The Role of Culture in Economic Development

This book draws together interdisciplinary perspectives from economic history, cultural economics and cross-cultural management to analyse the impact of culture on the economic trajectories of former empires.

Chapters in the book explore the role of cultural values in shaping the institutional frameworks influencing economic development, focusing on a global selection of case studies that share a common imperial heritage. The empires reviewed consist of: The Netherlands, the Ashanti, Spain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Turkey, France, Great-Britain, Japan and Russia. The focus on former empires enables the book to provide fascinating comparative and historical analysis of the ways in which different countries gained, justified and lost imperial power over time, and the ways in which their global influences remain today. Each contribution draws on the Steyr Intercultural Management Model (SIMM) to analyse cultural values in their broadest sense, while maintaining awareness of the limitations in defining 'culture' in different historical periods and nations. The volume also offers a unique integration of historical and cultural economic approaches that will be of interest to scholars across a range of fields.