Search results

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.

Hofstede's theory may be problematic from both a methodological/theoretical and practical view when applied to the 80 per cent of the globe we term developing. It is necessary to break out of an epistemic paradigm and a “view from nowhere” in order to focus on multiple layers of cultural interfaces within power dynamics that influence the nature of hybrid organizations and individual cultural identity. The purpose of this paper therefore is to develop a theory of cross‐cultural interfaces.

Cross‐cultural values theory provides a blunt instrument in Africa, does not take into account global dependencies and is not able to analyse local perceptions of reality within a context of these dependencies. A theory of cultural interfaces is developed that incorporates an Aristotelian phronetic approach to social science.

This moves away from the universals of analytical rationality towards practical value‐rationality that considers culture from a context‐dependent viewpoint, provides a synthesis for cultural‐institutional approaches, and engages researchers beyond merely looking at differences in cultures and the consequences, and towards what should be done about issues that arise.

By providing an example of how cultural interfaces may be researched, and discussing the associated conceptual issues, it is hoped that this paper will help to move forward the debate about cross‐cultural management.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of culture on the cross-cultural design of the recognition-based graphical password (RBG-P) interface as inferred from Chinese and Saudi subjects’ image selections.

The authors use a between-group design adopted using two groups of participants from China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to measure the differences caused by the effects of cultures on graphical password image selections. Three hypotheses have been tested in a four-week long study carried out using two questionnaires and an RBG-P webtool designed for images selection.

The results have indicated that participants are equally biased not only toward their own culture but also depending on their opinions about other cultures. In addition, when creating the password, it has been observed that culture not only influenced the image selection to create the password but also have an effect on the sequence of the images forming the password.

Appropriately used image selection differences can be used appropriately in cross-cultural designs that will lead to better development of culturally adaptive interfaces that will boost the security posture of RBG-P authentication.

Some RBG-P interfaces that are produced outside the designer’s culture may suffer the effects of cultural differences. Hence, to incorporate culture in the interface, authentication systems within applications should be flexible by designing images that fit the culture in which the software will be used. To this end, access control interface testing should also be carried out in the environmental and cultural context in which it is will be used.

This paper provides useful information for international developers who develop cross-cultural usable secure designs. In such environments, the cross-culturally designs may have significant effects on the acceptability and adoption adaptation of the interface to multi-cultural settings.

The authors respond to the special edition call for papers which explore the intersection between equity pedagogy and open educational practices (OEPs). The purpose of this study is to address the question “In what ways are educators ensuring equity in open educational practices (OEP)?” by investigating the use of OEPs in a first-year Cultural Capability unit at an Australian University. The Cultural Capability unit and this study are underpinned by concepts of border crossings (Aikenhead, 1996) across the cultural interface (Nakata, 2007) enabled by modelling and practicing collaborative power relations (Cummins, 2000).

This study uses a qualitative content analysis method to analyse three textual data sets from students (interviews, writing samples and unit evaluation comments), for insights into students’ learning experiences and outcomes related to OEPs used in the unit.

The OEPs used in the unit support working across multiple knowledge systems, disciplines and conceptual boundaries. The unit’s OEPs facilitate border crossings amongst multiple subcultures and share power to induce participation and give students language to discuss how they might cross borders in the wider cultural interfaces they are learning and working in.

This study extends the theorising of OEP to introduce cultural border crossings and collaborative relations of power as examples of values-centred OEPs in the service of emancipatory learning in multi-cultural contexts. This study extends the practical applications of OEPs to making space for Indigenous and global students’ perspectives as valuable in the development of cultural capabilities.

This study aims to examine the impact of cultural familiarity with images on the memorability of recognition-based graphical password (RBG-P).

The researchers used a between-group design with two groups of 50 participants from China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, using a webtool and two questionnaires to test two hypotheses in a four-week long study.

The results showed that culture has significant effects on RBG-P memorability, including both recognition and recall of images. It was also found that the login success rate depreciated quickly as time progressed, which indicates the memory decay and its effects on the visual memory.

Collectively, these results can be used to design universal RBG-Ps with maximal password deflection points. For better cross-cultural designs, designers must allow users from different cultures to personalize their image selections based on their own cultures.

The RBG-P interfaces developed without consideration for users’ cultures may lead to the construction of passwords that are difficult to memorize and easy to attack. Thus, the incorporation of cultural images is indispensable for improving the authentication posture.

The development of RBG-P with cultural considerations will make it easy for the user population to remember the password and make it more expensive for the intruder to attack.

This study provides an insight for RBG-P developers to produce a graphical password platform that increases the memorability factor.

Purpose – This chapter contributes to the growing debate on the diffusion of managerialist modes of thinking across third-sector organisations. It offers an analysis into the power dynamics at play in the emergence of hybrid management systems (HMSs) by looking at the management practices in non-profit organisations (NPOs) active in combating HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

Design/methodology/approach – In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with donor organisations and big non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based in the Northern hemisphere, and with managers and team leaders in South African NGOs. Taking a postcolonial perspective, the HMSs resulting from the encounter at the ‘glocal’ interface are investigated.

Findings – The data indicate that the power dynamics shaping the process of hybridisation work through three intertwined circuits of power: the managerialist discourse, the ‘rules of practice’ emanating from that discourse and episodic power relations at the level of interactions.

Research limitations/implications – As is the case with most qualitative research, care must be taken in generalising the findings of this research beyond the organisations participating in this study. At a theoretical level, the implications of this chapter are its contributions to three sets of literature that rarely interact: NPO management, international and cross-cultural management (ICCM) and critical management studies (CMS). At the level of organisational praxis, the findings have potential impact in terms of developing innovative ways of managing NPOs.

Originality/value – The originality and value of this chapter lies in its application of postcolonial theory to understanding hybridisation processes shaping management ideas and practices in South African NPOs.

As the global presence of Chinese firms grows, increasing numbers of Chinese managers are working abroad as expatriates. However, little attention has been paid to such Chinese expatriate managers and their leadership challenges in an inter-cultural context, especially across a large cultural distance. To fill the gap in the literature concerning the leadership challenges for expatriate managers in an inter-cultural context, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the leadership styles of Chinese expatriate managers from the perspectives of three traditional Chinese philosophies (i.e. Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism) in the inter-cultural context of the Netherlands.

The data for this qualitative study were collected via semi-structured, open-ended, narrative interviews with 30 Chinese expatriate managers in the Netherlands.

The results clearly show that the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is deeply rooted in the three traditional Chinese philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism, even in an inter-cultural context. Specifically, the study reveals two salient aspects of how Chinese expatriate managers frame and interact with a foreign cultural context from the perspectives of traditional Chinese philosophies. First, the Chinese expatriate managers reported an initial cultural shock related to frictions between the foreign cultural context and Confucianism or Taoism, but less so in the case of Legalism. Second, the Chinese expatriate managers also reported that their interactions with the Dutch culture are best described as a balance between partial conflict and partial complementarity (thus, a duality). In this sense, the leadership style of Chinese expatriate managers is influenced jointly by the three traditional Chinese philosophies and certain elements of the foreign cultural context. This is consistent with the Chinese perspective of yin-yang balancing.

This study is among the first to offer a more nuanced and highly contextualized understanding of leadership in the unique case of expatriate managers from an emerging market (e.g. China) in an advanced economy (e.g. the Netherlands). The authors call for more research to apply the unique perspective of yin-yang balancing in an inter-cultural context. The authors posit that this approach represents the most salient implication of this study. For practical implications, the authors argue that expatriate leaders should carefully manage the interplay between their deep-rooted home-country philosophies and their salient host-country culture. Reflecting on traditional philosophies in another culture can facilitate inter-cultural leadership training for Chinese expatriates.

In this study of Korean and US negotiators, the authors aim to demonstrate limits on the presumption that inter‐cultural negotiations are doomed to generate low joint gains.

In a laboratory study with 45 bi‐cultural Korean students and 47 mono‐cultural American students, the authors created a total of 16 US‐US, 15 Korean‐Korean, and 15 US‐Korean dyads. The authors audio‐recorded their negotiation conversations and analyzed the content of the negotiation transcripts. The authors focused on the use of pronouns and coded how they were used and the impact this use had on the outcomes of the intra‐ and inter‐cultural negotiations.

Results show that inter‐cultural dyads generate higher joint gains than Korean or US intra‐cultural dyads. The explanation based on social awareness and social distance theorizing shows that inter‐cultural negotiators, one of whom is bi‐cultural, who use language, especially the pronoun “you” to close social distance, achieve higher joint gains than intra‐cultural negotiators who do not.

The authors conclude that the language people use in social interaction, especially pronouns, is an indicator of social awareness and signals attempts to close social distance.

This research demonstrates that the way negotiators use language predicts their economic outcomes.