Heidi Dahles
Biographic Data
| ID | 72357 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heidi Dahles |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heidi |
| FAMILY NAME | Dahles |
| SIGNATURE | DAHLES H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1239-1718 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 201 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The ethnographic turn in regenerative studies: Co-Creation as a Collaborative Learning Process
Purpose This study aims to establish that (1) an ethnographic turn in researching regenerative practices and processes is underway and (2) in engaging with regenerative practices and processes, ethnography itself is undergoing a regenerative turn. Design/methodology/approach To demonstrate how the paradigm shift toward regenerative practices across fields may translate into an equally regenerative approach in ethnographic research, this article d…
The Politics of Economic Development in Cambodia: Making Cakes without Flour
Chinese Outbound Tourists and the Changing Political Economies of Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore
The global tourism industry was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. New economic, social and political realities have emerged, and destinations are facing the changes. This research compares three popular destinations among Chinese tourists (i.e. Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore) to illuminate key political economic shifts of tourism in Southeast Asia in relation to China amid of the unfolding 'new normal.' By conducting a qualitative rev…
Guest editorial: New directions in workplace ethnography
Entrepreneuring for regenerative tourism. Doing business differently in Tasmania’s regional hospitality industry
Regenerative tourism has gained ground during the pandemic crisis as a set of practices and processes that have the potential to refashion the industry. Based on a co-created ethnographic case study focussing on a local restaurant in a popular tourism region in Tasmania, this study raises the question as to what business strategies offer opportunities for regenerative practices to materialise and mitigate concomitant challenges in a post-pandemic…
A community perspective on local ecotourism development: Lessons from Komodo National Park
As developing countries are embracing new forms of tourism, particularly nature-based and community-based variants, the claim that an ecotourist-driven economy offers a sustainable future for local communities has come under critical scrutiny. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate by investigating a nature-based UNESCO heritage site that has developed into a prominent ecotourist destination in Indonesia: Komodo National Park (…
Are tourism livelihoods sustainable? Tourism development and economic transformation on Komodo Island, Indonesia
Tourism development has often been regarded as an effective strategy for poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods. However, tourism often triggers transformations of traditional livelihoods and complete dependence on tourism-based income. Presenting the case of Komodo village on Komodo Island, Indonesia, this study provides an empirical evidence for such transformation. Based on qualitative methods, this article discusses the ways in which t…
Female empowerment and tourism: A focus on businesses in a Fijian village
Women’s participation in business is gaining momentum amongst communities in the South Pacific, yet very few studies have explored this area in the context of tourism in Fiji. Based on ethnographic research, this study focuses on the gender dimension of community-based tourism development in Vatuolalai village, along with the Coral Coast of Fiji. In particular, this study seeks to extend our understanding of the links between female empowerment, …
Stakeholder involvement in the higher education sector in Cambodia
This article examines how stakeholders involve themselves in the higher education (HE) sector in donor-dependent Cambodia and to what extent and with what result these stakeholders succeed to collaborate, or fail to do so. This study is based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 46 key research participants from relevant institutions representing the major stakeholders in the sector. The triple helix model, advocating a close …
Business resilience in times of growth and crisis
The Institutionalisation ofOknha: Cambodian Entrepreneurship at the Interface of Business and Politics
Since the early 1990s in Cambodia, the title of "oknha" has been bestowed upon business people who make substantial financial contributions to national development projects. Recipients of this honour are identified by the leadership of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), in particular Prime Minister Hun Sen. This article addresses the politics of awarding and receiving the oknha title as an expression of the reciprocal relationship between…
Multicultural Organizations in Asia
1. Introduction: Boundaries and Organizations in Asia (8000 words) Heidi Dahles 2. Conflict and Politics of its Management in International Joint Ventures in China (8000 words) Chan Kwok Bun 3. Beyond the Family? Recruitment Practices and Cultural Boundaries in Singapore Chinese Small Enterprises (7000 words) Helen Kopnina 4. A Multicultural Joint Venture under the Post-Developmental State in Singapore (8000 words) Heidi Dahles and Merel Bruckwil…
Resource Dependence and Effects of Funding Diversification Strategies Among NGOs in Cambodia
This article assesses how strategies applied by Cambodian NGOs to reduce their dependence on external resources affect the sustainability of their mission, program and funding. At the empirical level, the findings suggest that NGO dependence on foreign aid has mixed effects on the organizations such as unpredictability of funding, goal displacement, reduced organizational autonomy, and top-down accountability. Funding from commercial activities i…
Tourism, Heritage and National Culture in Java: Dilemmas of a Local Community
Based on anthropological fieldwork in the 1990s, this book provides an ethnographic perspective in its examination of the politics and policies of cultural tourism as they were played out under the Indonesian New Order regime. The successful New Order tourism policy ensured that tourism development both contributed to, and benefited from, increasing economic prosperity and a long stretch of political stability. However, that success has come at a…
The Anthropology of Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia: From Culture to Institution
This article outlines the contours of the scholarly debate on 'Chinese capitalism' in Southeast Asia. This multidisciplinary domain is business- and entrepreneurship-oriented, and concerns the ethnic Chinese who have migrated from Southern China to Southeast Asia and have come to play a dominant role in the region's economies over the centuries. The debate revolves around the competing assumptions that ethnic Chinese business success in Southeast…
Institutionalising Chineseness: Legacies of Chinese Commercial Hegemony in the Cambodian Silk Industry
The Cambodian silk weaving industry shows a remarkable pattern of ethnicised positions interlocked in processes of production and trade stretching beyond Cambodia into the Southeast Asian region and into Europe and the United States. Key commercial positions in the Cambodian silk trading networks are dominated by the Chinese, at least so it seems. In contrast to the bulk of literature on Chinese capitalism, the current study addresses a situation…
Spiritual Power. Ethnic Chinese Managers and the Rise of Charismatic Christianity
This article explores the ongoing conversion of ethnic Chinese managers in Indonesia and Malaysia to charismatic Christianity, a movement characterized by experiential spirituality, healing, and prophesying. The spiritual turn among ethnic Chinese managers is positioned against the growing literature on spirituality in organizations and the acclaimed need for managers to bring spirituality to work in order to enhance efficiency and employee well-…
On (Mis-)Conceptions of Culture as a Vehicle of Business Success: Singapore Chinese Investment Strategies after Failing in China
The focus of this paper is on the strategies applied by Singapore Chinese businesses upon failing in their China business ventures. It has been argued that both the increase in Singapore ventures into China and the failures are due to either cultural issues (misconceptions of ‘shared ethnicity’) or economic factors (differences in economic practices). Singapore businesspeople apply inclusive strategies combining Western management styles with all…
In pursuit of capital: The charismatic turn among the Chinese managerial and professional class in Malaysia
This article explores a so far neglected dimension of the ongoing debate on the relationship between the politically contested position of the ethnic Chinese and their dominant role in the economies of Southeast Asia in general and in Malaysia in particular. While the prominence of the ethnic Chinese in the business life of Malaysia is ubiquitous, they also seem to be the engine of the striking growth of the Christian community, in particular the…
Culture, capitalism and political entrepreneurship: Transnational business ventures of the Singapore‐Chinese in China
This article analyses the transnational practices of Singapore‐Chinese companies venturing into China since the 1980s. Whereas in Western management discourse Western firms are supposed to build cross‐border coalitions on rational principles, Chinese firms are said to base their economic relations in ethnic ties resulting in a high level of cultural cohesion within their business networks. However, this vision is challenged in this paper. The que…
Venturing across Borders: Investment Strategies of Singapore-Chinese Entrepreneurs in Mainland China
Firefighters across frontiers: Two fire brigades cooperating in the Dutch–German borderland
This article focuses on boundaries as symbolic constructs to overcome structural impediments to cooperation in a borderland constituted by two nation states – Germany and the Netherlands – that, from a global perspective, may be regarded as close cultural neighbours. Empirically, the vicissitudes of cross‐border cooperation are analysed at the level of a Dutch and a German fire brigade in adjacent borderland villages. The diminishing visibility o…
Managing cohesion in transnational organizations: An introduction
The Politics of Tour Guiding
Transborder Business: The “Capital” Input in Singapore Enterprises Venturing into Asean and Beyond
After decades of inviting foreign companies to invest in Singapore, the government of the city-state recently has started to encourage domestic entrepreneurs to expand their businesses abroad. This paper investigates the various ways in which domestic Singaporean businesses respond to these policy measures. Focusing on shifts in capital input - defined in terms of economic (start-up capital), social (networks), and cultural (certified knowledge) …
The Politics of Tour Guiding
Entrepreneurs in RomanceTourism in Indonesia
Business resilience in times of growth and crisis
Female empowerment and tourism: A focus on businesses in a Fijian village
Women’s participation in business is gaining momentum amongst communities in the South Pacific, yet very few studies have explored this area in the context of tourism in Fiji. Based on ethnographic research, this study focuses on the gender dimension of community-based tourism development in Vatuolalai village, along with the Coral Coast of Fiji. In particular, this study seeks to extend our understanding of the links between female empowerment, …
Game Killing and Killing Games: An Anthropologist Looking at Hunting in a Modern Society
In modern urbanized and densely populated societies - such as the contemporary Netherlands, which forms the geographical setting of the present analysis - hunting has lost its meaning as a mode of subsistence to become a symbolic strategy. Hunting is a cultural enclave in which the boundaries between humans and animals are blurred and the relations of dominance and submission symbolically reversed. Hunting challenges the legitimacy of apparently …
The Institutionalisation ofOknha: Cambodian Entrepreneurship at the Interface of Business and Politics
Since the early 1990s in Cambodia, the title of "oknha" has been bestowed upon business people who make substantial financial contributions to national development projects. Recipients of this honour are identified by the leadership of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), in particular Prime Minister Hun Sen. This article addresses the politics of awarding and receiving the oknha title as an expression of the reciprocal relationship between…
Resource Dependence and Effects of Funding Diversification Strategies Among NGOs in Cambodia
This article assesses how strategies applied by Cambodian NGOs to reduce their dependence on external resources affect the sustainability of their mission, program and funding. At the empirical level, the findings suggest that NGO dependence on foreign aid has mixed effects on the organizations such as unpredictability of funding, goal displacement, reduced organizational autonomy, and top-down accountability. Funding from commercial activities i…
Are tourism livelihoods sustainable? Tourism development and economic transformation on Komodo Island, Indonesia
Tourism development has often been regarded as an effective strategy for poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods. However, tourism often triggers transformations of traditional livelihoods and complete dependence on tourism-based income. Presenting the case of Komodo village on Komodo Island, Indonesia, this study provides an empirical evidence for such transformation. Based on qualitative methods, this article discusses the ways in which t…
Tourism, Government Policy, and Petty Entrepreneurs in Indonesia
A major development in the Indonesian economy since the 1980s has been the expansion of the tourism industry. While this sector has prospered under the government policy of deregulation, the lower levels of the Indonesian economy have not benefited from the measures taken to facilitate growth in the tourism sector. The government has countered the deregulatory measures at the top with more regulation and control below. Increasing numbers of regul…
Redefining Amsterdam as a tourist destination
A community perspective on local ecotourism development: Lessons from Komodo National Park
As developing countries are embracing new forms of tourism, particularly nature-based and community-based variants, the claim that an ecotourist-driven economy offers a sustainable future for local communities has come under critical scrutiny. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate by investigating a nature-based UNESCO heritage site that has developed into a prominent ecotourist destination in Indonesia: Komodo National Park (…
Entrepreneuring for regenerative tourism. Doing business differently in Tasmania’s regional hospitality industry
Regenerative tourism has gained ground during the pandemic crisis as a set of practices and processes that have the potential to refashion the industry. Based on a co-created ethnographic case study focussing on a local restaurant in a popular tourism region in Tasmania, this study raises the question as to what business strategies offer opportunities for regenerative practices to materialise and mitigate concomitant challenges in a post-pandemic…
Spiritual Power. Ethnic Chinese Managers and the Rise of Charismatic Christianity
This article explores the ongoing conversion of ethnic Chinese managers in Indonesia and Malaysia to charismatic Christianity, a movement characterized by experiential spirituality, healing, and prophesying. The spiritual turn among ethnic Chinese managers is positioned against the growing literature on spirituality in organizations and the acclaimed need for managers to bring spirituality to work in order to enhance efficiency and employee well-…
Transborder Business: The “Capital” Input in Singapore Enterprises Venturing into Asean and Beyond
After decades of inviting foreign companies to invest in Singapore, the government of the city-state recently has started to encourage domestic entrepreneurs to expand their businesses abroad. This paper investigates the various ways in which domestic Singaporean businesses respond to these policy measures. Focusing on shifts in capital input - defined in terms of economic (start-up capital), social (networks), and cultural (certified knowledge) …
Stakeholder involvement in the higher education sector in Cambodia
This article examines how stakeholders involve themselves in the higher education (HE) sector in donor-dependent Cambodia and to what extent and with what result these stakeholders succeed to collaborate, or fail to do so. This study is based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 46 key research participants from relevant institutions representing the major stakeholders in the sector. The triple helix model, advocating a close …
Institutionalising Chineseness: Legacies of Chinese Commercial Hegemony in the Cambodian Silk Industry
The Cambodian silk weaving industry shows a remarkable pattern of ethnicised positions interlocked in processes of production and trade stretching beyond Cambodia into the Southeast Asian region and into Europe and the United States. Key commercial positions in the Cambodian silk trading networks are dominated by the Chinese, at least so it seems. In contrast to the bulk of literature on Chinese capitalism, the current study addresses a situation…
Culture, capitalism and political entrepreneurship: Transnational business ventures of the Singapore‐Chinese in China
This article analyses the transnational practices of Singapore‐Chinese companies venturing into China since the 1980s. Whereas in Western management discourse Western firms are supposed to build cross‐border coalitions on rational principles, Chinese firms are said to base their economic relations in ethnic ties resulting in a high level of cultural cohesion within their business networks. However, this vision is challenged in this paper. The que…
Guest editorial: New directions in workplace ethnography
Venturing across Borders: Investment Strategies of Singapore-Chinese Entrepreneurs in Mainland China
Performing Manliness. On the Meaning of Poaching in Dutch Society
Poaching has been studied in terms of instrumental behaviour, as an economic strategy of the rural poor. However, poaching has always been of marginal economic significance in the Netherlands. Still, it has not disappeared in the course of this century. On the contrary, game-keepers being preoccupied with catching poachers, and a special police force being entrusted with keeping poaching under control, point to an increasing importance. To unders…
Game Killing and Killing Games: An Anthropologist Looking at Hunting in a Modern Society
In modern urbanized and densely populated societies - such as the contemporary Netherlands, which forms the geographical setting of the present analysis - hunting has lost its meaning as a mode of subsistence to become a symbolic strategy. Hunting is a cultural enclave in which the boundaries between humans and animals are blurred and the relations of dominance and submission symbolically reversed. Hunting challenges the legitimacy of apparently …
The Social Construction of Mokum Tourism and the Quest for Local Identity in Amsterdam
Tourism, Government Policy, and Petty Entrepreneurs in Indonesia
A major development in the Indonesian economy since the 1980s has been the expansion of the tourism industry. While this sector has prospered under the government policy of deregulation, the lower levels of the Indonesian economy have not benefited from the measures taken to facilitate growth in the tourism sector. The government has countered the deregulatory measures at the top with more regulation and control below. Increasing numbers of regul…
Redefining Amsterdam as a tourist destination
Entrepreneurs in RomanceTourism in Indonesia
Tourism, Heritage and National Culture in Java: Dilemmas of a Local Community
Based on anthropological fieldwork in the 1990s, this book provides an ethnographic perspective in its examination of the politics and policies of cultural tourism as they were played out under the Indonesian New Order regime. The successful New Order tourism policy ensured that tourism development both contributed to, and benefited from, increasing economic prosperity and a long stretch of political stability. However, that success has come at a…
The Politics of Tour Guiding
Transborder Business: The “Capital” Input in Singapore Enterprises Venturing into Asean and Beyond
After decades of inviting foreign companies to invest in Singapore, the government of the city-state recently has started to encourage domestic entrepreneurs to expand their businesses abroad. This paper investigates the various ways in which domestic Singaporean businesses respond to these policy measures. Focusing on shifts in capital input - defined in terms of economic (start-up capital), social (networks), and cultural (certified knowledge) …
Venturing across Borders: Investment Strategies of Singapore-Chinese Entrepreneurs in Mainland China
Firefighters across frontiers: Two fire brigades cooperating in the Dutch–German borderland
This article focuses on boundaries as symbolic constructs to overcome structural impediments to cooperation in a borderland constituted by two nation states – Germany and the Netherlands – that, from a global perspective, may be regarded as close cultural neighbours. Empirically, the vicissitudes of cross‐border cooperation are analysed at the level of a Dutch and a German fire brigade in adjacent borderland villages. The diminishing visibility o…
Managing cohesion in transnational organizations: An introduction
Culture, capitalism and political entrepreneurship: Transnational business ventures of the Singapore‐Chinese in China
This article analyses the transnational practices of Singapore‐Chinese companies venturing into China since the 1980s. Whereas in Western management discourse Western firms are supposed to build cross‐border coalitions on rational principles, Chinese firms are said to base their economic relations in ethnic ties resulting in a high level of cultural cohesion within their business networks. However, this vision is challenged in this paper. The que…
On (Mis-)Conceptions of Culture as a Vehicle of Business Success: Singapore Chinese Investment Strategies after Failing in China
The focus of this paper is on the strategies applied by Singapore Chinese businesses upon failing in their China business ventures. It has been argued that both the increase in Singapore ventures into China and the failures are due to either cultural issues (misconceptions of ‘shared ethnicity’) or economic factors (differences in economic practices). Singapore businesspeople apply inclusive strategies combining Western management styles with all…
In pursuit of capital: The charismatic turn among the Chinese managerial and professional class in Malaysia
This article explores a so far neglected dimension of the ongoing debate on the relationship between the politically contested position of the ethnic Chinese and their dominant role in the economies of Southeast Asia in general and in Malaysia in particular. While the prominence of the ethnic Chinese in the business life of Malaysia is ubiquitous, they also seem to be the engine of the striking growth of the Christian community, in particular the…
Spiritual Power. Ethnic Chinese Managers and the Rise of Charismatic Christianity
This article explores the ongoing conversion of ethnic Chinese managers in Indonesia and Malaysia to charismatic Christianity, a movement characterized by experiential spirituality, healing, and prophesying. The spiritual turn among ethnic Chinese managers is positioned against the growing literature on spirituality in organizations and the acclaimed need for managers to bring spirituality to work in order to enhance efficiency and employee well-…
Institutionalising Chineseness: Legacies of Chinese Commercial Hegemony in the Cambodian Silk Industry
The Cambodian silk weaving industry shows a remarkable pattern of ethnicised positions interlocked in processes of production and trade stretching beyond Cambodia into the Southeast Asian region and into Europe and the United States. Key commercial positions in the Cambodian silk trading networks are dominated by the Chinese, at least so it seems. In contrast to the bulk of literature on Chinese capitalism, the current study addresses a situation…
Tourism, Heritage and National Culture in Java: Dilemmas of a Local Community
Based on anthropological fieldwork in the 1990s, this book provides an ethnographic perspective in its examination of the politics and policies of cultural tourism as they were played out under the Indonesian New Order regime. The successful New Order tourism policy ensured that tourism development both contributed to, and benefited from, increasing economic prosperity and a long stretch of political stability. However, that success has come at a…
The Anthropology of Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia: From Culture to Institution
This article outlines the contours of the scholarly debate on 'Chinese capitalism' in Southeast Asia. This multidisciplinary domain is business- and entrepreneurship-oriented, and concerns the ethnic Chinese who have migrated from Southern China to Southeast Asia and have come to play a dominant role in the region's economies over the centuries. The debate revolves around the competing assumptions that ethnic Chinese business success in Southeast…
Multicultural Organizations in Asia
1. Introduction: Boundaries and Organizations in Asia (8000 words) Heidi Dahles 2. Conflict and Politics of its Management in International Joint Ventures in China (8000 words) Chan Kwok Bun 3. Beyond the Family? Recruitment Practices and Cultural Boundaries in Singapore Chinese Small Enterprises (7000 words) Helen Kopnina 4. A Multicultural Joint Venture under the Post-Developmental State in Singapore (8000 words) Heidi Dahles and Merel Bruckwil…
Resource Dependence and Effects of Funding Diversification Strategies Among NGOs in Cambodia
This article assesses how strategies applied by Cambodian NGOs to reduce their dependence on external resources affect the sustainability of their mission, program and funding. At the empirical level, the findings suggest that NGO dependence on foreign aid has mixed effects on the organizations such as unpredictability of funding, goal displacement, reduced organizational autonomy, and top-down accountability. Funding from commercial activities i…
Business resilience in times of growth and crisis
The Institutionalisation ofOknha: Cambodian Entrepreneurship at the Interface of Business and Politics
Since the early 1990s in Cambodia, the title of "oknha" has been bestowed upon business people who make substantial financial contributions to national development projects. Recipients of this honour are identified by the leadership of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), in particular Prime Minister Hun Sen. This article addresses the politics of awarding and receiving the oknha title as an expression of the reciprocal relationship between…
Female empowerment and tourism: A focus on businesses in a Fijian village
Women’s participation in business is gaining momentum amongst communities in the South Pacific, yet very few studies have explored this area in the context of tourism in Fiji. Based on ethnographic research, this study focuses on the gender dimension of community-based tourism development in Vatuolalai village, along with the Coral Coast of Fiji. In particular, this study seeks to extend our understanding of the links between female empowerment, …
Stakeholder involvement in the higher education sector in Cambodia
This article examines how stakeholders involve themselves in the higher education (HE) sector in donor-dependent Cambodia and to what extent and with what result these stakeholders succeed to collaborate, or fail to do so. This study is based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 46 key research participants from relevant institutions representing the major stakeholders in the sector. The triple helix model, advocating a close …
Political science (25 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Economics (19 works) · Business (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · Tourism (13 works) · Geography (12 works) · Economic growth (10 works) · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research (9 works) · Law (9 works)