Organisational culture and cultural change: a network perspective

Organisational culture is a complex and heavily contested concept. Not only is it difficult to define what organisational culture is, but it is also very difficult to analyse how it guides and constrains behaviour, and whether and how organisational cultures change. The central argument of this article is that organisational networks can effect cultural change and that the terms ‘structural’ and ‘relational’, which are commonly used to conceptualise the properties of networks, may also provide a useful conceptual framework for understanding cultural change. While there has been some attention directed to the effects of organisational culture for networks, there has been very little attention placed on the potential for networks to shape organisational culture. Based on a detailed qualitative study of networks in the field of ‘high’ policing in Australia, the article draws on interviews with senior members of police and security agencies to explore organisational culture and cultural change. The article puts forward a network perspective on cultural change and aims to advance our knowledge of how security nodes can experience cultural change as they work together in and through networks.

Enhancing linguistic and cultural proficiency through Chinese children’s literature

This paper addresses the issue of selecting high-quality materials for teaching Chinese to non-native-speaker students. The paper argues that the unique nature of literary texts for children and adolescents written in simple and standard language reflecting the rich social fabric of China make them valuable materials for teaching foreign learners of the modern Chinese language. The special value of these materials to non-native learners lies not only in their linguistic aptness, but also in their informative connection between the modern Chinese language and the history and culture of China. The paper demonstrates how to effectively use these materials in a cooperative Chinese language classroom.

All in the blood: a review of Aboriginal Australians' cultural beliefs about blood and implications for biospecimen research

Public participation in medical research and biobanking is considered key to advances in scientific discovery and translation to improved health care. Cultural concerns relating to blood have been found to affect the participation of indigenous peoples and minorities in research, but such concerns are rarely specified in the literature. This article presents a review of the role of blood in Australian Aboriginal cultures. We discuss the range of meanings and uses of blood in traditional culture, including their use in ceremonies, healing, and sorcery. We draw on more recent literature on Aboriginal Australians and biomedicine to consider how traditional beliefs may be changing over time. These findings provide an empirical basis for researchers and bioethicists to develop culturally grounded strategies to boost the participation of Aboriginal Australians in biomedical research. They also serve as a model for integrating anthropological literature with bioethical concerns that could be applied to other indigenous and minority groups.

Applicability of financial theories of capital structure to the Chinese cultural context: a study of privately owned SMEs

Using a new dataset of 1539 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises this article investigates the firm-level determinants of capital structure and tests them against the predictions of financial theory. Firm size and profitability are both found to be related to leverage as posited by pecking-order theory. In contrast little support is found for the predicted relationship between asset structure and leverage. These findings are discussed in relationship to their Chinese cultural context. The managerial and policy implications of the research are then explored.

Imagining a new future for cultural landscapes

The 1992 adoption of ‘cultural landscape’ as an additional type of recognition on the World Heritage List was supposed to be a ground-breaking moment for heritage management in Australia and New Zealand, as both countries had pushed for continuing and associative landscapes to change the perceptions and practices of heritage management. Yet fast-forward to 2015, and one might be left wondering what happened? While there is no longer a need to convince people of the value of cultural landscapes for heritage management, the incorporation of cultural landscape ideas into our property-based 'heritage frame' with its preoccupation with land use and development controls appears to have stalled. At the same time, a growing community of heritage studies scholars are critical of heritage practice, and position cultural landscapes as an initiative that the World Heritage system was forced to adopt in order ‘to incorporate a broader range of values around heritage’ (Harrison 2013: 115). This critique of the under-theorised heritage field has had some stimulating effects, but falls short of providing guidance for practitioners. To consider the aspirations and directions for the future for cultural landscapes, this paper suggests that we need to look at heritage theory and practice together, focussing on innovation wherever we find it, and develop further theorisation through our experiences. We suggest that innovation can come from local settings away from more formalised heritage processes, where communities, practitioners, managers and researchers are trying new things as a result of their encounters with cultural landscapes, and where they are learning and ‘knowing-by-doing’.