Book
Потребление как коммуникация - 2009: материалы 5-ой международной конференции, 26-27 июня 2009г.
The results of cross-cultural research of implicit theories of innovativeness among students and teachers, representatives of three ethnocultural groups: Russians, the people of the North Caucasus (Chechens and Ingushs) and Tuvinians (N=804) are presented. Intergroup differences in implicit theories of innovativeness are revealed: the ‘individual’ theories of innovativeness prevail among Russians and among the students, the ‘social’ theories of innovativeness are more expressed among respondents from the North Caucasus, Tuva and among the teachers. Using the structural equations modeling the universal model of values impact on implicit theories of innovativeness and attitudes towards innovations is constructed. Values of the Openness to changes and individual theories of innovativeness promote the positive relation to innovations. Results of research have shown that implicit theories of innovativeness differ in different cultures, and values make different impact on the attitudes towards innovations and innovative experience in different cultures.
This article presents reflections on the book Glam-capitalism by Dmitry Ivanov where the author develops the concept of the modern society as a society of glam-capitalism in which glamour specifies the universal and fundamental logic of the action. The author of the article discusses such propositions as whether glamour tendencies are universal in modern society, whether glam capitalism is a new version of a capitalist society, whether glamour is a new phenomenon and whether it can explain some economic processes like social stratification as Ivanov tends to believe. The perception of the economist differs from that of the sociologist.
Economy is embedded in ongoing concrete social networks, and economic processes are increasingly international in character. Three interrelated processes are crucial for setting the frame of analysis for this book: globalisation, development of post-industrial societies, and transformation of European post-socialist countries. Within this framework the main issues will be as follows: economies in transition - reliable patterns, imitation, local adaptation, cultural embeddedness; multiplicity of markets - commodification of life, new markets in old societies; economic behavior - households, micro-enterprises, local and global influences; and, contemporary polities i.e. states, the European Union and global corporations. The stress will be placed on actors, relations and institutions as the driving forces of the above described processes. The authors of this collection analyze, based on their empirical material, very interesting socio-economic issues. These are: ethical consumption from the perspective of the moral economy and its connection to political institutions in Europe (and particularly in Hungary); the cultural context of consumption, both in the case of social networks in Bangladesh and of counterfeited goods on the Russian market; the new and old, individual and organizational actors in transition economies, for instance in Poland and Croatia; the new approach to corporations as global actors, stressing their social responsibility; the dynamics of managerial practices in the example of Russia; the influence of EU funds and policies on the Polish SMEs market; the cultural embeddedness of economic behavior, in the case of Poles working in the Scottish market and of entrepreneurs in Damascus; the retirement policy in the fast aging societies of Spain and Poland; and, the emergence of the new markets, like that of health services, in Russia and that of the property market in Eastern and Central Europe.
The paper argues that when developing an explanatory model of the early-stage entrepreneurial activity level (measured by total index of early entrepreneurial activity - TEA) one should consider the ‘path dependency’ of the ‘institutional matrix’ of different societies. Otherwise one could wonder why some theoretical models of TEA determining factors, as provided by a lot of studies, are not statistically significant for younger market systems and entrepreneurship in transitional economies. However, comparing Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data with the scope of official statistics provides a deeper insight into adults’ intrinsic incentives to become entrepreneurial. A statistical analysis
of national TEA levels does not support the thesis that TEA levels, and structure, change under economic slowdown. Therefore, it seems logical to suggest that to interpret the TEA level it is important to examine some fundamental specific of different types of national markets rather than just the actual economic situation itself. When testing this hypothesis, the authors compared the characteristics of GEM countries with stable, high or low TEA levels. A Fisher’s linear discriminant analysis (FLDA) is used to examine whether different groups of countries can be distinguished by linear combinations of predictor variables and to determine which variables are responsible for this separation. The FLDA model explains the parabolic form of the relation between the level of economic development and TEA. A database of independent variables includes some different quantitative, ordinal and nominal variables determining the context of the national capital accumulation history. Using FLDA, we argue, one might foresee future tendencies of TEA - not only for GEM participating countries.
Students' internet usage attracts the attention of many researchers in different countries. Differences in internet penetration in diverse countries lead us to ask about the interaction of medium and culture in this process. In this paper we present an analysis based on a sample of 825 students from 18 Russian universities and discuss findings on particularities of students' ICT usage. On the background of the findings of the study, based on data collected in 2008-2009 year during a project "A сross-cultural study of the new learning culture formation in Germany and Russia", we discuss the problem of plagiarism in Russia, the availability of ICT features in Russian universities and an evaluation of the attractiveness of different categories of ICT usage and gender specifics in the use of ICT.