Search Results (9)

Cultural heritage plays a crucial role in strengthening local identity and fostering socio-economic development. However, its effective enhancement requires an inclusive decision-making process capable of integrating the diverse perspectives of stakeholders. This study introduces an innovative participatory governance model applied to the case of Taverna, Calabria. This study adopted a methodological framework grounded in co-design and co-evaluation, and the research examined the impacts and opportunities associated with a collaborative management process for cultural heritage. The proposed framework consists of five key phases: defining a strategic vision, analyzing the territorial context, co-designing enhancement strategies, implementing actions, and monitoring their impact. The findings highlight the effectiveness of this approach in shaping strategies grounded in local identity, inclusive community engagement, and long-term sustainability. The experience of Taverna’s collaborative decision-making project demonstrates that an inclusive governance process can generate tangible benefits in terms of social innovation, economic growth, and heritage conservation. Full article

This article explores the emergence of the concept of glocalization in contemporary societies and more precisely, the glocalization of sport to highlight a social innovation borne through the interaction between global dynamics and local specificities in the development of sport. The glocalization, considered as a theorical framework to rethink local social innovation which answered to the limit of the globalization, is examined in this article through an in-depth bibliographic analysis conducted using the Lillocat metasearch engine (covering 354 articles since 1992 across 11 thematic areas, 29 of which are related to sports). The use of IRaMuTeQ software version 0.7 alpha2 (Interface for Multidimensional Text and Questionnaire Analysis) enabled comprehensive textual and lexical analyses, including frequency analyses, hierarchical classifications, and principal component analyses (PCA). These analyses were presented in the form of figures such as histograms, dendrograms, and word clouds, thereby facilitating the identification of lexical co-occurrence relationships and the understanding of emerging trends. Findings reveal that glocalization enables sports organizations to integrate global strategies with local cultural identities, fostering fan engagement, economic sustainability, and cultural diversity. Global events such as the FIFA World Cup, the NBA’s international expansion, and the Tour de France illustrate how global frameworks adapt to local contexts. Glocalization emerges as a strategic driver of social innovation, balancing internationalization with localized adaptation. This study provides insights for researchers and practitioners, considering glocalization as a theorical framework useful for the analysis of a local social innovation in the context of globalization and sport as a propitious field of research. Full article

The global dissemination of Christianity has resulted in diverse singing styles and historical narratives that incorporate different languages and musical traditions. Chinese Christian hymns, in particular, possess distinctive features that reflect the Chinese thinking mode and cultural values, showcasing the interplay between Western hymns and Chinese singing and poetic and cultural traditions within the Chinese historical context. This paper takes Chinese Christian hymnals published between 1807 and 1949 as its object of study. It conducts research on representative hymnals from three historical stages: the emergence, flourishing, and prosperity of hymns, and examines their compilation and publication. Using methods such as historical research, textual criticism, translation studies, and cross-cultural communication, the paper explores the evolution of Chinese Christian hymns. The paper analyzes such aspects of the hymnals as translating and writing strategies, thematic content, linguistic features, editing and formatting, as well as the selection and composition of melodies. It is concluded that the indigenization of Chinese hymns does not involve outright rejection of foreign elements or unquestioning adherence to local traditions, but rather represents a common ground between Chinese and Western languages and vocal traditions, reflecting the characteristic of glocalization. Full article

Building from the authors’ plan to conceptualize an artificial intelligence (AI) solution that allows SME owners to make more sustainable choices in foreign-market-entry decisions, this systematic literature review (SLR) researches the state-of-the-art in SME internationalization from 1920 to 2023 (since 2014 in more depth). The authors gather all articles in Scopus, tagged with the keyword internationalization (25,303 as of January 2023), order them by citations, and download the top 2000 papers’ metadata for analysis and debate, then narrow it to reviews and SMEs, and use bibliometric visualization and qualitative data analysis software (VOSviewer and NVivo) to identify the key players and determinants of export performance/intensity, and finally draw conclusions. The results reveal key internationalization theories, top authors, reviews, and sources and expand Werner´s determinants via several tables and figures. The findings reveal the rise of relevance regarding theories related to social narratives and corporate activism, but also show that there is still much to do in SME internationalization, namely on what makes a small firm well established in their native market and have success in other countries. The contribution to science is an update on the topic and the pinpointing of several trends and gaps, such as a focus on services, theory integration, longitudinal studies between antecedents and performance, strategic fit versus opportunism, network theory on niche marketing, born-“glocal” strategies, disruptive technologies, and discourse variables, for the future of SME export success. Full article

Foodscape conceptualizes the dynamic human–food–place nexus. Tourism provides a cross-cultural context where tourists can consume different destination foods and places, during which multiple types of destination foodscapes are produced. However, few studies explore how to frame the types and connotations of destination foodscape. Tourists’ travelogues provide a rich database to examine this question. Through netnography, this study collects and analyzes 86 posts of travelogues published from 2012 to 2019 in Mafengwo, a famous Chinese online travel community, about Chinese tourists’ food experiences in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We summarize five types of destination foodscapes, globalized recreational foodscape, staged local foodscape, glocalized foodscape, authentic local foodscape, and overseas ethnic foodscape in which tourists obtain different familiar-novelty hybrid experiences. This study contributes to interdisciplinary dialogue between food and tourism literature by proposing a coordinate framework with two axes, the spectrum of cultural distance and the spectrum of serving tourists/locals, to classify destination foodscape and a six-dimensional network construct to reveal the connotations of destination foodscape. Relevant strategies for promoting destination food and tourism development are also provided. Full article

Scholars of Japanese religion have recently drawn attention to the global repositioning, “greening”, and international popularization of Shinto. However, research on Shinto ritual practice and material religion continues to focus predominantly on cases located within the borders of the Japanese state. This article explores the globalization of Shinto through transnational practitioners’ strategic glocalization of everyday ritual practices outside of Japan. Drawing upon digital ethnographic fieldwork conducted in online Shinto communities, I examine three case studies centering on traditional ritual offerings made at the domestic altar (kamidana): rice, sake, and sakaki branches. I investigate how transnational Shinto communities hold in tension a multiplicity of particularistic understandings of Shinto locality and authenticity when it comes to domestic ritual practice. While relativistic approaches to glocalization locate the sacred and authentic in an archetypical or idealized form of Japanese tradition rooted in its environment, creolization and transformation valorize the particularities of one’s personal surroundings and circumstances. Examining these strategies alongside recent and historical cases in Shinto ritual at shrines within Japan, I propose that attending to processes of “parallel glocalization” helps to illuminate the quasi-fictive notion of the religious “homeland” and close the perceived gap in authenticity between ritual practices at home and abroad. Full article

This study examines how Nongshim, a Korean instant noodle manufacturer, has expanded its operation globally within the concept of “open innovation” through its glocalization strategy, and how this strategy differs from the existing glocalization method enforced by global companies. The study shows how Nongshim used its unique glocalization strategy of “globalized localization”, outlining the three stages by which the company switched its “glocalization focus”, starting with “localizing”, moving through “globalizing”, then back to “localizing”, while retaining its ultimate purpose of globalization. From the basis of the case analysis, the study proposes a “pendulum theory” that can be applied to local companies that are planning to expand their business in a global market. Full article

Territorial energetic and environmental planning provides operational solidity to the concept of sustainable development, in particular in energy-related issues, where recent attention to and social awareness of climate change are driving actions and policies at local and international levels. The goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030 can be reached through the strategy of glocalization, giving more responsibility to local administrations like municipalities. In this work, a scientific methodology is developed and validated to revise Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP) and the monitoring phase of municipalities. The methodology starts from measured data in the territory considered and makes use of specific statistical models in order to estimate the needed data. The methodology considers the energy consumption of the main sectors: residential, transportation, tertiary, and commercial, with a particular focus on municipal competences (public lighting, urban transport, municipal fleet, etc.). Renewable energy is also considered due to its importance in local energy production. In order to go deeper into SEAPs, in this paper, the authors describe the quantitative analysis of the Baseline Emission Inventory, the quantification of the SEAP planning actions, and the definition of the Monitoring Emission Inventory, which is the final step of the planning process. This step was done for nine municipalities of the Abruzzo region with different characteristics (size, population, climate, geographical position, economy, etc.) in order to widen the results of the analysis and test the robustness of the methodology. Indeed, it gave a quantitative dimension to the primary energy consumption and CO₂ emissions for 2018, compared with the 2005 baseline values, and the final results are related to the reduction commitments planned for 2020. All the municipalities were considered to have achieved this goal, surpassing the 20% emissions reduction. This validated methodology is also the basis for the development of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs), which integrate adaptation actions and mitigation ones. Full article

This article proposes storytelling as a tool to return historic church buildings to the people in today’s secularized society. It starts by recognizing the unique qualities shared by most historic churches, namely that they are (1) different from most other buildings, (2) unusually old, and (3) are often characterized by beautiful exteriors and interiors. The argument builds on the storytelling strategies that were chosen in two recent book projects (co-)written by the author of this article, on historic churches in the northern Dutch provinces of Frisia (Fryslân) and Groningen. Among the many stories “told” by the Frisian and Groningen churches and their interiors, three categories are specifically highlighted. First, the religious aspect of the buildings’ history, from which most of its forms, fittings, and imagery are derived, and which increasingly needs to be explained in a largely post-Christian society. Second, churches tell us local histories, because they were the communities’ most public space for centuries, and a room for social representation. Finally, third, local history is always “glocal”, because it is interwoven with multiple connections to other places far and near. Researching, cherishing, and telling these stories are powerful means to engage communities in the future preservation of their old churches as religious and cultural heritage. Full article