The project described in this paper focuses on the use of distributed virtual media-rich environments in an educational multi-cultural context. It revolves around the construction of a virtual Tower of Babel in a 3D Collaborative Virtual Environment (3D CVE), involving students across cooperating institutions from Finland and Taiwan, on two different continents in different time zones. This pro...

Human interactions with IT tools reproduce organizational cultural patterns in evolutionary terms which are similar to those seen in the evolution of human tools and language. This paper proposes that user adoption or rejection of new IT tools is derived from the cultural fitness of the tools in the organizational context rather than being close to the user’s operational adaptation. The hypothe...

In achieving success in global sourcing arrangements, the role of a cultural liaison, boundary spanner or transnational intermediary is frequently highlighted as being critical. This paper critiques, builds upon and synthesizes relevant streams of ideas in relation to boundary-spanning and cross-cultural management across a number of disciplines, and constructs a multi-layered creolization fram...

English as the foremost medium of international communication at present is called upon to mediate a whole range of cultural and cross-cultural concepts, to a greater extent than in the past. Inevitably human capital has taken a slant to fit in with the globalized world, and the notion of ‘Teaching English in a Cross-cultural Context’ is crucial. Hence, this paper focuses the possibilities and ...

Global retailers are expanding their business to countries with diverse cultures and consumer preferences. Competitive and sustainable retail chains require advanced e-services linked to in-store digital innovations. This research focuses on cultural dimensions and the implications of implementing global and internet-linked e-service innovations. The research studies how cultural dimensions inf...

Short title: Language from cultural recycling of neural substrates Abstract Cultural evolution has emerged as a key source of explanation for the emergence of complex linguistic structure in the human lineage. In this chapter, we argue that the cultural evolution of language has been shaped by non-linguistic constraints deriving from the human brain. By analogy to reading, novel cortical networ...

We present an account of an undergraduate team based assignment designed to facilitate, exhibit and record team working skills in an e-mediated environment. By linking the student feedback received to Hofstede’s classic model of cultural dimensions we aim to show the assignment’s suitability in revealing the student's multi-cultural context. In addition to anecdotal evidence we also present a q...

How and where are the universal features of language specified? We consider language users as situated agents acting as conduits for the cultural transmission of language. Using multi-agent computational models we show that certain hallmarks of language are adaptive in the context of cultural transmission. This observation requires us to reconsider the role of innateness in explaining the chara...