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Communicating the national values of artists and the role of product benefits as symbols of national values, infuse iconic national brands. This paper aims to validate a conceptual framework that offers empirical insights for cultural identity that drives brand management.

Case studies and cross-cultural focus group research establish the present study’s conceptual framework for cultural branding.

Brand awareness of a perfume named after a Cuban dancer and a spirit named for a Chilean poet, reflect authentic emblems of national identity. Informants’ behavior confirms the study’s model of icon myth transfer effect as a heuristic for cultural branding with clear, detailed and unprompted references to the myths and brands behind these heroines.

The study’s ethnography shows how artists reflect myth and folklore in iconic brands. Future research should assess whether the icon myth transfer effect as a heuristic for cultural branding occurs with cultural icons beyond the arts and transcends national boundaries.

The study challenges conventional branding, where the brand is the myth, and the myth reflects the myth market. The authors show how the myth connects to a national identity yet exists independently of the brand. The branding strategy ties the brand to the existing myth, an alternative route for cultural branding mediated by the icon myth transfer effect.

These two Latin American brands provide a much-needed connection among the branding literatures and images surrounding gender and nationalism in lesser-known markets.

Most research explores iconic myths, brands and folklore in one country. This study extends cultural branding through social history and by testing a conceptual model that establishes how myths embody nation-specific values. Iconic myths are a heuristic for understanding and describing brands, revealing an unexamined path for cultural branding.

This study analyses configurations of national culture as boundary conditions of countries’ national systems of innovation (NSI). Drawing from the NSI approach, we argue that culture’s role is that of a contingency factor shaping the relationship between investments in innovation and national innovation outputs.

We assessed the moderation effect of national culture through a systematic, two-stage approach using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), which allows the analysis of changes induced by the moderator variables. Analyses were conducted with a diverse sample of 61 countries over a period spanning 12 years, from 2011 to 2022.

Findings reveal that investments in innovation, but not individual cultural dimensions, is a necessary condition for high innovation outputs. Furthermore, several configurations of cultural dimensions were identified as moderators of the relationship between investments in innovation and innovation outputs.

This study provides insights into cross-national innovation research by exposing the role of cultural configurations, rather than just individual cultural dimensions, as boundary conditions involved in the achievement of high levels of innovation.

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.

The Department of Nationality Literatures of the Russian National Library (RNB) in Saint Petersburg is a unique repository of publications in diverse languages of the peoples of the former USSR. In the collections are works in the Latvian language not to be found in Riga, works in the Tatar language not to be found in Kazan, and so on. Over the course of many decades academic researchers from all over the world have worked with these collections. Following the breakup of the USSR, the relevance of new functions for the department become apparent. First, as the nationality communities in Saint Petersburg came to life, many people were drawn back to their own ethnic roots. The Department of Nationality Literatures serves, in its own way, as a national center for representatives of nationality communities. Second, the need to promote tolerance is important in Russia today. The Department brings into the public eye the cultural riches of diverse peoples and, in that way, promotes mutual understanding and tolerance. The results of a sociological study have been employed to determine the role of the Department in current changing sociocultural conditions.

International construction joint ventures (ICJVs) have been widely used as a temporary arrangement in many projects all over the world, especially in megaprojects. Within ICJVs, the national culture difference between partners affects their cooperation significantly. However, prior research has provided contradictory empirical evidence regarding these impacts. To address this problem, the purpose of this paper is to introduce cultural intelligence that judges an individual’s capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings as a moderating variable.

Multiple regression analysis and moderated multiple regression were undertaken to test proposed hypotheses. A questionnaire survey was conducted with international construction practitioners who had experiences of managing or participating in ICJVs.

The result of multiple regression analysis revealed that difference in national culture has significant negative effects on information exchange, shared problem solving and flexibility when asking for changes, thus effecting cooperation within ICJVs. Meanwhile, cultural intelligence of members can weaken these negative influences.

First, given that national culture difference affects negatively on the cooperation within ICJVs, it needs to be regarded as one of vital resources of risk which should be prevented and managed when attending ICJVs; Second, managers should build a series of mutually agreeable regulations and rules to lessen the negative effect of national culture difference; Third, it is recommended that ICJV management teams contain as many work-experienced members as possible and members within ICJVs, especially new staff, receive cross-cultural training termly to facilitate the cooperation between partners.

This research reveals the moderating effects of cultural intelligence on the relationship between national culture difference and cooperation in ICJVs as well as provides practical implications for ICJV managers to deal with national culture difference and reduce its negative impact on cooperation within ICJVs.

This paper presents research that sought to understand how the National Library of Australia engages with soft power in its Annual Report 2019–20. Driving the analysis was the research question: How is soft power discourse reproduced and enacted in the National Library of Australia's Annual Report 2019–20? The research recognises the significance of Australia's soft power, cultural diplomacy, and regional relationships to national interest in the context of a library's contributions to these areas.

The study employs a qualitative discourse analysis, with constructivist and interpretivist perspectives. A critical discourse analysis was undertaken that applied a discourse-historical approach.

The findings suggest that the National Library of Australia primarily engages with soft power discourse through the construction and preservation of an Australian national identity. National identity is framed as key to the Library's collection development, with Australian knowledge prioritised.

This study extends on research addressing the roles of galleries, archives, and museums in cultural diplomacy, but rarely examines soft power and libraries explicitly or in a contemporary context. It contributes to broader understandings of libraries in international relations and the role they can play in soft power attraction and cultural diplomacy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the predictive influence of national cultural models on national infrastructure development. The national culture models of Hofstede, GLOBE, Ronen and Shenkar, and the World and European Values Survey (WEVS), were measured and compared to ascertain the best prediction fit for national infrastructure development.

A literature review examined four established cultural models, most of which (with the exception of the WEVS) assert stable, holistic models of national culture for business applications. The argument for cultural divergence in key moderators and mediators such as infrastructure development was also discussed. Then each model's predictability was measured with set correlation methodology, using GDP and population as co‐variates. Also, the marginal influence of the other three cultural typologies were controlled for in each respective analysis.

Each model was found to have a positive significant prediction relationship with national culture infrastructure growth. The most promising model is the WEVS which explains a substantial proportion of the variance in national infrastructure. Additionally, WEVS has a higher predictive link to each infrastructure area than the other models. These results are preliminary and cross‐sectional, yet they suggest that dynamic cultural models may be the best predictors of infrastructure development.

The study shows that increased efforts by the private sector and government can rely on dynamic models to boost national GDPs, and give better strategic guidance to foreign financial investment and human resources management.

The paper supports the hypotheses that national culture models can “grow” GDP to a healthy level through prediction, assessment, and then taking necessary interventions.