As India continues to emerge as a global economic player, scholars and practitioners increasingly need to understand the cultural heterogeneity within this large and populous nation. Based on Lenartowicz and Roth's framework of culture assessment, we have identified nine distinct subcultural regions of India and used explanations grounded in functional and neo-institutional theories to account for the origin and maintenance of cultural distinctiveness of these regions. Further, we developed seven cultural value dimensions for the Indian society and used these to hypothesize and empirically test the existence of cultural differences within India. Results supported our hypothesized arguments. This study advances our knowledge of how global functional and institutional forces have combined with national forces to shape India's overall culture and how more local forces have shaped its regions. Methodologically, it identifies and develops measures that specifically reflect the values of individuals living in India and uses these to assess intra-national cultural differences within this nation. Further, it suggests how use of multiple methods can enable us to understand the simultaneous presence of somewhat contradictory values within a society. The study also provides applications of the proposed cultural value dimensions and advises implications of regional subcultures for various social and organizational phenomena.
Although the novel coronavirus that has resulted in more than 3 million deaths and 140 million cases of infection worldwide has wreaked havoc globally, some nations were more successful than others in curbing growth in their number of cases, thereby saving lives. In this research note, we integrate insights from cross-cultural research with inquiry in social psychology and public health literatures to advance a theoretically grounded and culturally derived explanation of cross-national variance in the growth rate of COVID-19. Our multi-level analyses, based on longitudinal time series data from 107 nations, and focused on the first 91 days of this pandemic in different nations, illustrate the direct and interactive effects of culture. Specifically, we find that individualism and uncertainty avoidance have a positive impact, while power distance and masculinity have a negative impact, on the growth rate of COVID-19 cases. Three-way interaction analyses between time, government stringency, and culture indicate that early government stringency attenuated pandemic growth, and this attenuation effect was more significant in collectivistic than in individualistic nations, and in high rather than low power distance nations. Our findings provide evidence that can enable policymakers and organizations to develop strategies that not only conform to science but that also consider the cultural orientation of nations.
Biculturals, or people who identify with two or more cultures, are said to play an important role in economic development by starting new ventures. However, little research has theorized or analyzed the factors that influence their propensity to do so. Based on an identity integrationist perspective, we contribute to filling this gap. We hypothesize that identity integration is a critical factor that influences entrepreneurial intentions of bicultural individuals. In addition, we hypothesize that cognitive and metacognitive cultural intelligence mediate this relationship. Empirical analyses based on survey data supported our hypothesized arguments. The findings provide guidance on the role of psychological and cognitive factors in influencing intentions.
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