The cultural context of the user is a largely neglected aspect of human centered computing. This is because culture is a very fuzzy concept and even with a computational model of culture it remains difficult to derive the necessary information to recognize the user’s cultural background. Such information is only indirectly available and has to be derived from the observable multimodal behavior of the user. We propose the usage of a dimensional model of culture that allows applying computational methods to derive a user’s cultural background and to adjust the system’s behavior accordingly. To this end, a Bayesian network is applied to allow for the necessary inferences despite the fact that the given knowledge about the user’s behavior is incomplete and unreliable.

The user’s behavior and his interpretation of interactions with others is influenced by his cultural background, which provides a number of heuristics or patterns of behavior and interpretation. This cultural influence on interaction has largely been neglected in HCI research due to two challenges: (i) grasping culture as a computational term and (ii) infering the user’s cultural background by observable measures. In this paper, we describe how the Wiimote can be utilized to uncover the user’s cultural background by analyzing his patterns of gestural expressivity in a model based on cultural dimensions. With this information at hand, the behavior of an interactive system can be adapted to culture-dependent patterns of interaction.

Abstract. We present our concept of integrating culture as a computational parameter for modeling multimodal interactions with virtual agents. As culture is a social rather than a psychological notion, its influence is evident in interactions, where cultural patterns of behavior and interpretations mismatch. Nevertheless, taking culture seriously its influence penetrates most layers of agent behavior planning and generation. In this article we concentrate on a first meeting scenario, present our model of an interactive agent system and identify, where cultural parameters play a role. To assess the viability of our approach, we outline an evaluation study that is set up at the moment. 1

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This article argues that the impact of globalization on labour-markets and human resources on the Asia-Pacific economies may be recognizable but as yet relatively limited. The sheer variation of geography, population, economies, labour-markets, IR and HRM systems there, as well as of values and the like, makes it difficult to talk of ‘hard convergence’. We thus emphasize the notion of ‘soft convergence’. The article develops a number of empirical propositions regarding the uneven impact of globalization on economies in the region. Key words

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Radical innovation is an important driver of the growth, success, and wealth of firms and nations. Because of its importance, authors across various disciplines have proposed many theories about the drivers of such innovation, including government policy and labor, capital, and culture at the national level. The authors contrast these theories with one based on the corporate culture of the firm. They test their theory using survey and archival data from 759 firms across 17 major economies of the world. The results suggest the following: First, among the factors studied, corporate culture is the strongest driver of radical innovation across nations; culture consists of three attitudes and three practices. Second, the commercialization of radical innovations translates into a firm’s financial performance; it is a stronger predictor of financial performance than other popular measures, such as patents. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice.

Knowledge transfer among geographically separated members is recognized as a critical ingredient for collaborative accomplishment of knowledge work in virtual teams. However, due to the "localness" of knowledge, such transfer of knowledge is believed to be inherently problematic, and thus, it is important to develop a solid understanding of the factors that enable knowledge transfer in such contexts. Drawing on existing literature on knowledge management and virtual teamwork, we identify 4 Cs (communication, capability, credibility, and culture) associated with individuals who are found to transfer significant amounts of knowledge to remote members, and test the 4 Cs in the context of USNorwegian virtual teams engaged in systems development. A number of implications and directions for future research are also suggested.

More than fifteen years ago Mark Weiser’s vision of Ubiquitous Computing was revealed to the world. His vision of a world full of computational devices calmly operating in the background of our lives satisfying every conceivable information need is one that over

In this paper we examine the usage of pauses in speech. Thereby we concentrate on cultural differences with the aim to build a computational model for virtual agents later. By adapting the agents ’ conversation management behavior to cultural background, we hope to get a better acceptance in a given culture. Therefore we have a closer look at the occurrence of pauses in speech with their features like length or emplacement. To ground our model in empirical data, we analyzed the occurrences of pauses in speech in the CUBE-G video corpus, recorded in the two participating cultures Germany and Japan. In a preliminary study we observed the number of pauses that occurred in videos of approximately five minutes duration. First we took into account pauses that lasted for more than 1 second and later only those out of them that lasted for over 2 seconds. By comparing the two cultures, we found out that Japanese subjects used significantly more pauses for both lengths than German subjects.