Cognitive Adaptation to the Experience of Social and Cultural Diversity

Diversity is a defining characteristic of modern society, yet there remains considerable debate over the benefits that it brings. The authors argue that positive psychological and behavioral outcomes will be observed only when social and cultural diversity is experienced in a way that challenges stereotypical expectations and that when this precondition is met, the experience has cognitive consequences that resonate across multiple domains. A model, rooted in social categorization theory and research, outlines the preconditions and processes through which people cognitively adapt to the experience of social and cultural diversity and the resulting cross-domain benefits that this brings. Evidence is drawn from a range of literatures to support this model, including work on biculturalism, minority influence, cognitive development, stereotype threat, work group productivity, creativity, and political ideology. The authors bring together a range of differing diversity experiences and explicitly draw parallels between programs of research that have focused on both perceiving others who are multicultural and being multicultural oneself. The findings from this integrative review suggest that experiencing diversity that challenges expectations may not only encourage greater tolerance but also have benefits beyond intergroup relations to varied aspects of psychological functioning.

Self-reported teamwork in family health team practices in Ontario:Organizational and cultural predictors of team climate

Objective: To determine the organizational predictors of higher scores on team climate measures as an indicator of the functioning of a family health team (FHT). Design: Cross-sectional study using a mailed survey. Setting: Family health teams in Ontario. Participants: Twenty-one of 144 consecutively approached FHTs; 628 team members were surveyed. Main outcome measures: Scores on the team climate inventory, which assessed organizational culture type (group, developmental, rational, or hierarchical); leadership perceptions; and organizational factors, such as use of electronic medical records (EMRs), team composition, governance of the FHT, location, meetings, and time since FHT initiation. All analyses were adjusted for clustering of respondents within the FHT using a mixed random-intercepts model. Results: The response rate was 65.8% (413 of 628); 2 were excluded from analysis, for a total of 411 participants. At the time of survey completion, there was a median of 4 physicians, 11 other health professionals, and 4 management and clerical staff per FHT. The average team climate score was 3.8 out of a possible 5. In multivariable regression analysis, leadership score, group and developmental culture types, and use of more EMR capabilities were associated with higher team climate scores. Other organizational factors, such as number of sites and size of group, were not associated with the team climate score. Conclusion: Culture, leadership, and EMR functionality, rather than organizational composition of the teams (eg, number of professionals on staff, practice size), were the most important factors in predicting climate in primary care teams.

Measuring math anxiety in Italian college and high school students: Validity, reliability and gender invariance of the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS)

Given that the ability to manage numbers is essential in a modern society, mathematics anxiety – which has been demonstrated to have unfortunate consequences in terms of mastery of math – has become a subject of increasing interest, and the need to accurately measure it has arisen. One of the widely employed scales to measure math anxiety is the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS) (Hopko, Mahadevan, Bare & Hunt, 2003). The first aim of the present paper was to confirm the factor structure of the AMAS when administered to Italian high school and college students, and to test the invariance of the scale across educational levels. Additionally, we assessed the reliability and validity of the Italian version of the scale. Finally, we tested the invariance of the AMAS across genders. The overall findings provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the AMAS when administered to Italian students.

Arts Management and Cultural Policy

This chapter explores the relationship between cultural policy and arts management. A connection between policy and practice is visible through initiatives within specific localities, nations and at an international scale. Yet, there is little scholarship that develops our understanding of how these two areas interact, how ideas are exchanged and implemented, and where the power is located within this relationship. The approach to arts and cultural management in the UK has a history of professionalization that has developed increasing influence internationally. As a result, this chapter takes the UK as a case study and presents new empirical work to examine how educators and individuals practicing in both fields perceive the relationship of policymaking to the work of management.

Punishment, youth justice and cultural contingency: Towards a balanced approach

Reflecting developments in the broader penological realm, accounts have been advanced over the last number of decades about a ‘punitive turn’ in the youth justice systems of Western democracies. Against the background of this work, this project seeks to identify convergent and divergent trends in the youth justice systems of England, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as the rationalities and discourses animating these. The results lend support to research emphasising the continued salience of national, regional and local factors on penal outcomes but also suggest the need to steer an analytical path somewhere between nomothetic (convergent) and idiographic (divergent) accounts.

A Social Institutionalist Perspective on HR Diffusion: Histrorical and Cultural Receptivity to HRM in a Post-Comminist Context

This research considers cross-national diffusion of international human resource management (IHRM) ideas and practices by applying an emergent frame of sociological conceptualisation – ‘social institutionalism’ (SI). We look at cultural filters to patterns of diffusion, assimilation and adoption of IHRM, using Romania as a case study. The paper considers the former Communist system of employment relations, suggesting that through institutionalisation former ways of thinking continued to influence definitions and practice of people management in post-Communist Eastern Europe. The paper provides a new perspective on HRM by discussing the value of SI as a general model for understanding cross-cultural receptivity to HR ideas, sensitising the HR practitioner and academic to institutionalised culture as a historical legacy influencing receptivity to international management ideas.

Market impact of international sporting and cultural events

We study market reaction to the announcements of the selected country hosting the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, the World Football Cup, the European Football Cup and World and Specialized Exhibitions. We generalize previous results analyzing a large number and different types of mega-events, evaluate the effects for winning and losing countries, investigate the determinants of the observed market reaction and control for the ex ante probability of a country being a successful bidder. Average abnormal returns measured at the announcement date and around the event are not significantly different from zero. Further, we find no evidence supporting that industries, that a priori were more likely to extract direct benefits from the event, observe positive significant effects. Yet, when we control for anticipation, the stock price reactions around the announcements are significant.