Caught in the Cultural Preference Net: Three Generations of Employment Choices in Six Capitalist Democracies, Camasso Michael J., Jagannathan Radha

Caught in the Cultural Preference Net examines work-related beliefs, attitudes and preferences that characterize the value orientations of three generational families in Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, India and the United States. These six countries have developed significantly different forms of
capitalism ranging from the social democratic form in Sweden to the relatively unfettered, free market capitalism in the United States. Michael J. Camasso and Radha Jagannathan investigate whether these cultural and economic contexts have resulted in enduring attitude and preference structures or if
these values and preferences have been changing as economic conditions in a nation have changed. These two experts focus a great deal of their attention on the roles that parents and grandparents have in socializing Millennials into the world of work and if this influence trumps the often competing
influences of education, labor market and peers.

The book is organized around three lines of inquiry: (1) Do some national cultures possess value orientations that are more successful than others in promoting economic opportunity? (2) Does the transmission of these value orientations demonstrate a persistence irrespective of economic conditions or
are they simply the results of these conditions? (3) If a nations value orientation does indeed impact economic opportunity, does it do so by influencing an individuals preferences? To answer this third question, Camasso and Jagannathan conduct a cross-national, multi-generational stated
preference experiment--one of the very few ever attempted.