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This chapter focuses on the methodological implications of producing rich narrative data about higher education at the meso-level. While micro- and macro-level higher education studies often miss out on the nuances of the practices that happen in between, meso-level research straddles these levels, often bringing both ‘structuralist’ and ‘agentic’ tensions into interplay. The chapter highlights the importance of the academic ‘workgroup’ as a unit of analysis in understanding the interplay between the micro-level of individuals in academia and the macro-levels of the university and the higher education sector. The study investigated the practices of a ‘workgroup’ of academics who engaged in a common project over a period of three years. Researching how academics make meaning of their practices requires the use of alternative methodologies which are relatively under-utilised in higher education. The methodologies and iterative data production strategies used in the study are discussed in the chapter, including the processes of grounded open coding and segmentation of the data, as well as the levels of discourse analysis. Finally the chapter provides some reflections on the data analysis process, highlighting the challenges for data production when conducting a meso-level analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how dialogue can be used to promote post-acquisition socio-cultural integration. Specifically, it addresses questions regarding when and how companies can utilise dialogue to generate positivity regarding socio-cultural integration.

A single case study approach was adopted owing to its suitability for creating in-depth understanding in the context of socio-cultural integration. Primary data were collected via interviews, an employee satisfaction survey, and participant observation. Secondary data were obtained from the case company’s internal materials, such as strategies, integration workflows, and employee magazines. Analysis methods included descriptive statistics and thematic qualitative analysis.

The findings suggest that dialogue can be used to create positivity regarding socio-cultural integration throughout the stages of unfreezing, moving, and refreezing by actively engaging employees in voicing, listening, respecting, and suspending. It is proposed that cultural conflict during post-acquisition socio-cultural integration can be overcome through the generation of positivity; dialogue enables the collective management of emotions during post-acquisition integration by offering a platform for creating positivity and social cohesion; and due to its collaborative and engaging nature, dialogue provides an especially effective means of communication for overcoming cross-cultural conflict.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to showcase dialogue as a specific means of communication for creating positivity during cross-border socio-cultural integration. This study reached beyond comparative cultural research to offer views on positivity, emotion during socio-cultural integration, and dialogue as means for overcoming cross-cultural conflict.

This research sets out to assess the relevance and impact of interpersonal contact, in the form of multicultural experience, in the development of socio‐cultural adaptation for international students studying in their new country. The original contribution of this research is the application of a statistical methodology to this subject area in the Asia Pacific Basin.

The data analysis consisted of quantitative, longitudinal and cross‐sectional studies, from a sample consisting of students studying an international business degree, in the categories of living in national home culture or out of national home culture. Longitudinally, 88 students were sampled at the beginning of the semester and four months later. The cross‐sectional study of 380 students, over three years, was for students in these same categories, on the Australian and Malaysian campuses.

The analysis identified that socio‐cultural adaptation statistically demonstrates an initial negative relationship with multicultural experience, but develops beyond this period with a positive increase and relationship at the end of three years. There were no significant differences for socio‐cultural adaptation and multicultural experience between students studying in or out of their national home culture.

The results statistically demonstrated a continuous increase of multicultural experience but also a U curve shape of socio‐cultural adaptation, thereby confirming previous qualitative research on the culture shock phenomena.

This is the only statistical research to date on the U curve phenomena in the Asia Pacific Basin.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between factors of socio-cultural contexts and disaster risk. Recent efforts by international organizations and research scholarship have emphasized that applying contextual understandings of human behavior can improve the effectiveness of disaster risk management (DRM).

The research employs multiple correlation analysis to find significant relationships between two sources of socio-cultural data and the World Risk Index scores.

There are interesting relationships between various measures of socio-cultural context and disaster risk, such as correlations with levels of individualism, self-expression, and secular-rational values.

While using the broadest sample available with the data sources, generalizations about the relationships must be tempered as inherently anecdotal and needing greater depth of study. The national level of analysis is controversial.

Emergency managers can extend the knowledge about socio-cultural influences on disaster risk to tailor policy for effective practices.

Societies may recognize their behaviors as being conducive or obstructive to DRM based on their socio-cultural characteristics; governments may operationalize the findings into policy responses for more nuanced mitigation efforts.

This research adds to the momentum for considering non-technical approaches to DRM and expands the potential for social science derived variables in DRM.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse incidents of personal information leakage in Japan based on Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics of information privacy and to consider how best to develop an effective personal information protection policy that conforms to Japanese situations as well as to the global requirement of personal information protection.

After describing recent incidents of personal information leakage in Japan, the paper examines the defects of the Act on Protection of Personal Information (APPI) that permit these incidents to continue. Subsequently, these incidents and the responses of the Japanese people in a manner that reflects the unique Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics of information privacy are analysed. Finally, the paper proposes a revision of APPI that conforms to these Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics as well as to the global requirement for personal information protection.

Personal information leakage cases and social responses in Japan reflect three Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics: Uchi/Soto awareness, insular collectivism and Hon'ne/Tatemae tradition. An effective law protecting personal information in Japan's cultural environment cannot be made simply by copying the privacy protection laws in western nations. Instead, legal protection of personal information should be drafted that reflects and takes into account these socio‐cultural characteristics.

This paper conducts analysis of incidents of personal information leakage in Japan based on Japanese socio‐cultural characteristics. A revision of APPI is proposed on the basis of the analysis. The paper's analysis and proposal would provide a good clue to develop effective measures to protect personal information and the right to information privacy in the global, multicultural information society.

This paper aims to explore the crucial role of socio-cultural factors in the entrepreneurial experiences of women in the Gulf region.

A focused qualitative systematic analysis of 65 published articles was conducted to present existing approaches to studying women's entrepreneurship in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and identify the key socio-cultural factors impacting women's entrepreneurial realities.

It was found that gender roles, family influence, social networking and religion are among the most significant factors influencing the entrepreneurial experiences of women in the GCC.

It was found that the region's prevalent social norms, vis-à-vis how gender roles are defined and practiced, greatly influence the lived experiences of women entrepreneurs. The role of family support (or lack thereof) and the access to networking opportunities to start and grow ventures significantly affect women's entrepreneurial successes. The findings also point to the overarching ideological and practical guidance, Islam is believed to offer, on how life in general and businesses, in particular, should be conducted.

The paper contributes to the burgeoning literature on women's entrepreneurship in the Gulf by promoting context-dependent knowledge. In particular, the findings highlight the importance of critical and nuanced evaluation of existing theories of gender and entrepreneurship. The examination can help policymakers develop more effective and inclusive entrepreneurship policies in the region.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether individual demographic and socio-cultural factors affect actions taken by consumers in relation to ethical violations and failure (or perceived ethical violations and failure) by service operations firms.

Data collection was undertaken over a two-year period, from 2011 to 2013, and involved sampling 3,155 respondents from 19 countries. Data analysis was undertaken utilizing hierarchical linear modelling (HLM).

Findings suggest that although both individual demographic factors (age and gender) and societal differences do affect ethical actions taken by service consumers, inter-societal cluster variations have a more significant effect on the ethical action than individual demographic differences do.

For service operations firms, the study findings offer evidence on the need for constant readjustment of service attributes in line with the ethical dispositions of the different demographic and socio-cultural clusters within the consumer base.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the on‐going cultural turn in retail marketing by offering an overview of the interdisciplinary field of socio‐cultural retailing and discussing how this body of work can contribute conceptually, methodologically and substantively to the field of retail marketing.

This paper is based on a literature review of socio‐cultural retail studies in marketing, cultural geography, sociology, and anthropology. The literature is analysed in relation to the substantive, conceptual and methodological domains of retail marketing.

Drawing on the literature review, the authors argue that socio‐cultural retail studies can contribute to the field of retail marketing substantively, conceptually and methodologically, thus broadening its current scope and domains.

This paper provides an overview of an interdisciplinary field and identifies how it can contribute to the field of retail marketing. It is valuable for retailing researchers interested in socio‐cultural approaches to the study of contemporary retailing.

The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the use of the evolutionary approach, and in particular the generalisation of Darwinian principles beyond biology to study socio‐cultural change.

The paper presents a review of developments in generalising Darwinism to study socio‐cultural change, including key criticisms against using the approach. In the process key disagreements between the different conceptual approaches taken by evolutionary scholars, and key criticisms against using an evolutionary approach are highlighted.

It was seen that a number of critics fail to grasp the abstracted concept of Universal and Generalised Darwinism, focusing their arguments on detailed differences between socio‐cultural and biological evolution. Future research within the field should be directed towards building consensus regarding the definitions of key concepts, and using detailed empirical investigations to shed light on the usefulness of the different approaches taken for research and practice.

The key contribution of this paper is the presentation of a critical review of developments made in generalising Darwinism. It is further argued that the universal appeal of the approach offers researchers an opportunity for cross‐fertilising ideas, generating new insights across disciplines and learning from developments being made in parallel fields of study.

Social structural and cultural theories suggest that social stress induced from socio‐cultural status patterns varies across the world's cultures. The purpose of the study is to compare subjective social stress in connection with objective socio‐cultural status patterns among Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Rasulpur of Bangladesh.

This study was conducted in Rasulpur, Bangladesh. Preliminarily, 760 male arrack drinkers who were stressful in their socio‐cultural status patterns were selected by snowball process from the study area. Of the respondents, 391 arrack drinkers (109 Muslim, 103 Hindu, 89 Santal and 90 Oraon) were intensively interviewed by semi‐structural questionnaire to examine and compare the research purpose.

The results of Pearson's χ² test suggested that there were significant differences (p<0.01) in subjective social stress in connection with socio‐cultural status patterns, except income among the communities, among the ethnic communities. The results of Spearman bivariate correlation coefficients revealed that there were significant relationships (p<0.01 and p<0.05) between socio‐cultural status patterns and its social stress, except occupation and income among the communities studied.

Although the findings of the study have been successful in understanding differences in social stress in the context of socio‐cultural status patterns among the Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Rasulpur, Bangladesh, further empirical research is needed on how personality factor, familial and community coping and social support from social service system influence the differences in subjective social stress associated with socio‐cultural status patterns among the communities. In spite of the limitations, the findings may provide valuable information for cross‐cultural social health policy and programs to manage the problem.

This paper is original in linking its theory, policy and practice to reduce subjective social stress in the context of socio‐cultural variations among the Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Bangladesh.