Culture is made up of numerous components that interact upon the individual to help form and shape his/her perspectives about the world. Two such components are machismo (the degree to which a population views gender roles as particularly male oriented) and self-construal (the internal attributions of individualism/collectivism). In a survey conducted among native English speaking individuals and native Spanish speaking individuals within the Midwestern United States, a measure of both of these components was used to determine whether there are differences in scores for selfconstrual and machismo between two samples. The results indicate that in the samples included, the native Spanish speaking group scored significantly higher on machismo, and the native English speaking cohort scored significantly higher on independent selfconstrual. Differences between the two groups for mean age and gender composition may explain the lack of significance for the measure of interdependent self-construal. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Thesis (Ph. D. )--University of Technology Sydney, 2008.

Thesis (MComm)--Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Knowledge is generally regarded as a new competitive business resource in the information age. The leveraging of this resource has therefore become a significant concern of knowledge management. Knowledge management is not culturally neutral, however, and there seem to be differences between Western and Eastern knowledge management practices. In order to address these differences and determine their cultural roots, a comparative analysis of the cultural influences on knowledge management approaches in Western and Eastern corporations is needed. To fulfil this objective, it was firstly necessary to clarify the basic concept of knowledge, knowledge management and some relevant cultural issues. Secondly, specific Western and Eastern corporations were chosen as case studies, and their knowledge management approaches were analysed. In a third step, a comparative analysis was done between Western knowledge and Eastern knowledge management practices. The culturally determining factors are presented. In the second part of the study, the relationship between knowledge management and cultural issues was discussed. Since knowledge management is still in its infancy, this means that a common language is being established. Although the importance of corporate culture has been recognised, national cultural influences on knowledge management practices still need considerable scholarly attention. In the third part of the study, three national cultures were chosen to represent the Western and Eastern cultures. America and Sweden represent Western culture, while Japan represents Eastern culture. Several corporations, including IBM, Skandia, Toshiba, Sharp, were presented as case studies and their knowledge management approaches were analysed, e.g. tacit knowledge management focus, explicit knowledge management focus, knowledge creation, knowledge reuse, internal acquirement of knowledge, external acquirement of knowledge, etc. Based on the analysis of the Western and Eastern corporations' knowledge management practices, a comparative analysis was conducted to identify the role that national culture plays in corporate knowledge management. In the last part of the study, the conclusions indicated that national cultures do influence knowledge managers in their choice or omission of certain approaches to knowledge management. Following from this conclusion, several future research suggestions were proffered. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Kennis word oor die algemeen as 'n nuwe mededingende bron van die inligtingsera beskou. Die invloed van hierdie bron het dus 'n betekenisvolle aangeleentheid vir kennisbestuur geword. Kennisbestuur is egter nie kultureel-neutraal nie en daar is toenemende bewyse van verskille tussen Westerse en Oosterse kennisbestuurpraktyke. 'n Vergelykende analise van kultuurinvloede op die kennisbestuurbenaderings van Westerse en Oosterse ondernemings is nodig om hierdie verskille te bepaal en hul grondslae te ondersoek. Om aan hierdie doelstelling te voldoen was dit nodig om eers die basiese kennis- en kennisbestuurbegrippe en fundamentele kultuurdimensies te verklaar. Tweedens is spesifieke Westerse en Oosterse ondernemings gekies as gevallestudies en is hul onderskeie kennisbestuurbenaderings geanaliseer. Derdens is 'n vergelykende analise van Westerse en Oosterse kennisbestuurpraktyke gemaak. In die tweede gedeelte van hierdie studie word die verhouding tussen kennisbestuur en kulturele kwessies ontleed. Aangesien kennisbestuur nog in sy kinderskoene staan beteken dit dat 'n gemeenskaplike terminologie gebou moet word. Alhoewel die belangrikheid van korporatiewe kultuur al herken is, benodig die invloede van 'n nasionale kultuur op bestuurspraktyke nog aandag. In die derde gedeelte van hierdie studie word drie lande as die verteenwoordigers van Westerse en Oosterse kulture gekies. Amerika en Swede verteenwoordig Westerse kultuur, terwyl Japan Oosterse kultuur verteenwoordig. Verskeie ondernemings soos IBM, Skandia en Toshiba word as gevallestudies behandel en hul kennisbestuurbenaderings word geanaliseer, bv. onuitgesproke kennisbestuurfokus, eksplisiete kennisbestuurfokus, kennisskepping, kennisherverbruik, interne kennisverkryging en eksterne kennisverkryging. 'n Vergelykende analise, gebaseer op die onderskeie analises van Westerse en Oosterse kennisbestuurpraktyke, word gedoen om die rol van nasionale kultuur in korporatiewe kennisbestuur te identifiseer. Die bevindings, gevolgtrekkings en aanbevelings van die studie toon dat kennisbestuurders wel deur hul nasionale kultuur beïnvloed word in hul keuse, al dan nie, van sekere benaderings tot kennisbestuur. Verskeie voorstelle vir toekomstige navorsing, afgelei van die gevolgtrekkings en aanbevelings, word hierna voorgelê.

published_or_final_version / Paediatrics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Both the public and private sectors currently encounter the telescoping urgency for effective cross-cultural coventuring in business, educational and personal arenas. Existing descriptive models for organizing cultural information are either simplistic and superficial or so complex as to be inaccessible or overwhelm the user. This study uses Saunders' theory of model construction as an informing hypothesis to develop a model for cross-cultural coventuring. An integral part of this conception is a definition of culture which uses Villemain's insightful concept of qualitative meaning. Integrating this type of meaning within Saunders' Inquiry Cube allows for categories through which even the most subtle and unarticulated variables making up the human enterprise and the value base of those cherished and celebrated human ideals can be sorted, classified, and set into a taxonomic design. This hierarchical pattern provides direction and parameters for greater cross-cultural exploration. The methodological sequence of the Cultural Inquiry Cube is further translated to a psychological sequence which is more readily comprehensible to the learner. The greatest potential for widespread use of this model seems to be in microcomputer applications. Compact disc technology including CD-ROM and CD-I promises accessibility not possible heretofore.

Various traditional cultures around the world used to subscribe to a reality of Divine Sovereignty, ie. that the Earth ultimately belongs to the Creator. Modern politics and disciplines within Western science have become detatched from this humble spiritual perspective. Yet when reexamined at source, mainstream religious, scientific and legal theories which appear to discredit Divine Sovereignty are found to be tainted by contemporabeous vested interests. Spirtual luminaries, who have interpreted Divine Sovereignty within the political context of distributive justice and economic democracy, have been mercilessly persecuted. Evidence indicates that Jesus was a classic example, and that his original universal teachings have been adulterated. By exploring the work, and substantiating the spiritual philosophy of the 20th century polymath Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar, the thesis assembles past and present knowledge into a new coherent paradigm, which encompasses Divine Creation, the divine nature of matter, plus a spiritual explanation of human and social evolution. The research elucidates the relevance of the latter to the current conflict in the Middle East and concludes by outlining Sarkar's principles for establishing a just sustainable post-sexist society which operates in accordance with Divine sovereignty.

This study is an exploration of everyday photographic practice and of the places that photographers visit and inhabit offline and online. It discusses the role of movement, the senses and repetition in taking photographs. Ultimately it is about photographers and their photographic routines and habits. Since the advent of photography, numerous texts on the subject have typically focused on photographs as objects. This trend has continued into the digital age, with academic writing firmly focusing on image culture rather than considering new issues relating to online practice. Although various technological innovations have given the photographer flexibility as to how and what they do with their images, the contention of this thesis is that analogue routines have been mostly transposed into the digital age. Nevertheless, there remains a lack of empirical enquiry into what photographers actually do within online spaces. This study is one of the first to address this knowledge gap. Taking a unique approach to the study of photography, it draws upon work in various fields, including phenomenology, social anthropology, human geography and sensory ethnography, to produce an innovative conceptual and methodological approach. This approach is applied in the field to gain an in-depth understanding of what ‘doing’ photography actually entails. An in-depth analysis of interviews with and observations of North East photographers reveals how they engage with everyday life in a distinctive way. Habitually carrying a camera allows them to notice details that most would ignore. Online and offline movements often become entangled, and when photographers explore Flickr there is a clear synergy with the way in which they explore their local city space. This research is a call to others to give serious consideration to online and offline photography practices, and an attempt to stimulate new discussions about what it means to be a photographer in the world.

No description available.

China has speeded up modernization since the reform and open-door policy was introduced in 1978. After accession to the World Trade Organization in 1999, China has been further incorporated into the global track. The national policy of economic development requires a continuing exploitation of natural resources and intensive labor from the rural sector, and over the last few decades, there has been a ceaseless wave of rural women going to the cities and working mainly as assembly-line workers, domestic helpers and sex workers. Developing a subaltern and feminist perspective, this thesis examines representations of rural women in academic research and literary works, as well as in films, documentaries, TV dramas, photography and popular magazines. The thesis attempts to outline and invoke a spectral figure of the subaltern as the rural woman demonstrably haunting dominant regimes of representations of modernization. In the prevailing mentality of development, a mega-city is portrayed as the ultimate destination; meanwhile, the rural is depicted as residual and as a repository of the past. There is a system of negative equivalences attached to the rural, which is always positioned as the unspoken, invisible or stereotyped other of overwhelming cosmopolitan values. The thesis reviews how urban intellectuals represent rural women in the contemporary cosmopolitan settings. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s discussion of the two kinds of representation—proxy and portrait—the thesis aims to read how urban intellectuals speak for as well as draw a portrait of rural women. The thesis also tries to read against the grain of the texts to trace the irreducible figure of the rural woman. As the readings will demonstrate, there are contradictions, paradoxes and ambivalences in narrating and portraying rural women as actors of modernization, victims of industrialization, agents of proletarian struggle, consumers purchasing commodities, and as the residual from agrarian society. From such incongruities within the texts, one can posit the figure of the rural woman as a symbol of resistance to the predominant discourse of modernization. This is not necessarily to suggest a nostalgic return to the past, that is, to the statist industrialization of Mao Zedong’s period and the patriarchal tradition; or an orthodox ruralism that everyone should go back to ancient society; or a romanticization of the primitive. Rather, this figure operates like Stuart Hall’s concept of “black”, referring to a way of referencing the widespread experience of marginalization in contemporary China, and an organizing category of a new politics of resistance among different groups. This research not only negotiates but also re-adjusts the notion of urban superiority by exploring the spectral figure of the rural woman. Gendering the rural vision means not only making a difference from the present capitalist and patriarchal values and practices, but also taking the excluded majority into serious consideration. It is hoped that this exercise, in the end, will help us to imagine a communal society in which we can recognize the practice of care of others as care of the self.

本文借助並修訂了布爾迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的理論框架，透過對中國大陸二十世紀九十年代以來文化明星的製造進行研究來理解變動中的文化生產場 (field of cultural production)，並探討在其間知識分子作為的新可能。文化明星問題之所以值得特別研究，首先是由於它處於當代中國文化生產的中心，涉及到電視、圖書、平面媒體、互聯網等不同的文化生產次場域（sub-field），以及製作人、 出版人、文化明星本人、“粉絲” (fans) 和批評者所代表的不同力量。考察圍繞著製造文化明星的複雜的關係網絡，正可以勾勒出當代中國變動的文化生產場域的概貌。其次，文化明星的產生和生產是對九十年代以來知識分子危機的一種回應，是知識分子問題的變奏。理解了文化明星的製造機制，有助於尋找在當下的文化生產場中知識分子作為的新可能。 本文選取余秋雨、易中天、于丹和韓寒四個個案進行深入分析。余秋雨是公認的第一個最成功的文化明星，對其案例進行研究揭示了文化明星產生的歷史轉變。易中天和于丹的案例則代表著著一種可以複製的成熟的文化明星製造模式的出現。韓寒的形象及製造是一種有別于以上主流文化明星的另類模式。 本文綜合運用多種研究方法，包括對十幾名相關的文化生產者進行訪問，組織了一個針對粉絲的焦點小組（focus group），並且到電視節目錄製現場、出版 社和大型書店進行參與式觀察。此外亦有歷史檔案梳理和文本、話語分析。 最終，本文繪製出了不同的文化明星在當代中國文化生產場中的位置，反思了現有文化明星生產模式的後果，並對知識分子/文化生產者參與文化生產提出有針對性的建議。