The current study investigated how individual level cultural values (horizontal individualism, horizontal collectivism, vertical individualism, vertical collectivism, power distance, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long/short term orientation) relate to the perceived effectiveness of authentic leadership. To ensure cultural diversity, data was collected from participants via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk).The participant pool included 184 participants from the United States, India, and 10 other countries around the world. Of these, 68 (37%) participants identified themselves as female and 116 (63%) identified themselves as male. In order to provide a sample that is more representative of a working population, all participants were employed for an average of at least 20 hours a week in a workplace outside of the home. Data was collected using an online survey. Participants completed measures for individual level cultural values (Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism Scale, and Individual Cultural Value Scale), the perceived effectiveness of authentic leadership (modified Authentic Leadership Questionnaire), and demographics. Participants were compensated $0.65 on average for completing the survey.The perceived effectiveness of authentic leadership was found to have significant positive correlations with horizontal individualism, horizontal collectivism, and long/short term orientation and a negative correlation with power distance and masculinity. In a final hierarchical regression model, age, power distance, long term orientation, and horizontal individualism were found to significantly predict 34% of the variance in perceived effectiveness of authentic leadership. The results help to provide a better understanding of hierarchy perceptions in the workplace. They suggest that individuals who value self-expression, less status differences between leaders and follower, and internal perseverance are more likely to endorse an authentic leadership style as being effective in the workplace. These results imply that congruence between employee and supervisor values may be an important factor in determining whether or not authentic leadership is perceived as being effective in the workplace. Further, managers and organizations may want to consider hiring individuals with cultural values that best fit their own values and leadership style. In the future researchers could investigate individual level cultural values as moderators between leadership and workplace outcomes, such as job satisfaction.

Yes / Recent research on health inequalities moves beyond illustrating the importance of psychosocial factors for health to a more in-depth study of the specific psychosocial pathways involved. Social capital is a concept that captures both a buffer function of the social environment on health, as well as potential negative effects arising from social inequality and exclusion. This systematic review assesses the current evidence, and identifies gaps in knowledge, on the associations and interactions between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health. Through this systematic review we identified studies on the interactions between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health published before July 2012. The literature search resulted in 618 studies after removal of duplicates, of which 60 studies were eligible for analysis. Self-reported measures of health were most frequently used, together with different bonding, bridging and linking components of social capital. A large majority, 56 studies, confirmed a correlation between social capital and socioeconomic inequalities in health. Twelve studies reported that social capital might buffer negative health effects of low socioeconomic status and five studies concluded that social capital has a stronger positive effect on health for people with a lower socioeconomic status. There is evidence for both a buffer effect and a dependency effect of social capital on socioeconomic inequalities in health, although the studies that assess these interactions are limited in number. More evidence is needed, as identified hypotheses have implications for community action and for action on the structural causes of social inequalities.

This thesis tries to identify what's at stake of normalized relations between the United States and Iran since the Iranian revolution in 1979. The thesis tries to find out what are the key issues behind the failed relations between these two countries from the American point of view in order to determine whether normalized relations between these two countries can ever be achieved. It elaborates on four key characteristics of individual level analysis of foreign policy decision making applied on three key Presidents involved in foreign policy making towards Iran since 1979.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to identify Russia's Foreign Policy change in the first decade of the 21st century. It focuses on the three most important strategic documents of the Russian Federation, the presidential decrees signed by Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev (The Foreign Policy Concepts of the Russian Federation from 2000 and 2008, The National Security Concept of the Russian Federation from 2000, The National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation from 2009 and The Military Doctrines from 2000 and 2010). Through Discourse analysis it concludes that Russia has moved to strenghtening norms of international law and multilateral cooperation between the years 2000 and 2010, it no longer uses confrontational expressions and prefers a multi-vector foreign policy accenting the Asian vector. Russia also proves to be more self-confident and ambitious. We expect a more active role in the world affairs from Russia in the second decade of the 21st century.