“Cultural Museum In Money Trouble - KSAT 12” plus 3 more

Cultural Museum In Money Trouble - KSAT 12
Grand Rapids Symphony gets a grant from the Michigan ... - WZZM 13
Cultural Barriers in International Business - Associated Content
Fashion should be designated cultural industry ... - Toronto Star

Cultural Museum In Money Trouble - KSAT 12

Posted: 31 Mar 2010 08:18 PM PDT

Radio Station Pays Tribute To Selena

For many, March 31, 1995, was the day Tejano music died, along with its biggest star, Grammy Award-winner Selena Quintanilla-Perez. KEDA AM was the first to report her death.

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Grand Rapids Symphony gets a grant from the Michigan ... - WZZM 13

Posted: 31 Mar 2010 07:28 PM PDT

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP)- The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs is awarding $1.5 million to arts and cultural groups for basic operations, a fraction of the $7.9 million given to a year ago.

The council on Wednesday announced 161 grants to organizations in 35 counties. The largest grants went to the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Edison Institute and College for Creative Studies, each receiving $20,000.

The Grand Rapids Symphony, which received $224,200 last year before a statewide, midyear cut reduced that amount to $215,800, got $11,200. Seventeen applicants, including the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, were not awarded grants for 2010.

John Bracey, the council's executive director, says that regardless of the amount, the grants help support the cultural institutions and preserve jobs.

From the Associated Press

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Cultural Barriers in International Business - Associated Content

Posted: 31 Mar 2010 04:22 PM PDT

Problems Firms Face when Going Abroad

Hill (2009) wrote that the worst thing that can happen to a firm going abroad is to be ill- informed. Managers have to think globally when running multicultural teams.

Culture has a lot of dimensions, Popular writers, for instance, Geert Hofstede (1980, 1983, 1986, 1991, 1995), a dutch Psychologist, who was working for IBM, collected data on IBM's operations in 70 countries, with

over 116,000 questionnaires (Rugman and Collins, 2006) has isolated four (Later five) dimensions of culture.

Power distance
the acceptance of the unequal distribution of physical and intelligent capabilities within a society will determine the level of power distance.

Uncertainty avoidance
As the name supposes it is the extent to which an organization will go to avoid uncertainty. this culture is reflected in the workers attitude to job security, retirement benefits, etc.

Individualism/collectivism
Individualism is the tendency of people to look after themselves and their immediate family only (Rugman and Collins 2006: 135)

Masculinity / Femininity
A societal or organizational value towards assertiveness and materialism determines the masculinity or femininity of the culture.

Long term orientation
Hofstede and Micheal Bond and his associates (Chinese cultural connections) used an innovative technique to add this framework (Luo, 2004). A group of Chinese socialists named 10 basic and fundamental value, and this was used to produce a list of 40 values that was used in a survey of 22 countries.

In Nov 2006, Jeanne Brett, Kristin Behfar and Mary C. Kern, writing in the Harvard Business Review, highlighted the challenges managers face with multicultural teams. They categorized four challenges:

Direct versus indirect communication
Different cultures have different ways of communicating, the westerners are direct in communication and their opinion is known to be clear. Non- westerners would prefer to speak indirectly and politely pass their opinion across through inferences and not outright renditions

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Fashion should be designated cultural industry ... - Toronto Star

Posted: 31 Mar 2010 04:00 PM PDT

Fashion Week models Leah Christ, Lauren Wood and Alena Gapanovich take time out of their busy schedules to come to a Queen's Park press conference on Wednesday. They are part of a group, supported by the NDP and the Tories, that want the government to declare the fashion business a cultural industry. (Tonya Talaga-Toronto Star)

Iconic Canadian designer Robin Kay says the Ontario government's failure to declare the fashion business a cultural industry like film making or book publishing is simply out of style.

Fashion contributes $500 million to the province's economy annually. Yet designers are ineligible for arts grants and funding they say would grow their businesses and create jobs.

"This is so absurd," Kay said. "For us to not be on the same playing field as a writer, or an artist, a dancer, a film maker, it is wrong."

In a rare show of unity, Progressive Conservative MPP Christine Elliott and NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo held a news conference Wednesday to call on Culture Minister Michael Chan to include fashion under the province's cultural mandate.

In Toronto, 4,600 Toronto fashion retail outlets generate sales of $2.6 billion annually, said PC MPP Christine Elliott (Whitby-Oshawa).

"Despite this contribution, fashion and fashion designers are excluded," she said. "It is important to note when Quebec allowed fashion to qualify for arts and cultural funding, employment in the fashion industry doubled in less than a year."

The Greater Toronto Area alone employs 50,000 people in the fashion industry and Ontario exported $688 million in 2006 in apparel, designers say.

The ministry currently defines cultural industries as film and television, book and magazine publishing, interactive digital media and music recording. But including fashion in the mix would boost Shawn Hewson's sportswear business.

"Access to funds helps designers become export ready, it increases the volume of production we produce here in Canada," said Hewson, creative director of Bustle Clothing. Hewson is also a full-time designer judge on Project Runway Canada. "It is very difficult to market yourself outside of the province and country because it is expensive. That is one of the main things we'd be seeking access to funds for."

Kay, director of LG Fashion Week in Toronto, said Ontario is losing business to Quebec because they fail to foster growth in the fashion industry.

During Montreal's Fashion Week 2009, the provincial and local governments announced a $2.4 million strategy to fund events and boost the city's fashion initiatives. Two years prior to that, Quebec earmarked $82 million for the industry.

"Quebec is brilliant with understanding the economy of culture," Kay said after the Queen's Park news conference. "Great talent showcases our country, drives our economy and builds a bridge to the international world. Investment in our industry would drive it to greater success."

Culture Minister Michael Chan says he is open to considering the change once he finds out more about it. "As a ministry we are always open to input. I'd like to look at it. It's good someone has raised it," he said.

But Kay said this isn't the first time she or Hewson has asked the government to change the rules. "I sat in front of the minister of culture (a predecessor to Chan) and it was humiliating … humiliating how absolutely irrelevant this was to her."

Ontario is losing young, talented designers due to the oversight, said NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo (High Park-Parkdale). "Young designers can't apply for the grants other artists can. That means we lose those young designers. They go to other jurisdictions," she said.

In Italy and France there are ministers of fashion whose only job is to boost the fashion industry, she said. "The question is, why in Ontario, do we ignore this?" DiNovo asked. "We aren't asking for special privileges for designers, all we are asking is for them to be part of the pool for which grants are eligible."

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Cultural

Wednesday, March 31, 2010