Narrow Results

The aim of this study is to assess the effect of culture on the performance of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Using financial ratios relating to both the financial and social objectives of microfinance as performance measures and six variables from Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as culture measures, we assess the role of culture in determining MFI performance. Our final dataset comprises 503 MFIs from 44 countries over the period 2012–2018, extracted from the Mix Market database. A random effects model is used in the empirical analysis, followed by instrumental variables to cater for endogeneity. Our findings indicate that microfinance achieves better financial performance and is more self-sufficient in high power distance and in individualistic cultures. Meanwhile, microfinance achieves better social performance in more masculine and more indulgent cultures. Our results are robust upon inclusion of further controls for institution-specific characteristics, and macroeconomic and formal institution environment variables. Our findings provide further evidence to support the existence of a trade-off in microfinance. We thus argue that the extent of public support for microfinance should not only be a function of the broad objectives of funding parties, but should additionally depend on the cultural environment in which an MFI operates.

Folklores can epitomize the nation as a unifying principle crossing the horizons of regional divisions and subcultures. The connecting factors of folklores among regional and local levels give an understanding of manifold and contextual-based identities. The collective/coalesce of social memory is understood through the folk narratives. There is a cognitive and affective deliberation that structures the manner in which memory is interpreted. These narratives shape and reconstruct “identity” as they consist of a trans-subjective truth value providing ever new understanding of reality. The present research focuses on the Marwari folk Drama The Khyal of Amar Singh Rathoretranslated by Cecil Thomas Ault and folk performing art Khyal that constitutes meanings and symbols. Khyal, a popular folk dramatic art, is especially linked to martial and romantic ballads of Rajputana. It is indicative of the gap between past and present with spontaneity and originality and is seen as a transmissible entity with reference to the performing arts in the northern region of India. There is an exploration of the dynamics of the origin of the folk narrative of Amar Singh Rathore, a source of Rajasthani culture and identity thus paving way for the other folk narratives that form the pan-Indian identity. The folk literature draws cartographies of a nation or region giving a historical depth and continuity. The dissemination of historical folk anecdotes and their retellings are plausibly a move towards identification. The historical imagination and socio-cultural memory, mostly drawn from Rajasthani rural landscape, influences and reshapes history and culture of Rajasthan, thereby making it a historical artifact providing abidance and insights into folklore as a heritage/national construct. The research reflects and projects the values, feelings, ideas and identity of the groups which identify with and perform this art. Another dimension of the present study formulates an understanding of the forms and style of Khyal folk theater of Rajasthan and how The Khyal of Amar Singh Rathore communicates and travels through linguistic and cultural boundaries constructing new spatial cartographies serving as evidence of connectivity and consistencies.

By school years, mathematics in the classroom becomes separated from real life. However, if teachers can bring context back into mathematics, like the kids experience outside of school, math becomes real. Beginning class by teaching students a bit about what it’s like to live in another part of the world brings class alive. Global Math Stories (GlobalMathStories.org) is a resource that helps educators make cultural and global connections in the classroom. In this presentation, participants learned about the resource and explored the value of making global connections in the classroom.