Learning from the World: Good Practices in Navigating Cultural Diversity. Bertelsmann Stiftung Study 2018

The Reinhard Mohn Prize 2018 “Living Diversity – Shaping Society” focuses on diversity in German society, that is the plurality of cultural, religious and linguistic identities found among the people who live in the country. With this focus, the RMP 2018 highlights a variety of successful strategies for living peacefully in diversity. In historical terms, cultural diversity is nothing new or unique for Germany. In fact, though we are often unaware of it, cultural diversity has been a feature of our daily life for a long time. Indeed, religious differences have shaped German society since the Reformation. And Judaism has always been present in the area we now call Germany

CEO Turnover and Foreign Market Participation

Anecdotal evidence suggests that new CEOs with foreign backgrounds direct their firms to become more international in their operations. We examine this hypothesis formally using data on U.S. S&P-500 manufacturing firms from 1992 through 1997 and biographical information on CEOs' birth and education locations that allow us to identify changes from U.S.- to foreign-connected CEOs. Robust to a variety of specifications, we find that a U.S. firm's switch from a U.S. to a foreign CEO leads to substantial increases in the firm's proportion of its foreign assets and foreign affiliate sales. In fact, our preferred specification indicates that foreign asset and affiliate sales proportions increase 30 and 50%, respectively, for the five years after there is CEO turnover to one with a foreign background. This is in contrast to U.S.-to-U.S. CEO switches in our sample that show no evidence of changes in a firms' foreign market participation. These large effects contrast with previous literature that finds little evidence for changes in firm performance with CEO turnover.

Figuring the Plural

This report is an examination of ethnocultural, or ethnically/culturally specific, arts organizations in Canada and the United States.As our societies rapidly diversify and we seek to negotiate our increasingly complex national identities, these organizations possess enormous potential to assist in this process for they serve as cultural advocates, cultural interpreters, facilitators of cross-cultural understanding and communication keepers of ethnic tradition, and/or sites where prejudice is exposed and challenged

Development perspectives of relational capital in women-led firms

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the strategic role of relational capital for the achievement of sustainable development in Italian micro and small tourist businesses run by women. The paper focuses on the tourism enterprises because that sector constitute 10 % of the Italian GDP. The qualitative research methodology that has been used is that of case study research (Yin, 2009). Such process consisted in a survey with an ad-hoc questionnaire developed to analyze the distinctive features of a woman-owned micro and small enterprise that can be identified with the CAOS model (Paoloni, 2011). The paper applies the CAOS model examining the personal characteristics of the female entrepreneur (C); the environment in which the in SMEs operates (A); organizational and managerial aspects (O); and the motivations for manage a new business (S). This model is able to link these factors and classify different types of connections, it is possible to identify the kind of existing relations. The paper intends to help address a gap in the existing literature regarding the management and governance of tourism firms run by women. The paper can contribute to improving the competitiveness Italian enterprises studying how women entrepreneurs manage her business

Recruiting hard-to-reach populations to physical activity studies : evidence and experiences

Most researchers who are conducting research with a public health focus face difficulties in recruiting the segments of the population that they really want to reach. This symposium presented evidence and experiences on recruiting participants to physical activity research, including both epidemiological and intervention based studies. Results from a systematic review of recruitment strategies suggested that we know little about how best to recruit and highlighted the need for researchers to report this in more detail, including metrics of reach into the target population such as number, proportion, and representativeness of participants. Specific strategies used to optimise responses to a population-based mail survey were presented such as study promotion, survey design, multiple mailings, and personal engagement. Finally, using place based recruiting via schools or places of worship to target ethnic minority youth were discussed. Overall the symposium presenters suggested that we need to learn more about how best to recruit participants, in particular those typically under-represented, and that researchers need to apportion a similar amount of planning effort to their recruitment strategies as they do the their research design. Finally we made a plea for researchers to report their recruitment processes in detail

Institutional thickening and innovation: reflections on the remapping of the Great Bear Rainforest

The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). © 2016 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) As a response to forest conflict, contemporary remapping refers to re-evaluations of resource values, new and diverse forms of governance among stakeholders, and compromises within patterns of land use that give greater emphasis to environmental and cultural priorities. This paper elaborates the processes of remapping by examining the role of institutional innovation in conflict resolution, with particular reference to the iconic Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia. After years of conflict and protest, peace in the Great Bear Rainforest was heralded by an interim agreement in 2006, with final ratification likely in 2016. Conceptually, a four-legged stakeholder model identifies the main institutional interests and their interactions through learning and bargaining. New forms of governance were created to bring the stakeholders together in constructive dialogue and then to reach and implement acceptable bargains. Analytically, the paper examines how this agreement has worked in practice by reflecting on the emergence of novel institutions that integrate the interests of key stakeholders. The discussion identifies six bilateral negotiations between: industrial and environmental interests; federal and provincial governments and aboriginal peoples; government and environmental interests; government and industry; industry and aboriginal peoples; and environmental groups and local communities. The remapping process has produced a thickening architecture of institutions that remain experimental even as they seek to promote sustainability, resilience and legitimacy