Special Guest Editors
Luca
Andriani (Birkbeck university of London, luca.andriani@bbk.ac.uk)
Randolph
Bruno (University College London, randolph.bruno@ucl.ac.uk)
Background
With
this call, we explore the role of institutions, cultural traits, and cultural
differences broadly defined on a variety of economic, social and institutional
outcomes. The aim is to establish a dialogue between scholars of different
disciplines who may interpret these concepts from different perspectives. We,
thus, propose to ground the contributions submitted to this special issue in
well-established conceptualisations of both culture and institutions, while
leaving room for authors to operationalise the concepts as they see fit.
With this in mind, on the one hand we
define institutions as “rules and norms able to constrain and shape human
interactions as well as open up possibilities” (Hodgson 2006; North, 1990). On
the other hand, the economic literature refers to culture as “those
customary beliefs and values that ethnic, religious, and social groups transmit
unchanged from generation to generation” (Guiso et al.
2006). In a wider perspective, culture
is viewed as an important environmental factor consisting of a set of
social-value orientations that distinguish the members of one group from those
of another, shape collective preferences and individuals’ attitudes within a
socio-economic and geographical space (De Jong 2009; Hofstede 1980; Schwartz,
2011).
The role of cultural aspects and their
impact on organisational, market and business performance have been widely
investigated in the context of managerial and business studies since the very
seminal work of Hofstede in 1980 (Hofstede 1980).
Subsequent works have developed challenging
and compelling critiques to the definition of culture proposed by Hofstede (e.g.
McSweeney, 2002) as well as further approaches to the conceptualisation and
measurement of cultural traits (Chanchani and Theivanathampillai, 2002;
Inglehart and Baker, 2000; Kaasa et al. 2014; Kaasa 2015; Schnyder et al 2019; Taras
et al., 2009; Voigt 2018). Similarly, culture, as a field of enquiry of relevance
to economic and institutional outcomes, progressively gained attention in the broader
economic literature and culminated with the emergence of New Cultural Economics
as embodied in Guiso et al. (2006) and Tabellini (2008 and 2010). However, within
the Institutional Economics, the
interconnection between culture and institutions has been a recurrent, even
though sometime latent, underlying theme. North (1990), for instance, argues
that cultural traits such as sanctions, taboos, customs and traditions are
informal constrains affecting individuals’ behaviour and actions. Hodgson
(2006) relates the concept of culture to the interplay between formal and
informal institutions within an expanding critical debate on the role of
institutions in economics. Along with these two key references, a growing body
of empirical and theoretical works has been showing that institutions and cultural
factors matter on different economic and institutional performance (Acemoglu
and Jackson 2017; Alesina and Giuliano 2015; Bruno et al. 2013; Douarin and
Mickiewicz 2017; Edwards et al. 2019; Gorton et al. 2008; Greif 1994; Guiso et
al 2006; Tabellini 2008, 2010; Williamson 2009). In this regard, in recent
years, the Journal of Institutional
Economics has provided a voice to pioneer empirical and conceptual works on
the relationship between culture and different institutional and socio-economic
aspects both in high income and developing countries (e.g. Andriani and
Sabatini 2015; Berggren et al. 2019; Cruz-García and Peiró-Palomino 2019; Gerxhani and Van Breemen 2019; Herrmann-Pillath
et al. 2019; Kyriacou and Lopez Velasquez 2015; Spranz et al. 2012; Tarabar
2019). However, in many circumstances, at present, culture and institutions are
keywords belonging to two only partially converging research streams. Within
this special issue, instead, we want to recognise a more systemic overlap
between culture and informal institutions as being both social constructs,
which are not formally enforced by others (Voigt, 2018). We also acknowledge
significant challenges of interpretation, declination and delineation of the
two concepts (Hodgson, 2006) especially when it comes to appropriate
measurements (Voigt, 2018).
In other words, this special issue
attempts to start filling this gap and to build an ad-hoc systemic platform for disseminating such a debate. To this
purpose, we aim to bring together papers to improve the theoretical, empirical
and methodological understanding of the role of institutions and culture in
different geopolitical and socio-economic contexts as well as the role of
economics in different institutional and cultural contexts. Particularly, we
focus on how institutions and cultural aspects may provide contributions towards
better understanding of economic outcomes. Contributions which can derive from individuals
and social attitudes towards rent-seeking behaviours, corruption, tax evasion,
and institutional trust, among others (Andriani 2016; Bruno 2019). We are also
interested in studies investigating how cultural traits and institutions relate
to different forms of economic and institutional performance. Hence, we invite
contributions addressing issues including but not limited to:
- Link
between Culture, Formal and Informal Institutions
- Social
Norms, Trust, and Social Attitudes Towards Rent-Seeking Behaviours
- Measures
of Culture and Cultural Dimensions
- Culture,
Corruption, Tax Evasion, and Tax Morale
- Legal
Institutions, Cultural Traits, and Governance
- Religiosity,
Cultural Differences, and Institutions
- Culture,
Institutional Performance, and Institutional Trust
- Cultural
Differences, Social Capital, and Social Attitudes
- Culture
and Economic and/or Organisational Performance
Abstract Submission
We
invite to submit an abstract of max 300 words by the 27th of January 2020 to luca.andriani@bbk.ac.uk. The abstract
should include correspondence email and affiliation and should include “Institutions and Culture
in Economic Context
in
the subject line.
Submitted abstracts need to be structured as follow:
Research
Type:
Conceptual, Theoretical, Empirical or Review (select one)
Research
Question/Issue:
presentation of the focus and motivations of the paper, including relevant
information regarding the link to culture and institutions and the definition
and measurements chosen for these concepts.
Method: clarification of
the methodological approach chosen, and data source, if the paper is
conceptual/theoretical state the main framework your research builds on.
Key
Findings/Insights:
explanation of the findings or insights derived from the study. This section
should highlight the contribution of the work to the broader literature.
Implications: in this section,
please state the broader implications of the findings for researchers and/or
policy-makers, as appropriate.
The
abstracts will be assessed by the guest editors of this special issue along
with the Editors of the Journal of
Institutional Economics. The authors will be notified by the 18th of February 2020
regarding the acceptance or rejection of the abstracts. We expect the final
papers to be submitted no later than 5th
of May 2020 directly to the Journal
of Institutional Economics.
Please
note that the acceptance of abstracts does not necessarily imply the acceptance of
the paper for the special issue. All the paper submissions will go through
the Journal of Institutional Economics
regular
review process and follow the standard norms and processes.
For any query, please contact any of the guest editors: Luca Andriani (luca.andriani@bbk.ac.uk) and/or Randolph Bruno (randolph.bruno@ucl.ac.uk)
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