theories, but there is now a greater emphasis on theoretical synthesis and exploration. As a consequence of the expansion of the field, allied to its empirical and theoretical diversity, there is a burgeoning literature produced by UK sociologists of sport that spans entry-level textbooks, research monographs, and the editorship of a significant number of specialist journals. The chapter concludes by noting the future prospects of the sociology of sport in the United Kingdom in relation to teaching, research, and relations with other sport-related subdisciplines and the sociological mainstream.

During the great post–World War II economic expansion, modernization theorists held that the new American capitalism balanced mass production and mass consumption, meshed profitability with labor's interests, and ended class conflict. They thought that Keynesian policies insured a near full-employment, low-inflation, continuous growth economy. They viewed the United States as the “new lead society,” eliminating industrial capitalism's backward features and progressing toward modernity's penultimate “postindustrial” stage.⁷ Many Americans believed that the ideal of “consumer freedom,” forged early in the century, had been widely realized and epitomized American democracy's superiority to communism.⁸ However, critics held that the new capitalism did not solve all of classical capitalism's problems (e.g., poverty) and that much increased consumption generated new types of cultural and political problems. John Kenneth Galbraith argued that mainstream economists assumed that human nature dictates an unlimited “urgency of wants,” naturalizing ever increasing production and consumption and precluding the distinction of goods required to meet basic needs from those that stoke wasteful, destructive appetites. In his view, mainstream economists’ individualistic, acquisitive presuppositions crown consumers sovereign and obscure cultural forces, especially advertising, that generate and channel desire and elevate possessions and consumption into the prime measures of self-worth. Galbraith held that production's “paramount position” and related “imperatives of consumer demand” create dependence on economic growth and generate new imbalances and insecurities.⁹ Harsher critics held that the consumer culture blinded middle-class Americans to injustice, despotic bureaucracy, and drudge work (e.g., Mills, 1961; Marcuse, 1964). But even these radical critics implied that postwar capitalism unlocked the secret of sustained economic growth.

This chapter analyzes characteristics and changing patterns of marriage formation in Vietnam over the past 50 years, from various aspects including the motives underpinning marriage decision-making, the process of mate acquaintance, the criteria for mate selection, and marriage decision-making rights. The chapter is based on a review of data derived from the Vietnam Family Survey 2006 (MOCST et al., 2008) and the Vietnam Marriage Survey 2017 (Minh, 2021). It shows that the pattern of marriage formation in Vietnam has changed significantly in the past decades under the influence of various socio-economic and legal factors. Marriage is increasingly associated with the value of personal happiness. People today have many more opportunities to meet and get to know each other before marriage than older generations in the past. Adolescents spend more time getting to know their future spouse and have more options when choosing future partners before marriage. Marriage based on a partner’s individual qualities is preferred, gradually replacing mate selection based on family background. Parents’ power over their children’s marriage has decreased, while young people are becoming more and more independent in making decisions about their lives. In other words, today, it is the interests of the people involved in the marriage that matters, not only the interests of the family and kinship that determines marriages. However, despite these new marriage formation patterns, the belief that children’s marriage is an important affair for the whole family is still maintained. The general pattern is that there is a mix of personal factors and family circumstances regarding the marriage choices.