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This paper is based on a survey of over 4,000 respondents from ten manufacturing companies in two Western countries (the US and Germany), and four countries of the former Soviet Union (Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic). The study is using Hofstede's framework and instrumentation, and explores work-related culture dimensions of managers and employees in the ten companies. The study results point to within and between country variation in cultural dimensions, differences between managers and their subordinates, and the influence of demographic factors on culture. This is one of the first studies to address work-related cultural values in Georgia, Kazakhstan, and the Kyrgyz Republic, and one of few studies that allow inferences about the degree of variation within and between countries of the former Eastern Bloc and the countries of the West. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The usage of smartphones and apps to communicate, retrieve information, locate places, and entertain is a norm today. However, to this day, many users are unaware of, or indifferent to, how smartphones (and other mobile devices such as tablets, fitness trackers, or smartwatches) could possibly breach their mobile privacy. This case study investigates and compares mobile privacy behavior and attitude of library and information science students from the School of Communication and Information, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, U.S.A., with library and information science students from the Berlin School of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. Qualitative ethnographic research methods such as interviews, participant observation, and an experiment were conducted between 2017 and 2018 both in Germany and the U.S.A. The findings reveal that there are nearly no cultural differences in mobile privacy behavior and attitude between participants. In fact, this study discovers and discerns different mobile privacy typologies. These typologies, ranging from "mobile privacy objection" to "mobile privacy learned helplessness" reveal how they impact German and American students' privacy behavior and attitude in a similar fashion. The lack of significant differences between German and American library and information science students suggests that more could be done to raise privacy awareness, especially for mobile computing and emergent technologies such as facial recognition and A.I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross-cultural experiment examined the effectiveness of three health message characteristics to foster or inhibit selective exposure to health information. An online magazine was created with eight articles about various health risks. Four articles were manipulated regarding (1) severity of the described health threat (low versus high), (2) suggested efficacy to avoid or minimize negative consequences (low versus high) and (3) type of evidence presented (statistical information versus exemplar information). Respondents from the U.S. and from Germany (n = 301/298) browsed through the magazine while selective exposure was unobtrusively logged. Findings reveal country-specific exposure patterns. A positive main effect of severity was only found for U.S. respondents. Independent of respondents' country, significantly more time was spent with low-severity/high-efficacy messages and high-severity/low-efficacy messages than with articles featuring the often-recommended high-severity/high-efficacy message combination. Respondents generally read more exemplar messages than those with statistical evidence, especially when high efficacy was suggested. Implications of these exposure patterns for the real-life effectiveness of health messages are discussed and an improved theoretical conceptualization of message effectiveness is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article provides information from various aspects of the field of international serials and electronic resource management. Abstracts for several research articles are included on topics such as scholarly electronic books (e-books) and open source data in academic publishing. Additionally, awards and grants presented by the American Library Association (ALA) in 2011 are highlighted along with notes on the reorganization of the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG). Brief information regarding the 2012 conference for the UKSG and a list of online resources related to serials librarians are also included.

We explored the everyday experiences of 18- to 36-month-old toddlers at two study sites and the influence of adaptation to the host culture on the everyday experiences of children from migrant families. First- and second-generation Puerto Rican families in Connecticut, USA, first- and second-generation Turkish families in Bochum, Germany, as well as families of the respective majority cultures were sampled (N = 161). We interviewed mothers to obtain detailed descriptions of a 24-hour period of a weekday. Study results focused on the activities children engaged in and the social context. The results indicated significant differences between the two sites. Despite site differences, we found parallel processes of adaptation across both sites. Everyday experiences of children of first-generation mothers differed in important aspects (e.g. self-feeding) from those of children of the majority cultures. Children of second-generation mothers were in an intermediate position on most variables, primarily linear pattern of acculturation. Overall, our data suggests that the opportunities and constraints of the physical and social environment of the receiving country as well as the migration experience influence the everyday experiences of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from three countries that differ economically, culturally, and geographically, this study examines the role of Prospect Theory's reflection effect, a psychological factor, in combination with Uncertainty Avoidance (UA), a cultural factor, on the choice of mortgage products. Experiments were conducted using business professionals in the United States, Germany, and Japan. The results suggest that risk-averse people tend to become more risk seeking, leaning more toward adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) when choosing a mortgage type, and that this psychological effect may underlie the mortgage choices of people who tend to choose ARMs, even across countries with different cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American children living on an Army post in Germany, American children living off the post, and German children were tested for their ability to interpret and to transmit gestures most frequently used by a group of children in the Midwestern United States. It was found accurate use of these gestures could not be predicted from the amount of exposure to an American culture that the three groups had experienced. Socioeconomic differences were found to be important in gestural accuracy in a previous study and appeared to be important in the present study as well. Both the American and German children who had been exposed to both cultures learned the gestures of both cultures. There were no sex differences in gestural accuracy obtained for any of the three groups observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article cites a study which focuses on stereotyped attitudes toward the aged in West Germany and the United States. It has also been noted that the attitudes of old and young toward aging are interrelated and that cultural rejection results in self-rejection of the old, with its concomitants of personality disorganization and regression. Although respect for the elderly has been traditionally high in Germany, a steady decline in patriarchal sentiments beginning in the postwar years suggests that the actual relations between old and young in West Germany may be far more disharmonious and similar to those in the United States than has generally been acknowledged. Agreements and disagreements in the attitudes toward old people were assessed with a German translation of the Golde-Kogan Sentence Completion Procedure. This instrument, consisting of 20 incomplete sentences dealing with various aspects of old people's lives and the subjects personal experience with elderly persons, was administered to 67 older and 73 younger females of comparable intelligence and social background in three medium-sized West Germany cities.