Italy: Audit Court probing rating agencies over downgrades

[Disir]

Ok, so this actually came out in February.

Rome, 5 February (AKI) - Italy's Court of Auditors confirmed Wednesday it was investigating the world's leading international credit rating agencies over a series of downgrades at the height of the eurozone crisis that allegedly failed to take into account Italy's cultural heritage.

Read the rest here:
Italy: Audit Court probing rating agencies over downgrades - Adnkronos Business

I read it and just carried on. THEN I read this (this is the abstract but the essay is in the link):

The aim of this interdisciplinary essay is to demonstrate locally shared senses of values (“cultural values”) as the root causes of the cross-national differences in business practice between Japan and the USA; in particular bank loan classification and its value-driven consequences. For this aim, it investigates three levels of bank lending; decision-making at an individual level, bank loan classification at an organisation level and aggregate bank loans at a national level. The essay first examines the historical debate in economic anthropology, with the focus on cultural values. The second part explores research-proven differences in individualism and collectivism. The third part investigates the bank loan classification systems at an organisation level. The fourth part examines the CME-LMC distinction (Hall and Soskice 2001) as a culturally-driven dichotomy of how differently aggregate bank loans appear at a national level. The essay concludes that global frameworks need to accommodate value differences across the world.

ejcjs - Cultural Accountability for Business-Practice Differences and Beyond

So, how big of a role do you see culture playing in the near future? This has probably been a part of conversations in these countries and I am just now becoming aware. It seems to me that this is either being ignored or it's making an entrance.