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This article sets out to address the response of traditional societies in facing natural hazards through the lens of the concept of resilience.

This paper considers that resilient societies are those able to overcome the damage caused by the occurrence of natural hazards, either through maintaining their pre‐disaster social fabric, or through accepting marginal or larger change in order to survive. The discussion is based on a review of the corpus of case studies available in the literature.

The present article suggests that the capacity of resilience of traditional societies and the concurrent degree of cultural change rely on four factors, namely: the nature of the hazard, the pre‐disaster socio‐cultural context and capacity of resilience of the community, the geographical setting, and the rehabilitation policy set up by the authorities. These factors significantly vary in time and space, from one disaster to another.

It is important to perceive local variations of the foregoing factors to better anticipate the capability of traditional societies to overcome the damage caused by the occurrence of natural hazards and therefore predict eventual cultural change.

This article takes off from the previous vulnerability‐driven literature by emphasizing the resilience of traditional societies.

Ever since this area of scholarship has been developed in the West, what has generally been taught, researched and written about in the organisation/management field have been primarily English and North American theories about and practices in organisations. This focus has also been adopted by scholars and teachers all over the world, so that mainstream organisation/management scholarship is generally synonymous with western systems. However organisation and management, though not necessarily described in those terms, have existed in all societies through their economic, social and political arrangements, regardless of period, types of activity and stages of technological development.

It is here proposed to examine some African traditional societies in terms of their economic, social and political systems and compare them with mainstream Anglo-Saxon theories and practices. The main focus of this study will be on questions of accountability. Areas to be investigated are the assumptions underlying theories and practices in both types of societies; the systems in practice; their advantages and disadvantages and crucially whether western approaches have anything to learn from these traditional systems, now diminished in power and scope but still very much present in many parts of Africa. The converse question might also be put – can those traditional systems still extant benefit from Anglo-Saxon models of organisation and management?

There are difficulties with such a project. Differences in time, space, culture, size, economic activity and technology must make for problems for researchers. There are then the problems faced by any researcher in terms of their ‘habitus’ or ‘situatedness’ and the need for awareness of their own potential influences on their research. How much more problematic might this prove when examining very different cultures and attempting to make comparisons between their social systems in different time spans, different locations and in entirely different global political and economic contexts?

British social anthropologists, studying traditional societies during the colonial period, had the additional difficulties of being part of (or seen as part of) an occupying colonial administration. Normal difficulties concerning problems with information given to researchers by informants were compounded by this political context in which a great deal of scholarship about traditional societies was produced. This has been discussed over the decades by social anthropologists and sociologists, and will be addressed in this chapter, as at least some of the information used is from that period.

However, despite the difficulties, there is value in such comparisons and in heightening awareness of issues such as accountability in non-western systems as compared with questions of accountability in western institutions. This is relevant for those teaching organisation and management studies – not least to students from other parts of the world, and for practitioners who might gain some advantage from considering different systems and practices, and possibly also gain more insight into their own situations.

This article analyzes the relationships between different conceptions of time, socioeconomic development and cultural values.

We focus on three major aspects of time, namely, 1) duration, 2) orientation and 3) tempo. Furthermore, we draw on modernization theory to distinguish between agrarian/traditional and industrial/modern societies and their respective cultural values.

Analyses indicate that agrarian/traditional societies with cultural values such as collectivism, survival, religiosity and hierarchical structures are marked by subjective/cyclical/inaccurate, past-oriented and slow-paced conceptions of time. In contrast, industrial/modern societies with cultural values such as individualism, self-expression, secularism and egalitarianism are marked by objective/linear/accurate, future-oriented and accelerated conceptions of time.

This paper introduces an original conceptualization of the three dimensions of time – duration, orientation and tempo – previously overlooked in the literature. Additionally, it provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the relationships between time, culture and socioeconomic development.

A distinguished authority on methodology in the social sciences has written: “We are using models, willingly or not, whenever we are trying to think systematically about anything at all.”² As used here, a model refers to any “structure of symbols and operating rules” which we think has a counterpart in the real world. A circle, for example, may be used as a model to characterize the shape of a bowl or a crown. Governments are often described in terms of a model of the family, the ruler being likened to a father, the people to children. In one sense, a model is simply an elaborated simile or paradigm.

This paper sets out to review research on the compatibility between values underlying western accounting systems and traditional Solomon Islands cultural values. The research takes a sociological view of accounting to better understand how imported accounting values and practices fit into, and interact with, local traditions.

An interpretive methodology uses in‐depth interviews and participant observation. Both inductive and a priori approaches identify and describe major themes.

The areas of conflict found between accounting themes and traditional Solomon Island group values relate to: the objectivity and neutrality of accounting; profit and wealth maximisation as the bottom‐line; the separateness of the economic entity; time‐based accounting controls; and the underlying basis of competition for efficiency and effectiveness in western accounting systems.

The challenge is to identify how to adapt accounting and management practices so they fit into existing local cultural values and practices. Solomon Islanders must also determine how some of their cultural values can be adapted to suit contemporary economic circumstances.

The paper recommends that consideration be given to recasting elements of accounting and management practice so that they better reflect the nature of the society/activities being represented – namely, the discharge of accountability; valuing intangible business outcomes; owner‐entity separation; time management; and bounded competition.

The research is one of the few studies on the culture‐accounting relationship in a developing and economically poor part of the Asia‐Pacific region.

The present exploratory study aimed (1) to explore the traditional dietary habits of local communities, (2) to analyze the shift in traditional eating practices and (3) to examine the changes observed in socio-cultural beliefs system due to climate change.

A cross-sectional study was conducted with purposive sampling of 210 households in the select ten villages of the western Himalayan region. Open-ended interview questionnaires and a close-ended survey on a 5-point Likert scale are used. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 is used for the exploratory factor analysis. Further, Atlas-ti version 8 is also employed for thematic analysis.

The exploratory and thematic analysis illustrated that socio-ecological beliefs are crucial in food choices, but cultural beliefs are also changing due to climate change. Thus, the shift in socio-cultural beliefs can significantly affect the nutritional security of the indigenous societies during climate-induced emergencies in the mountain regions.

Therefore, the findings of the study are significant for a comprehensive understanding of the traditional dietary practice of the indigenous community for an evidence-based inclusive food security and climate change adaptation policy.

The inclusion of cultural practices is evident for ensuring the nutritional security. But, the magnitude of the climate-induced impacts on customary societies is not yet fully understood. Thus, the current study was conducted.

This paper aims to examine GCC companies' use of visual images to interplay modernity and globalism with tradition, Islam and local culture. The analysis aims to bring attention to the way that businesses in the GCC use visual images to engage with or influence debates in their societies concerning the tension between modernity, globalisation and traditional values in the Arab‐Islamic world.

The analysis is critical and discursive and based on a close reading of the visual images reported in the 2005 annual reports of companies listed on GCC stock markets.

The analysis suggests that GCC companies on many occasions used visual images to depict and represent the possibility of a successful profitable, modern and global business that is also sympathetic to tradition and operates within the framework of Islamic principles.

While visual images are increasingly used in companies' annual reports they have been largely ignored in accounting research. Furthermore, when this research manifests, it has been concerned with investigating Anglo‐American and Western contexts. This paper instead emphasises the significance of researching the use of visual images in a variety of contexts and locations. It critically and contextually explores the use of visual images in a largely unexplored, non‐Western and a significantly Islamic context.

All Australian Aborigines have experienced the impact of Western culture to some extent which has resulted in the traditional cultures being irrevocably decimated. The reaction to the disintegration of traditional culture has been marked by a variety of outcomes. While some Aborigines have either accepted or reached a level of accommodation to the new order, others have responded in maladaptive ways. For some Aborigines, the disintegration of traditional culture and society has generated conflict, confusion and the disintegration of personality, which is conducive to the evolution of a dysfunctional group. It is the circumstances of and policy responses to dysfunctional Aboriginal groups, therefore, that is the concern of this article.