Suchergebnisse

This study addresses an apparent impasse in the research on organizations' responses to cultural distance. We posit that cross-country differences in egalitarianism—a cultural orientation manifested in intolerance for abuses of market and political power and support for protection of less powerful actors—affect multinational firms' choices of destinations for foreign direct investment (FDI). Using historically motivated instrumental variables, we observe that egalitarianism distance has a negative causal impact on FDI flows. This effect is robust to a broad set of competing accounts, including the effects of other cultural dimensions, various features of the prevailing legal and regulatory regimes, other features of the institutional environment, economic development, and time-invariant unobserved characteristics of origin and host countries. We further show that egalitarianism correlates in a conceptually compatible way with an array of organizational practices pertinent to firms' interactions with nonfinancial stakeholders, such that national differences in these egalitarianism-related features may affect firms' international expansion decisions.

Two studies investigated reciprocal effects of values and voting. Study 1 measured adults' basic values and core political values both before (n = 1379) and following (n = 1030) the 2006 Italian national election. Both types of values predicted voting. Voting choice influenced subsequent core political values but not basic values. The political values of free enterprise, civil liberties, equality, law and order, military intervention, and accepting immigrants changed to become more compatible with the ideology of the chosen coalition. Study 2 measured core political values before (n = 697) and following (n = 506) the 2008 Italian national election. It largely replicated the reciprocal effects of voting and political values of Study 1. In addition, it demonstrated that left‐right ideology mediated the reciprocal effects of voting and political values. Moreover, voter certainty moderated these effects. Political values predicted vote choice more weakly among undecided than decided voters, but voting choice led to more value change among undecided voters.

We examine how the traits and values of both candidates and voters contribute to political choice, using the five-factor model of traits and the Schwartz (1992 ) theory of basic personal values. 1,164 subjects reported their voting intention, their own traits and values, and those they perceived in the leader of one Italian political coalition (center-right or center-left). As hypothesized, voters simplified their personality judgments of politicians. Instead of the 5 trait factors and 10 basic values they employed in self-descriptions, they described the politicians using 2 trait factors (integrity and leadership) and 2 value dimensions (concern for others vs. self and excitement vs. caution). Logistic regressions revealed that voters' own values predicted voting intention as hypothesized based on the policies advocated by the coalitions. Values trumped both own traits and demographic characteristics. The perceived traits and values of candidates accounted for additional variance in voting intention. The traits on which voters perceived a politician as weaker (Prodi's leadership and Berlusconi's integrity) were more decisive in orienting political preferences. We discuss explanations and implications of these findings.

"Schwartz' theory of ten basic human values has stimulated numerous studies using a variety of instruments. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) of the properties of some of the instruments have revealed that three pairs of values were excessively highly correlated. This led Davidov et al. (2008) to propose unifying values. To overcome the problems of loss of precision due to unifying distinct values, Knoppen and Saris (2009a, b) investigated the factorial structure of each of the ten values measured with the PVQ (Schwartz et al. 2001). They identified both cross-loadings and distinct sub-dimensions for the pairs of nondiscriminated values in two German student samples. They concluded that the original strategy for selecting items, maximizing theoretical coverage at the expense of item homogeneity, produced the poor discrimination between values. The Study 1 examines whether the Knoppen and Saris findings generalize to a representative sample of the German population. With some notable exceptions, the author's findings replicate theirs. Study 2 uses 33 items from an experimental version of the PVQ to operationalize and test a full model of the 11 basic values. Following Knoppen and Saris, they included only one sub-dimension of each of the 11 values. This CFA model yielded a satisfactory fit with no estimation problems. The authors conclude that available indicators permit measuring the distinct values without the need to collapse factors. Limitations and implications of the research are discussed." (author's abstract)

Zusammenfassung: In zwei Stichproben wird eine deutschsprachige 40-Item Version des "Portraits Value Questionnaire" (PVQ) validiert; in einer dritten Stichprobe (European Social Survey) wird eine verkürzte Version mit 21 Items dieses Werteinventars validiert. Bei dem PVQ handelt es sich um ein von Shalom Schwartz neu entwickeltes Instrument zur Überprüfung seiner Theorie grundlegender menschlicher Werte. Die Aufgabenstellung des PVQ unterscheidet sich konzeptionell deutlich von der des bisher verwendeten Standardinstrumentes "Schwartz Value Survey" (SVS). Das neue Instrument ist besonders für Probanden mit mittlerer und niedriger Schulbildung geeignet. Unsere Ergebnisse belegen die instrumentenunabhängige Validität der von Schwartz postulierten Wertetheorie. Der Vergleich mit dem SVS belegt die konvergente und diskriminante Validität der mit dem PVQ gemessenen zehn Wertetypen. Auch die vorhergesagten Beziehungen der Wertetypen mit zwei externen Konstrukten belegen die Konstruktvalidität des PVQ. In einer konfirmatorischen Faktorenanalyse wird die postulierte Zahl der unterschiedlichen Werte nicht bestätigt, da neun statt zehn Werte als empirisch angemessen erscheinen. Eine externe Validierung mit den Daten des repräsentativen European Social Survey in Deutschland durch eine konfirmatorische Faktorenanalyse (jedoch nur mit 21 Items) hat die Schwartz'sche Werteskala weitgehend bestätigt, allerdings mussten sechs der zehn Wertetypen zu dreien zusammengefasst werden.

The current study examines the extent to which religiosity account for ideological orientations in 16 countries from five continents (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Greece, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Results showed that religiosity was consistently related to right and conservative ideologies in all countries, except Australia. This relation held across different religions, and did not vary across participant's demographic conditions (i.e., gender, age, income, and education). After controlling for basic personal values, the contribution of religiosity on ideology was still significant. However, the effect was substantial only in countries where religion has played a prominent role in the public sphere, such as Spain, Poland, Greece, Italy, Slovakia, and Turkey. In the other countries, the unique contribution of religiosity was marginal or small.

The current study examines the contribution of left-right (or liberal-conservative) ideology to voting, as well as the extent to which basic values account for ideological orientation. Analyses were conducted in 16 countries from five continents (Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania), most of which have been neglected by previous studies. Results showed that left-right (or liberal-conservative) ideology predicted voting in all countries except Ukraine. Basic values exerted a considerable effect in predicting ideology in most countries, especially in established democracies such as Australia, Finland, Italy, United Kingdom, and Germany. Pattern of relations with the whole set of 10 values revealed that the critical trade-off underlying ideology is between values concerned with tolerance and protection for the welfare of all people (universalism) versus values concerned with preserving the social order and status quo (security). A noteworthy exception was found in European postcommunist countries, where relations of values with ideology were small (Poland) or near to zero (Ukraine, Slovakia). ; Peer reviewed