Multiple populations in globular clusters. Lessons learned from the Milky Way globular clusters

Recent progress in studies of globular clusters has shown that they are not simple stellar populations, being rather made of multiple generations. Evidence stems both from photometry and spectroscopy. A new paradigm is then arising for the formation of massive star clusters, which includes several episodes of star formation. While this provides an explanation for several features of globular clusters, including the second parameter problem, it also opens new perspectives about the relation between globular clusters and the halo of our Galaxy, and by extension of all populations with a high specific frequency of globular clusters, such as, e.g., giant elliptical galaxies. We review progress in this area, focusing on the most recent studies. Several points remain to be properly understood, in particular those concerning the nature of the polluters producing the abundance pattern in the clusters and the typical timescale, the range of cluster masses where this phenomenon is active, and the relation between globular clusters and other satellites of our Galaxy.Comment: In press (The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review

Think glocally, act glocally: a culture-centric comment on Leung, Bhagat, Buchan, Erez and Gibson (2005)

Culture is a critical variable in international business (IB), and Leung, Bhagat, Buchan, Erez and Gibson (2005) enrich our understanding of its role. However, that said, their framing of this variable conflates the role of national culture (NC), a particular form of culture, with culture itself, a more pivotal, holistic and central construct. This paper, by commenting on and critiquing their approach, seeks to shift the theoretical center of gravity from a NC-centric paradigm to a culture-centric, constructivist one, and from a top-down, bottom-up view to a flatter, glocalized one. Implications are provided which suggest that research should address cultural processes of patterning and production, as well as cultural forms, such as global communities and global culture (GC), which share with or even capture the spotlight from NC as a focus for studying and developing IB cultural theory. Journal of International Business Studies (2009) 40, 237–254; doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400410