This study tested predictions that potentially explain why Latinos, despite being disadvantaged in a number of ways related to poor health such as low education and low income, still fare better for some health outcomes compared to Anglos; A phenomenon know as the Latino health paradox. In particular, loneliness was hypothesized as a key mediator in the relationship between Latino cultural values and three health outcomes: overall health, depression and engaging in protective health practices. Cultural values of familism and spiritual well-being were predicted to be inversely related to loneliness, and reduced loneliness was predicted to be associated with beneficial health outcomes. Ethnicity (i.e., being Latino) was also hypothesized to predict endorsement of cultural values. Participants were 319 adults, including 116 Anglos and 139 Latinos between the ages of 19-88. Results indicated that being Latino predicted endorsing the values of spiritual well-being and familism. Spiritual well-being had an association with better health through reduced loneliness for both Latinos and Anglos, and the effect size was greater for Latinos. Familism predicted reduced loneliness and had a significant indirect effect on health through loneliness for Anglos, but not for Latinos; a result that may be attributable to the obligatory nature of familial relationships in Latino culture. Finally, age did not moderate the impact of familism or spiritual well-being on health through loneliness for Latinos or Anglos, suggesting that the indirect effects on health through loneliness are consistent throughout the lifespan.

Bakalauro baigiamajame darbe analizuojama organizacinė kultūra, kaip viena iš svarbiausių kultūros komponentų. Šio darbo teorinėje dalyje nagrinėtas organizacinės kultūros sąvoka ir tyrimo dimensijos, vertybių bei komunikacijos įtaka organizacinei kultūrai. Remiantis teorijoje nagrinėtais klausimais, buvo atlikta anketinė apklausa, t. y. tyrimas, kurio metu išanalizuota ir palyginta trijų įmonių organizacinė kultūra. Baigiamojo darbo tikslas – įvertinti UAB ,,Gausa", UAB „Gausuva ir VšĮ ,,Humana" organizacinę kultūrą ir jos raišką, remiantis darbuotojų nuomonėmis. Tiriamą problemą apibūdina klausimai: kokie yra organizacinę kultūrą atspindintys bruožai? Kiek svarbios vertybės ir komunikacinis organizacinės kultūros elementas? Kaip darbuotojai vertina įstaigoje vyraujančią organizacinę kultūrą? Kokios vyraujančios vertybės tiriamoje įstaigoje? Kiek gali būti skirtingi tos pačios srities įmonių organizacinės kultūros aspektai? Išsikeltais uždaviniais tiriama mokslinė literatūra, apibrėžianti organizacinės kultūros sąvoką, funkcijas, požymius, pokyčių įtaka organizacijos valdymui, vertybių sistemos įtaka organizacinei kultūrai bei apibrėžiama tarpasmeninių santykių reikšmė. Tyrimu įvertinamos darbuotojų nuomonės apie organizacinės kultūros išorinius elementus, įstaigose vyraujančias vertybes, palyginami trijų pasirinktų įmonių tarpusavio organizacinės kultūros specifiką formuojantys veiksniai. Tyrimas atliktas anketinės apklausos būdu, kuria buvo siekiama išsiaiškinti... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This bachelor‘s thesis has its main focus on organizational culture. It’s been analyzed as one of the most important component of culture. The theoretical part of thesis contains the examination of concept of culture and dimensions of the research as well as the influence of values and communication to organizational culture. According to the questions examined, the survey was implemented. The organizational culture of three enterprises was analyzed during this research. The aim of the Bachelor’s thesis is to assess the organizational culture and its aspects of three enterprises (“Gausa” Ltd, “Gausuva” Ltd and public enterprise “Humana”) according to opinions of employees of the enterprises. The following questions reveal the problem analyzed: what are the features of organizational culture? How important the values and communicational element of organizational culture are? How do the employees assess the organizational culture within their enterprise? What are prevailing values within the enterprises researched? How different the aspects of organizational culture can be in the enterprises of the same field of activity? An academic literature - containing the concept of organizational culture, its functions, indications; the influence of changes to the organization management; the influence of system of values to organizational culture - was analyzed as well as the importance of interpersonal relations was defined. The research assesses the prevailing opinions of employees... [to full text]

Cultural values provide a system for evaluating situations we encounter; yet, they have seldom been tested in psychosocial oncology. The present research addressed this gap by testing the hypothesis that cancer-related events are stressful because they threaten highly regarded cultural values. As part of a larger study, 417 Western-born Caucasians and 121 Asian-born Chinese immigrants with head and neck cancer (HNC) completed the Individualism-Collectivism Scale (ICS), which measures their endorsement of four cultural syndromes (i.e., vertical-individualism, horizontal-individualism, vertical-collectivism, and horizontal-collectivism). However, the ICS did not tap these constructs identically across these samples. Consequently, I extracted a new common 3-factor measurement model: (a) Camaraderie with Co-workers; (b) Commitment to Family; and (c) Competitiveness. I cross-validated the new model in the HNC samples from which it was derived and in three independent chronic-disease samples. In all cases, results indicated weak invariance. To test the hypothesis, respondents reported the causes of stress (i.e., stressor appraisals) for 24 common HNC-related events. Stressor appraisals reported by a subset of respondents (196 Western-born Caucasians and 44 Chinese immigrants) were categorized based on whether they reflected threats to the cultural values tapped by the new scales. Because only stressor appraisals reflecting threats to commitment to family were identified, I tested the association between commitment to family and the numbers of stressor appraisals reflecting threats to that value. Hierarchical Poisson regression analysis indicated a significant Culture Group x Commitment to Family interaction effect (p = .045): the number of stressor appraisals reflecting threats to commitment to family increased with increasing sense of commitment to family in Chinese immigrants, but not in Western-born Caucasians. Hence, cultural values, in part, explain cross-cultural variation in the experience of cancer stresses. Attention to cultural values can facilitate culturally sensitive patient-centered care by identifying culturally specific causes of stress for targeted psychosocial interventions.

As a fundamental concept in communication in general and intercultural communication in particular, politeness has become a central topic in the research literature. The critical review of the relevant literature shows that the existing theories of politeness do not satisfactorily explain politeness behaviour across cultures, especially politeness behaviour of people in Asian Confucian cultures. Influential theories of politeness have so far focused primarily on the linguistic presentation of politeness (i.e., linguistics politeness) and viewed the individual desire to be free from imposition as the main motivation for politeness, whereas other social and interpersonal motivational concerns for politeness behaviour and the cultural values underlying politeness behaviour are marginalised in the current literature. Additionally, existing theories of politeness are more centred on Anglo-cultural language, particularly English and English-speaking cultures. Intercultural contexts where misunderstandings most probably occur as a result of the differences in cultural values are under-represented in the literature on communication and politeness. Given the widely recognized influence of Confucianism on communication in major Asian cultures, the present study aims to explore how well Confucian theory and principles are able to describe and elucidate Vietnamese politeness in Vietnamese – Anglo-cultural interactions. The goal of the study is to show how an alternative value system can operate in politeness in intercultural communication contexts. It helps bridge the gap in the literature by exploring Vietnamese politeness motivational concerns and their (non)imposition acts in their interactions with Anglo-culturals in intercultural workplace contexts in non-governmental organizations in Vietnam. The results show that the politeness behaviour of Vietnamese working in intercultural contexts is more influenced by their Confucian orientation to interpersonal harmony rather than by their desire to be free from imposition. In addition, the Vietnamese decision to perform an imposition act on their Anglo-cultural colleagues, and about the level of imposition, is significantly influenced by their perception of the potential benefit of their act toward the Anglo-cultural, and by their perception of the social distance between themselves and the Anglo-cultural with whom they are interacting. On the basis of its findings, the present study supports the need for major amendments to the current literature on politeness. It also proposes further implications for more effective communication between Vietnamese and Anglo-culturals in intercultural workplace contexts, and for language teaching.

It is now well recognised that an effective service recovery program is an essential part of firms??? service quality programs and critical to generating customer satisfaction and loyalty. A number of studies have investigated the impact of service recovery efforts (compensation, speed of response, etc.) on post-recovery satisfaction, mostly in Western countries. However, despite the importance of global markets, very few have examined how Eastern consumers react to service recovery efforts. Furthermore, none have examined the impact of cultural value orientation (cultural values measured at the individual level) in implementing effective service recovery programs. This is one of the few studies that have attempted to avoid the ecological fallacy, i.e., assume all consumers within a country are culturally homogeneous. Based on Justice Theory, this research conducted in Thailand, employed an experimental design to investigate how customer evaluations of service recovery efforts are influenced by interplay of the consumer???s cultural value orientation and service recovery attributes (apology, compensation, cognitive control, recovery initiation, and formality). The results reveal that cultural values of power distance, uncertainty avoidance and collectivism do indeed interact with a firm???s recovery tactics to influence perceptions of justice. In other words, the impact of a firm???s tactics is culturally dependent, and consumer expectations and perceptions of service recovery efforts vary, depending on customers??? cultural value orientation. Finally, all three forms of justice (distributive, procedural, interactional) along with disconfirmation of expectations, positively impact on overall service recovery satisfaction. Unlike previous studies, we found evidence to indicate that there is a temporal sequence associated with the three justice dimensions i.e., interactional and procedural justice precede and thus impact perception of distributive (outcome) justice. The results have implication for marketing theory as well as managerial action.

Examensarbete. / Examensarbete i biologi.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniv. / Härtill 5 uppsatser och 1 bildbil.

Diss. Stockholm : Stockholms universitet, 2005.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

The long-standing phenomenon of occupational segregation among Asian Americans in the United States has been well-documented (e.g., Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). This study will explore the validity of an existing measure on values in the context of work, among a group of Asian American college students. Furthermore, it examines the impact of work values on culturally specific factors (i.e., Asian cultural values, ethnic identity endorsement, racism-related stress) and major-related outcome variables (i.e., major choice, major satisfaction) among Asian American college students. Specifically, it is hypothesized that work values will mediate the relationships between three cultural variables (i.e., adherence to Asian cultural values, ethnic identity endorsement, and racism-related stress) and individual’s major-related outcomes (i.e., major choice and major satisfaction). Participants will include 200 Asian-American identified undergraduate college students over the age of 18, surveyed through college courses, social media, and email advertisement. Measures will include the Values Scale (VS; Super & Nevill, 1985); the Asian American Value Scale-Multidimensional (AAVS-M; Kim, Li, & Ng, 2005); the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure - Revised (MEIM-R; Phinney & Ong, 2007); the Asian American Racism-Related Stress Inventory (AARRSI; Liang, Li, & Kim, 2004); and the Academic Major Satisfaction Scale (AMSS; Nauta, 2007). Implications of this study include illuminating the role of cultural context in shaping the function of work value endorsement and major choice patterns of Asian American college students, as well as advancing vocational assessment scholarship by establishing the cultural validity of the existing Values scale in its use with the Asian American college population.