Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy is finding increasing use in electrochemical sensors and biosensors, both in their characterisation, including during successive phases of sensor construction, and in application as a quantitative determination technique. Much of the published work continues to make little use of all the information that can be furnished by full physical modelling and analysis of the impedance spectra, and thus does not throw more than a superficial light on the processes occurring. Analysis is often restricted to estimating values of charge transfer resistances without interpretation and ignoring other electrical equivalent circuit components. In this article, the important basics of electrochemical impedance for electrochemical sensors and biosensors are presented, focussing on the necessary electrical circuit elements. This is followed by examples of its use in characterisation and in electroanalytical applications, at the same time demonstrating how fuller use can be made of the information obtained from complete modelling and analysis of the data in the spectra, the values of the circuit components and their physical meaning. The future outlook for electrochemical impedance in the sensing field is discussed. The development of electrochemical sensors and biosensors requires three essential steps, namely preparation, characterisation and testing, for applications in synthetic and natural samples. Preparation and characterisation are intimately linked to each other since characterisation should be performed at various stages of sensor construction, when this involves various steps, for example after the addition of each modifier layer. Characterisation is performed by various techniques, both electrochemical and non-electrochemical. The non-electrochemical techniques are normally those of surface analysis, microscopic and spectroscopic. Of the former, the most use is made of atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, the surface analysis techniques that are used to examine the morphology of surface layers of materials in general. Electrochemical techniques are usually voltammetric, occasionally potentiometric, and impedance. Impedance spectroscopy has been used as a characterisation technique for materials for over a century. Its widespread use before the 1980s, just as was the case for electrochemical pulse techniques, was hindered by the practical difficulties in applying the potential waveform to the electrodes in an accurate way and being able to analyse the response in a short time period. Analysis of the impedance was reliant on the use of alternating current bridges, Lissajous figures and phase-sensitive detectors 3−/4−, was used to study the immobilisation and hybridisation of ssDNA at the electrode surface. The complementary target ssDNA of BCR/ABL could be quantified in the concentration range from 1.0 pM/L to 1.0 nM/L, based on the dependence of the change in Rct on the logarithm of its concentration.As an example of EIS application to DNA sensing with a redox probe, a ZnO-nanorod-based DNA biosensor was developed to detect complementary target single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) of the BCR/ABL fusion gene . Electro6]3−/4− after hybridisation of the complementary target with increasing amounts of capture probe [An impedimetric detection system for the DNA–ligand interaction measured the increase of charge transfer resistance of [Fe(CN)re probe .Impedance immunosensors, where EIS is used to directly determine biomolecular recognition events as well as the potential advantages of both screening and online monitoring without being destructive, are pointed out in . ConductImpedimetric biosensors with redox probes have found various applications in forensic science . They haEIS emerges as a promising technique for quantifying bacteria in waters using molecularly imprinted sensors, with a view to ensuring clean and safe water . Novel cEIS without a redox couple as a probe is often referred to as non-faradaic sensing, although this can be a misnomer if impedance spectra are recorded at a potential at which oxidation or reduction of a component of the redox system being investigated occurs. The range of biological applications of non-faradaic sensing  can be s3COO−, H+ and HCO3−), from PyrOx catalysed pyruvate oxidation, the pyruvate resulting from L-lactate oxidation. Equivalent circuit deduction of the values of resistance at the interface between the two enzyme layers, RIM, and the corresponding parallel capacitance, represented as CPEIM, enabled the construction of linear calibration plots for L-lactate, with the detection limits being 17 and 20 µM, for RIM and CPEIM, respectively. Further details can be found in [The values of impedance can be used to probe changes in conductivity. For example, a L-lactate selective impedimetric biosensor based on a lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)/pyruvate oxidase (PyrOx) bio-selective membrane on a screen-printed carbon electrode measured the change in impedance caused by the generation of charged ions . For example, if 90% of the surface is inactive, the apparent rate constant would increase by a factor of 10. Thus, an alternative means should be used to calculate the standard rate constant, for example peak separation in cyclic voltammetry.The value of k0 (rather than the apparent rate constant), for the oxidation of the purine bases guanine, adenine and guanosine, was then determined without blocking effects using the equation:n = 2. The ultrasound ensures that the calculation of k0 is not affected by any decrease in electrode surface area.An interesting methodology was used to calculate the rate constant of oxidation of nucleic acid bases at a GCE subject to adsorption . Low-powThis strategy should be applicable to other compounds that are prone to adsorption on electrode surfaces and it is desired to ascertain the rate of oxidation or reduction of the species in solution.Electrochemical DNA sensing, its principles and applications have been reviewed in , which iAnother example of impedimetric sensing of DNA hybridisation is described in ; howeverRecently, there has been interest in coupling room temperature ionic liquids with non-faradaic impedimetric sensing. The RTILs are used for increasing the sensitivity of the measurements. Further details can be found in .Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy is a valuable electrochemical technique for characterisation of electrochemical systems and materials, which includes the characterisation of electrodes and modified electrodes. Some resistance to its use, as recently explicitly pointed out , is probIt is easy, nowadays, to record impedance spectra with modern electrochemical instrumentation using the default experimental conditions, with little questioning of whether the experimental conditions need to be adapted to the system under study. There is the necessity of procuring or devising an appropriate and adequate physical model to be represented by the electrical equivalent circuit and carrying out the fitting of the experimental spectra to it. This is paramount and especially important with sensors and biosensors, application to which is not as easy as in some other areas of electrochemistry. Additionally, care must be taken to carry out the recording of spectra such that they are fully reproducible. The reason can be traced to the fact that the impedance is very sensitive and is probing a large range of timescales, as is evident from the range of ac frequencies normally applied. This means that the spectrum will reflect tiny as well as large changes in the modified electrode, which is both an advantage and a possible disadvantage to quantitative sensing.The recent literature demonstrates that electrochemical impedance spectroscopy has increasing application in the characterisation and application of electrochemical sensors and biosensors. This trend is expected to continue, at the same time with greater use of all the information that is supplied by full analysis of the impedance spectra.


The influence of the social environment on healthy investment behavior is a vital research topic. This paper focuses on foreign direct investment (FDI) as an important part of its broad impact in improving the level of capital circulation and diversifying the non-systemic risk of a single country portfolio. Using data from 35 countries on direct investment in China, we find that the impact of the social environment on healthy investment behavior is mainly reflected in investors’ resistance to cultural distance and their benefit compensation across institutional distance. In addition, their joint influence is still negative, dominated by cultural distance, which can still verify that institutional distance mitigates the negative effect of cultural distance on FDI. Therefore, in order to promote international healthy investment behavior, it is feasible to improve both the mitigation effect of the institution in the short term and promote the level of cultural exchange in the long term, according to the research results of this paper. Healthy investment behavior has always been the focus of academic issues. As the basic form of economic growth, the internal capital cycle is universally endogenously restricted by the level of existing knowledge and technology, while foreign capital breaks through this boundary . ExistinBecause the effects of international capital flow on economic development have been increasingly demonstrated, this paper defines it as healthy investment behavior. As an important path of capital internationalization, foreign direct investment (FDI) has become the core form of healthy investment behavior on account of its substantive and long-term nature. FDI requires investors to own entities overseas and directly engage in production as well as operational activities. Therefore, the demand for additional products and services brought by FDI further stimulates the upstream and downstream of entity enterprises, creating new markets and job opportunities. The changes of the supply chain that arise from the latter as well as forward connections have a positive impact on the formation of industry rules and the establishment of business ecosystems ,12. WithHowever, despite the proven benefits of FDI, its boost is not an easy task, being affected by the social environment, including both soft and hard obstacles. Soft obstacles are mainly reflected in cultural factors, of which the influence on FDI is deeper and more recessive. Culture is defined as “the collective programming of mind” that leads to patterned ways of thinking, feeling and acting which help distinguish “the members of one group or category of people from others” . It formLaw on Sino-foreign Joint Ventures and Catalogue for The Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries. The data of this research are collected from the World Bank. This paper highlights the possible influence of the social environment on healthy investment behavior. By exploring the independent as well as the joint effect of soft and hard environmental obstacles, the article provides possible solutions to further improve flows of healthy capital. In order to capture this influence more explicitly, the authors chose China as the financing economic entity and other countries with definite investment there as the investing economic ones. The effect is expected to be more meaningful in developing countries, and China, with great availability of samples there to add representativeness, is the largest economy among them. In recent years, China has timely promoted the strategy of attracting foreign investment, which is also worth learning from other developing countries. For example, China has set up five special economic zones in succession, improved policies on attracting foreign investment year by year and gradually reduced restrictive measures on foreign investment. These are embodied in the This paper studies the independent and joint effects of cultural distance and institutional distance on foreign investment. We find that the individual–collectivism dimension and the index avoidance dimension of cultural distance have a negative impact on FDI, that is to say, the increase of cultural distance reduces the inflow intention of foreign investment. At the same time, the economic dimension of institutional distance has a positive impact on FDI, that is to say, the increase of institutional distance improves the inflow willingness of foreign capital. The reasons may be as follows. Expected returns after overcoming institutional obstacles are conducive to risk compensation because of its higher predictability, which may appeal to foreign capital. In comparison, it is more difficult to overcome its negative impact of cultural obstacles to achieve excess returns due to its lower predictability, which may lead to the reduction of foreign-funded projects. Furthermore, we examine the combined effect of cultural distance and institutional distance and find that institutional distance can mitigate the negative relationship between cultural distance and foreign investment, but still cannot offset the negative impact of cultural distance. It is probably a combined result of two factors: The effect of cultural distance is deeper and more significant, while the risk compensation brought by crossing institutional distance cannot cover the potential risk cost of crossing cultural distance. These suggest the social environment’s important influence on FDI is worthy of academic and practical attention.This article may contribute to theory and practice. In terms of theory, in the issue of the relationship between environmental barriers and foreign investment, this paper innovatively proposes two dimensions: soft environment barriers and hard environment barriers. Through theoretical deduction and empirical results, it is preliminarily confirmed that soft environmental barriers and hard environmental barriers have different impacts on foreign capital inflows in terms of time and depth, and the research conclusions provide a reference for relevant theory. At the practical level, the effect of institutional distance is earlier and more surmountable, while the influence of cultural distance is later and less predictable. Taking into account the important impact of foreign capital inflows on the sustainable development of the domestic economy, we make recommendations from both cultural and institutional perspectives. Developing countries can offer preferential institutional policies to attract foreign investment in the early stages while sticking to their own advantageous institutional strategies in the long run. However, the attention to culture must be persisted because the effects of cultural exchange can be only reflected after plenty of effort.The remainder of the paper is as follows. Culture measures informal drivers of an economy and the social value system within society . With moThe most common measurement of cultural distance was established by Hofstede . For itsCulture is an intrinsic, relatively stable and implicit factor in the social environment, with its complicated core. Therefore, culture has a complex and multi-level influence relationship on the cross-border circulation of capital . In geneFirst, cultural distance can lead to cognitive impairment, which is mainly reflected in the process of information exchange between transnational investment projects at various levels after landing. This information interaction includes the government, competitors, supply chain enterprises, employees and so on. The degree of cognitive impairment will hinder the efficiency of knowledge transfer and the effectiveness of feedback, especially the tacit knowledge most relevant to enterprise operation. Whether such knowledge can be replicated is directly related to whether cross-border capital can achieve the expected income level. At the same time, the accumulation of cognitive impairment may also lead to conflict or even confrontation, leading to a reduction in business performance. Therefore, from this perspective, the greater the cultural distance, the less attractive the host country is to cross-border capital investment ,33. SecoAt the same time, some articles believe that cultural distance provides potential power for knowledge collision brought by international capital flow. Differences in knowledge reserves, organizational procedures and management mechanisms may bring complementary effects and ultimately form differentiated advantages . HoweverHypothesis 1 (H1).Cultural distance has a negative impact on foreign direct investment.Institutional theory holds that an organization needs to follow certain conventions to achieve the legitimacy of its existence. North defines institution as the game rules of a society and, more strictly speaking, artificial constraints set to determine people’s relationship with each other, including regulative, normative and cognitive constraints . This deThe institutional difference between the two economies is defined as institutional distance. Foreign investment faces difficulties and incurs additional costs due to political and economic risks in the host country, which is reflected in the political dimension and economic dimension of institutional distance . The ideHowever, with the increase of the number of FDI, the negative impact of institutional distance began to ease, and the “outsider advantage” gradually emerged . ExistinAt the same time, different from the cultural environment, the barriers to entry connected with the institutional environment are more reflected in the explicit level and the early stage of operation. Therefore, the additional costs of institutional differences are often predicted in advance, which reduces the risk of capital landing. With the accumulation of organizational learning and internationalization experience, many institutional rules can be coded and quickly familiarized, and the negative impact of institutional differences on the inflow of foreign capital will gradually weaken and even be deflected . When thLaw on Sino-Foreign Joint Ventures and Catalogue for The Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries.In addition, existing literature shows that when the degree of tacit knowledge is reduced, it will be less and less difficult to replicate tacit knowledge across borders . CompareConsidering the path for enterprises to overcome institutional distance and obtain excess returns, existing studies have proposed External Mimicry and Internal Mimicry ,50,51. THypothesis 2 (H2).Institutional distance has a positive impact on foreign direct investment.FDI is transnational investment behavior at the enterprise level. Existing studies have decomposed the capital input and earnings process of multinational enterprises into two parts: location choice and entry mode and operation integration and revenue realization . The impIn the first stage of location choice and entry mode, foreign capital needs to weigh the benefits brought by low labor price and potential market size against the costs brought by overcoming environmental barriers to decide the country to be invested in . In thisIn the second stage of operation integration and revenue realization, foreign capital needs to work out how to manage corporate operations. This includes putting in place appropriate corporate governance arrangements, achieving the best possible integration, coordination and control and minimizing the cost of replicating knowledge, technology and management expertise . At thisBased on the analysis of the specific stage of foreign capital establishing companies and realizing profits, we find that institutional distance and cultural distance have different stages and internal mechanisms of influence on FDI. The cost of institutional distance appears earlier, is more explicit and is relatively better to predict, while the cost of cultural distance appears later, is more implicit and is relatively difficult to predict. Therefore, after a long period of multiple games, the influence of institutional distance on FDI is more likely to be expressed as excess returns after obstacle crossing, while the influence of cultural distance on FDI is more likely to be manifested as a conflict caused by uncertainty and unpredictability. Furthermore, after multiple games between transnational capital and environmental barriers, the ability of foreign capital to cross-institutional distance gradually increases, so the uncertainty risk caused by institutional distance decreases, which means that the total risk faced by transnational investment decreases. That also signifies the return per unit across institutional distance is higher. In general, under the circumstance of lower risks and higher returns, there will be more attempts of transnational capital ,61. TherTherefore, we conclude that institutional distance can mitigate the negative relationship between cultural distance and foreign investment. However, because cultural implantation is more implicit and in depth, the spillover economic compensation caused by breaking institutional distance can hardly fully offset the cost caused by cultural distance . Thus, tHypothesis 3 (H3).The joint influence of cultural distance and institutional distance on foreign direct investment is negative.In order to verify the above assumptions, this paper selects China as the country to be invested in and other countries that have a direct investment in China as the countries that invest abroad. Because China has the largest emerging capital market, as a good representation for developing countries, the research conclusion can provide a reference for other developing economies. Meanwhile, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are special administrative regions of China, with their economic and political policies different from those of the mainland in some ways. Thus, the data in this paper only include that of the Chinese mainland. A total of 420 observations from 35 countries and regions are selected for data integrity and availability. These countries or regions include Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, US, Uruguay and Venezuela. The data is mainly from the official website of the International Monetary Fund, with a time period from 2008 to 2019.The explained variable of the article is TPI, the proportion of one other country’s investment in China divided by its total portfolio investment. Compared with absolute value, relative value can better reflect the difference of investment intention, more clearly to capture whether environmental obstacles have an impact on foreign direct investment. Explanatory variables include two dimensions of social environment obstacles, which are cultural distance and institutional distance. The measurement of culture environmental distance is based on Hofstede’s culture dimensions, which is consistent with previous studies ,64,65. IThe measurement of institutional environment is divided into two dimensions referring to the existing literature: political environment measured as WGI index in the world bank and economic environment measured as the heritage foundation’s index of EFI ,67. The As the basic model applied in this paper is the gravity model, we follow the control variables in previous papers about foreign direct investment by gravity model . GDP , as the impact of environmental resistance on FDI. When ijtU ≥ 0, 0 < ijtE < 1, and ijtE reflects the environmental multiplier of the foreign direct investment attracted by country i to country j in period t.In the above formula, ijtU is to 0, the closer ijtE is to 1, reflecting that the foreign direct investment of country i to country j in period t is less and less affected by environmental factors. Further, the random perturbation term is introduced on the right side of the equation, and the new production function is:The closer ijtU can be decomposed into ijtU = ijtZ + ijtW+ijtα, with ijtZ representing soft environment resistance and ijtW representing hard environment resistance. ijtα is the random perturbation term. We substitute it into the latest to obtain the stochastic frontier function:Take the natural logarithm of both sides of this function, and it becomes:On the basis of the above, the stochastic frontier model of inefficient terms proposed is brought into the model. At the same time, referring to the experience of previous literature, combined with variable selection in this paper, we set regression models for the hypotheses mentioned above.Firstly, to test the impact of cultural environment obstacles on foreign direct investment (Hypothesis 1), we estimate the following model:ijtTPI represents the investment from one country to China divided by its total investment. Compared with absolute value, relative value can more clearly reflect the investment intention of the investing country. ijtPDI, ijtIDV, ijtUAI and ijtMAS are four dimensions of cultural distance at the country level. ijtPDI represents the level of power distance, ijtIDV represents the level of individualism distance, ijtUAI represents the level of uncertainty avoidance and ijtMAS represents the level of masculinity distance. The macroeconomic control variables consist of ijtCGDP , ijtGDP  and ijtGIST . ijtComlang is a dummy variable that represents whether the investing country has a common language with China. ijtComrelig is a dummy variable that represents whether the investing country has a common religion with China. ijtComleg is a dummy variable that represents whether the investing country has a common legal system with China. Lastly, ijtContig is a dummy variable that represents whether the investing country has a common border with China. Time represents the year dummy variable.Then, to test the impact of institutional environment obstacles on foreign direct investment (Hypothesis 2), we estimate the following model:ijtWGId and ijtEFId are two dimensions of institutional distance at the country level. ijtWGId represents the level of political distance from the investing country to China. First, the two economies’ distance is measured according to corruption, government effectiveness, political stability, regulatory quality, rule of law, voice and accountability, of which their scores are calculated (full marks are 100 points). Ultimately, the value of ijtWGId is the average value of these aspects. ijtEFId represents the level of economic institutional distance from the investing country to China. First, the two economies’ distance is measured according to business freedom, freer trade, fiscal freedom, monetary freedom, black market freedom and financial freedom, labor freedom, freedom corruption, government spending and property rights protection, of which their scores are calculated (full marks are 100 points). Ultimately, the value of ijtEFId is the average value of these aspects. Other control variables not mentioned above are ijtInves, which represents the investor protection intensity index, and ijtJudi, which represents the legal system effectiveness index.Third, to test the joint effect of culture environment obstacle and institution environment obstacle on foreign direct investment (Hypothesis 3), based on the experience of previous articles, this paper synthesizes the four dimensions of cultural distance as an overall index. Though the measurement of cultural institutions in Hypothesis 1 is accepted by most papers, we must admit that this measurement method has its shortcomings. As Hofstede index only has values of different dimensions and does not use statistical methods to synthesize a comprehensive index, it is only suitable for measuring the details of cultural distance and cannot be used to judge the comprehensive index of that. Therefore, in the following hypothesis, we use the composite index calculated based on this. There are two main research methods in previous articles. One is the KS index calculated by the compound index method, and the other one is the EU index calculated by the Euclidean distance method . The speicCD refers to a composite index of cultural distance between one other country and China. jiD represents the cultural dimension j’s score of country i; jV represents the variance of cultural dimension j. The lower the index is, the smaller are the cultural differences between the investing country and China and vice versa. Thus, in order to test Hypothesis 3, we estimate the following model:In the formula, ijtCul refers to the composite index of cultural distance between one other country and China. The KS index and EU index were substituted into the regression equation as ijtCul to enhance the robustness of the results.Summary statistics of the sample data are presented in In order to verify the influence of the social environment on foreign direct investment, we conduct regression analysis on Model 1, Model 2 and Model 3. The results are shown in IDV is associated with a higher TPI of 0.172 bps, significant at the 5% level. In the same way, a one-standard-deviation decrease in UAI is associated with a higher TPI of 0.152 bps, significant at the 5% level. At the same time, the empirical results also show that the other two dimensions of cultural distance, PDI and MAS, do not show a significant correlation with TPI in our model test. It is also consistent with the theoretical deduction above, showing that the effect of different dimensions may be reflected in different economic events.EFId is associated with a higher TPI of 0.304 bps, significant at the 1% level. However, the empirical results also show WGId, the political dimension of institutional distance, do not show a significant correlation with TPI in our model test. This may be due to the fact that, in the case of sound laws, differences in political systems do not significantly promote or hinder foreign economic inflows, while the difference in economic systems may bring arbitrage opportunities.Cul in Column 4, while the EU index is used for measuring Cul in Column 5. It shows that the joint coefficient of Cul and EFId is significantly negative, as the positive effect of institutional distance on FDI cannot offset the negative one of cultural distance, consistent with Hypothesis 3 (H3). At the same time, the estimated interaction coefficient between Cul and WGId is also negative but not statistically significant. The difference between the results of the joint influence further verifies the different economic consequences of the two institutional distance dimensions. The consequences of the political dimension are not obvious in foreign investment, while the consequences of the economic dimension significantly affect foreign investment itself and also moderate the relationship between cultural distance and foreign investment.Existing articles show that FDI is mainly embodied in two specific forms: greenfield investment (including wholly-owned and joint investment) and cross-border M&A ,74,75. TWGId is not significant, and the interaction term between Cul and EFId is still significantly negative. It is worth pointing out that the influence of cultural distance, institutional distance and their interaction is greater in the group of cross-border M&A. This may be due to the higher environmental barriers that cross-border M&A need to overcome, as this type of entry involves a larger one-time investment amount. Greenfield investment, by contrast, is a constant infusion of investment, which gives companies a cushion.It is shown in Healthy investment behavior among countries is the guarantee of stable global economic growth. Different from the mutual transfer of capital between developed countries, developing countries have a larger capital gap, more technical barriers to overcome, and a more imperfect industrial environment. As a result, developing countries have a higher demand for foreign investment, and hindrance factors affecting capital supply are worth studying. This article highlights the social-environmental impact, embodied in cultural distance and system distance.For cultural distance, we consider four dimensions, namely, power distance, individualism–collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity–femininity. The results show that power distance and masculinity–femininity are unrelated to FDI, while individualism–collectivism and uncertainty avoidance have negative effects on FDI. This may be because power distance and masculinity–femininity do not significantly affect the cognitive or management barriers after foreign capital landing. By contrast, individualism–collectivism has an effect on interpersonal communication between organizations and mutual support after capital crosses borders. Furthermore, uncertainty avoidance may lead to cognitive impairment and consumer resistance at the same time, which also reduces the propensity of foreign investors to enter.For institutional distance, we consider the political dimension and economic dimension. It shows that economic distance has a significant positive influence on FDI, while political distance has no significant influence on FDI. It is possible that China’s policies towards capital inflows have relatively stabilized, and thus, the effect of political distance has not been observed significantly. At the same time, the impact of economic distance is more of a market access threshold. When foreign capital can cross this barrier, it may get more capital return, which is a great attraction.When examining the joint effect of cultural distance and institutional distance, we find that the results are still negative. This is consistent with theoretical deduction, indicating that the culture effect plays a larger part in the interaction.Taking China as the research subject, this paper analyzes how social environmental factors affect foreign investment across countries. In this topic, we mainly study the independent effect and joint influence of cultural distance as a soft social environment obstacle and institutional distance as a hard social environment obstacle.It shows that cultural distance has a negative effect on FDI, which is likely due to the fact that cultural distance hinders knowledge transfer, organizational communication and consumption preference change, thus reducing the attraction to foreign direct investment. At the same time, institutional distance shows a positive impact on FDI, likely to result from the extra income generated by the entry barrier of the economic system environment being crossed, and the compensation for risk is evaluated as profitable by foreign capital.Last but not least, the economic compensation effect caused by institutional distance cannot offset the capital leakage caused by cultural distance. This may be due to the fact that the influence of the culture as a society’s overall ideology is more fundamental. However, it is not immutable. From the perspective of the social environment, we propose temporal heterogeneity recommendations on this issue. In the long term, a sustainable program that promotes cultural exchange and dissemination is effective as this will reduce the risk of capital in crossing borders. In the short term, it is essential to play the role of institutions to offset the potential risks of cultural barriers, such as more specific policies to attract investment, more transparent market rules, better investor protection regulations and so on. The joint mechanism of cultural environment and institutional environment will contribute to the development of transnational healthy investment behavior.


Background: When infertility is diagnosed, physicians have the difficult task to break bad news. Their communication skills play a central role in improving patients' coping abilities and adherence to infertility treatments. However, specific guidelines and training courses on this topic are still lacking. The aim of the present study is to provide some practical advice for improving breaking bad news in infertility diagnosis through a systematic literature review of qualitative and quantitative studies.Methods: Electronic searches were performed in the MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection databases. All articles focusing on the communication of the diagnosis of infertility were included. The main findings of each included article were then summarized.Results: Literature search identified 11,838 references that were screened for eligibility. Full texts of 81 articles were retrieved, and their analysis led to the inclusion of 4 articles, which treated the theme of communication of infertility only partially. The main addressed aspects concerning the communication of the infertility diagnosis were the following: (i) the value that patients give to healthcare professionals' communication skills; (ii) the importance of giving clear information on diagnostic procedures and treatments in order to decrease patients' anxiety; and (iii) the importance of involving both partners.Conclusions: This review pointed out that the communication of the infertility diagnosis is still underinvestigated. Specific guidelines are currently not available, but other protocols could be used. Taking into account the principal aspects of communication highlighted with this review, in this study, we suggested an adaptation of the original SPIKES protocol that could be used by healthcare professionals for the communication of the infertility status. Infertility is an extensive problem worldwide. It has been estimated that in 2010, there were 48.5 million infertile couples all over the world. Around 2 out 100 women between 24 and 44 years old suffer from primary infertility, while 10 out 100 women suffer from secondary infertility  . Electronic searches were performed in the MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection (PBSC) databases. Complete search strategies for all databases are provided within the We included all studies, posters, and abstracts published in English or Italian in scientific journals between January 2000 and March 5, 2020. We included all qualitative and quantitative studies, independently from their study design, containing information about breaking bad news in infertility. Additional searches in the reference lists of retrieved manuscripts were also performed. We excluded all papers that deal with infertility care but did not mention how to communicate the diagnosis of infertility. We also excluded remaining articles concerning patients' coping strategies and psychological adaptation after receiving the diagnosis of infertility.Records were retrieved on the same day from all sources. Two investigators  independently selected the studies (double-blind selection). Discrepancies about inclusion/exclusion were resolved through discussion or in consultation with a third reviewer . CR and LM reviewed the main reports and Quality of included studies was evaluated using the Checklist for Qualitative Research by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI)  , titles and abstracts of 11,838 references were screened. Of those, 11,757 were excluded. We retrieved the full texts of the remaining 81 references and assessed them for eligibility.A flow chart describing the results of the selection process is reported in Seventy-seven studies were excluded due to the absence of information about breaking bad news in infertility. These papers deal with infertility care, but there was no reference to the specific topic explored in the present review (communication of the infertility diagnosis). For instance, the paper “Impediments to communication and relationships between infertility care providers and patients” concerns communication issues between ART practitioners and patients that underwent infertility treatment (Klitzman, 18 Finally, authors of the ESHRE guidelines made a list of general principles of psychosocial care that patients value that could be applied to the communication of bad news (Ultimately, four studies were eligible according to the inclusion criteria (Dancet et al., bad news  (Gameirobad news . Accordibad news  and the bad news  do not mbad news , the culInfertility is a very common issue around the world, and it represents a milestone in a couple's life. Coping with the infertility status can be very complicated due to the sudden interruption of the family plan and the lack of acknowledgment of the couple's grief. However, HCPs can avoid further trauma and pain using good communication. How the diagnosis is communicated could improve patients' well-being and the ability to cope with it.16. This is in agreement to the ESHRE guidelines (Gameiro et al., In this literature review, we did not find any protocol or guideline concerning breaking bad news in infertility. Many papers concern infertility treatment care or ART, for instance, the paper of Leone et al.  about a Giving information is linked to the staff's communication skills, and it is very important to patients according to the ESHRE guideline (Gameiro et al., Concerning psychological help and support, patients expect to have the possibility to access professional psychological care, and they want the opportunity to contact other couples (Gameiro et al., Many other psychological approaches appear to be effective to reduce couples' stress and improve well-being. For instance, acceptance and commitment therapy helps patients to reduce stress and to increase couples' intimacy (Taheri et al., Although there is no specific guideline to communicate the diagnosis of infertility, other protocols currently adopted in daily medical practice could be used. SPIKES is an easy-to-follow protocol that has been used in the oncology setting for 20 years. It is divided in six steps, which help and facilitate HCPs to break bad news (Baile et al., This review has several points of strength. First, the literature research was performed, retrieving articles from five large databases, and the literature screening was performed double blind, ensuring a rigorous methodology. Second, the extensive analysis of articles allowed us to highlight the lack of investigations focused on this topic and, therefore, to propose a new approach for the communication of infertility diagnosis. Finally, focusing on the importance of HCPs' communication skills in this field, this review may act as a starting point for future investigations and targeted interventions for HCPs.The main limitation of this review lies in the scarcity of information reported in each of the included studies. In this light, the adaptation of the original SPIKES protocol may not include all aspects of patients' needs other than the few ones reported within the included articles. Further research could identify other areas of interest to be analyzed and included in an updated protocol for the communication of the infertility diagnosis.Most of the currently available literature is related to infertility treatment care, and its main focus was not the communication of infertility diagnosis, which represents the starting point of infertility grief for many couples. Only a few papers give some advice about breaking bad news, and there are no thorough guidelines about it. Based on the findings of this review, our adapted version of the SPIKES protocol is an easy-to-use guideline, which could be very useful for healthcare professionals and could be easily integrated in routinary clinical practices.The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/AV and CR: conceptualization and validation. GC and LM: original draft, methodology, writing, and formal analysis. All authors: writing, review, and editing.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


The third global State of the World’s Midwifery report (SoWMy 2021) provides an updated evidence base on the sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health (SRMNAH) workforce. For the first time, SoWMy includes high-income countries (HICs) as well as low- and middle-income countries. This paper describes the similarities and differences between regions and income groups, and discusses the policy implications of these variations. SoWMy 2021 estimates a global shortage of 900,000 midwives, which is particularly acute in low-income countries (LICs) and in Africa. The shortage is projected to improve only slightly by 2030 unless additional investments are made. The evidence suggests that these investments would yield important returns, including: more positive birth experiences, improved health outcomes, and inclusive and equitable economic growth. Most HICs have sufficient SRMNAH workers to meet the need for essential interventions, and their education and regulatory environments tend to be strong. Upper-middle-income countries also tend to have strong policy environments. LICs and lower-middle-income countries tend to have a broader scope of practice for midwives, and many also have midwives in leadership positions within national government. Key regional variations include: major midwife shortages in Africa and South-East Asia but more promising signs of growth in South-East Asia than in Africa; a strong focus in Africa on professional midwives ; heavy reliance on medical doctors rather than midwives in the Americas and Eastern Mediterranean regions and parts of the Western Pacific; and a strong educational and regulatory environment in Europe but a lack of midwife leaders at national level. SoWMy 2021 provides stakeholders with the latest data and information to inform their efforts to build back better and fairer after COVID-19. This paper provides a number of policy responses to SoWMy 2021 that are tailored to different contexts, and suggests a variety of issues to consider in these contexts. These suggestions are supported by the inclusion of all countries in the report, because it is clear which countries have strong SRMNAH workforces and enabling environments and can be viewed as exemplars within regions and income groups.The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12960-021-00694-w. Despite the significant progress over the past two decades in improving outcomes for sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health (SRMNAH), progress has been uneven. Maternal mortality, neonatal mortality and stillbirth rates remain high in many countries, a large number of women give birth without assistance from a skilled health provider, there is a considerable amount of unmet need for modern contraception, and quality of care is often suboptimal .Resilient health systems grounded in primary health care are vital to the health and well-being of every woman, newborn and adolescent. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of resilient health systems, especially health workforces. The Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health stresses that without an effective health workforce no health system is viable and universal health coverage cannot be achieved . High-quState of the World’s Midwifery (SoWMy) report was published in May 2021 by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and the World Health Organization (WHO), to provide an updated evidence base and detailed analysis of the progress and challenges to delivering effective coverage of high-quality midwifery services [The third global services , 4 led tservices . HoweverJust prior to the publication of the main SoWMy report, the SoWMy team published a study which concluded that universal coverage of a set of essential “midwife-delivered interventions”  could avert approximately two-thirds of the world’s maternal and neonatal deaths and stillbirths, saving over four million lives per year by 2035 .SoWMy 2011 and SoWMy 2014 focused exclusively on the low- and middle-income countries with the highest rates of maternal and neonatal mortality, whereas all 194 WHO Member States were eligible for inclusion in the 2021 report. The objective of this paper is to describe the observed similarities and differences between different regions and income groups, and to discuss the policy and strategy implications of these variations.The two main data reporting mechanisms for SoWMy 2021 were: the WHO National Health Workforce Accounts (NHWA) platform  and the The analysis uses three key concepts to measure workforce availability and accessibility: (i) “need”, defined as the amount of health worker time that would be required to achieve universal coverage of a set of essential SRMNAH interventions, (ii) “supply”, defined as the amount of SRMNAH workerIn relation to “need”, SoWMy 2021 estimates that in 2019, approximately 6.5 billion health worker hours were required to meet all of the world's need for essential SRMNAH interventions. Just over half of these hours (55%) are for maternal and newborn interventions, 8% for adolescent sexual and reproductive health (SRH) interventions, and the remaining 37% for other SRH interventions such as contraception and sexually transmitted infections. The workforce must, therefore, have the competencies to meet a wide variety of SRMNAH needs across the life course in addition to pregnancy and childbirth interventions.inter alia, poor quality education and regulation, and gender discrimination in the workforce.SoWMy 2021 estimates a global shortage of 900,000 midwives. If current trends of increased supply continue, this is projected to decrease only slightly  by 2030. It also estimates that the current SRMNAH workforce cannot meet more than 75% of the world’s need for essential SRMNAH interventions. In reality, it is likely that the workforce meets far less than 75% of the need, due to issues, such as: geographical maldistribution, poor working environments, the costs of accessing care, weak commodity supply chains, and gaps in quality of care due to, SoWMy 2021 projects estimates of “demand” forward to 2030 and predicts that most countries will have a mismatch between the supply of SRMNAH workers and the number the country can afford to employ. About half of countries will have a demand-based shortage, i.e., they will produce fewer SRMNAH workers than their economy can support, and about half will have a demand-based oversupply, i.e., they will produce more than their economy can support (assuming spending priorities remain unchanged).Investing in midwives can clearly yield important returns, including: more positive birth experiences, improved health outcomes, inclusive and equitable economic growth. Although the causal mechanism for these improved outcomes is not clear, SoWMy 2021 suggests that it is related to the unique philosophy of midwifery which takes a life-course approach and focuses on woman-centred, preventive, supportive care within a functioning referral system should medical intervention be required.The impact of COVID-19 on the midwifery workforce is still being evaluated, but it is clear that many midwives and other SRMNAH workers were not sufficiently protected from infection and lost their lives due to the virus (SoWMy 2021 is dedicated to them), and many more are suffering from burnout, exhaustion and trauma. Health systems worldwide need to plan for replacing the losses and supporting the remaining health workforce to stay in post and provide high-quality care. This provides an opportunity to make improvements to SRMNAH care via strategic investments in the workforce. The dependence of the SRMNAH workforce on women , but nearly all of the countries projected to have a The education and regulatory environment for midwives tends to be stronger in HICs and UMICs than in LMICs and LICs. For example, HICs and UMICs are more likely to: offer midwife education programmes which meet ICM recommendations for duration of course, have midwives educating midwives, offer postgraduate study in midwifery, and have legislation and regulatory systems which recognise midwifery and nursing as distinct professions. Most HICs have laws/policies for the prevention of physical or verbal attacks on health workers, compared to only about half of UMICs, LMICs and LICs.However, other indicators of the strength of the midwifery profession reveal relative strengths in LICs and LMICs. For example, the percentage of LICs with a professional association specifically for midwives is similar to the percentage in HICs and UMICs. Most UMICs and LICs reported at least one midwife in a leadership position within the national ministry of health (MoH),Inequity between the need for and availability of SRMNAH workers is also evident between WHO regions , which calls into question whether the skills of the midwifery workforce are routinely kept up-to-date.Americas is the region with the lowest midwife density and the highest nurse density: indicating that this region relies very heavily on nurses as providers of SRMNAH interventions. Fewer than half of responding countries in this region offer a postgraduate qualification in midwifery. Despite this, most responding countries report that midwifery is recognised as a separate profession, that it has a separately regulatory system, that there is a professional association specifically for midwives and that there are midwife leaders in the national MoH.The Eastern Mediterranean region has the second lowest SRMNAH worker density after Africa and accounts for almost 20% of the global midwife shortage. Its SRMNAH workforce can meet no more than 70% of the need . In contrast to Africa, however, current trends suggest that the situation will be much improved by 2030. Most of the midwives in the Eastern Mediterranean region are professionals, but most of its nurses are associate professionals. Relative to the number of midwives and nurses, the region has a lot of doctors in its SRMNAH workforce, indicating a medicalized SRMNAH care system in many countries in the region.The The Eastern Mediterranean region is one of only two regions, where the vast majority of midwife educators are themselves midwives (the other being Europe). However, fewer than half of countries in this region offer a postgraduate qualification in midwifery, fewer than half have a separate regulation system for midwives and only half require midwives to provide evidence of CPD to continue practising. Some countries in the region restrict the midwife’s scope of practice, e.g., fewer than half of countries authorize midwives to conduct manual placenta removal and manual vacuum aspiration.Europe is similar to the Americas, but midwife density is 2.5 times higher in Europe than in the Americas, and nearly all of Europe’s midwives are professionals rather than associate professionals. As noted above, most European countries use midwives to educate midwives, and it is the only region in which the majority of countries offer a postgraduate qualification in midwifery. Similarly, nearly all countries have a separate regulatory system for midwives and an association specifically for midwives. On the other hand, very few countries in this region have a midwife leader in the national MoH and the scope of practise of midwives is often restricted, e.g., very few countries permit midwives to perform vacuum extraction and manual vacuum aspiration, and midwives do not tend to be authorized to provide modern contraceptives.The overall density of SRMNAH workers in South-East Asia are midwives, but nearly all of this region’s midwives are associate professionals rather than professionals and, therefore, can provide a smaller number of essential SRMNAH interventions. About half of responding countries in this region offer a postgraduate qualification in midwifery. The scope of practise of midwives is broader than in all other regions except Africa. However, only about half of the reporting countries in this region have legislation recognizing midwifery as distinct from nursing, only about two-thirds have a separate regulatory system for midwives, and fewer than one in three have a midwife leader in the national MoH.A large proportion of the SRMNAH workers in Western Pacific region has a relatively high midwife density, second only to South-East Asia, and nearly all of its midwives are professionals. However, in this region, less than 10% of the available SRMNAH worker time comes from midwives, because there is an even higher density of nurses and doctors. Nearly all responding countries in this region have a separate regulatory system for midwives and a professional association specifically for midwives, and the scope of practice of a midwife tends to be broad . However, fewer than half of countries offer a postgraduate qualification in midwifery, fewer than half have midwife leaders in the national MoH, and fewer than half require periodic evidence of CPD.The Although all 194 WHO Member States submitted at least one data item to the SoWMy 2021 report, no country provided validated data for all of the SoWMy 2021 indicators. For several indicators the number of responding countries was well below 100. Therefore, it is possible that some of the regional and income group results presented in SoWMy 2021 and described in this paper do not accurately represent the situation in that region or income group. This particularly affects the indicators relating to midwife education, regulation and scope of practice, three critical issues for midwifery development and maternal and perinatal health. There is an urgent need for better data availability and quality in many countries. The SoWMy 2021 webappendices [The regional and income group estimates for health worker numbers and density are weighted by population size, so larger countries have a stronger impact on the average than smaller countries. While not a limitation as such, it is important to bear this in mind when interpreting the figures. Furthermore, regional and income group averages can mask important variations between and within countries. Within each region and income group, there will be countries which are typical of the group of countries within it, and others which are not.For the first time in the history of SoWMy, the 2021 report is truly global and, therefore, includes a wider range of analyses, including a new method of estimating demand-based workforce shortages (or oversupplies) as well as estimating needs-based shortages. This makes the report relevant to all countries, and in this paper we have attempted to highlight this broad applicability. It also allows us to draw conclusions about how the policy implications of the data in the report may be different in different contexts.The main stories from the data on SRMNAH workforce supply are the major global shortage of SRMNAH workers and the inequity between higher and lower income countries—in particular the urgent need to address the severe shortages in LICs and in the African region to achieve the health-related SDGs. Many LICs are projected still to have severe needs-based SRMNAH worker shortages in 2030. It should be noted that the needs-based shortage estimates in SoWMy 2021 are separate from the demand-based shortage estimates: it is possible for a country to have neither type of shortage, just one type, or both types. A needs-based shortage brings with it an imperative to increase production of SRMNAH workers. However, if this is coupled with a demand-based oversupply, then increased production is likely to lead to ‘brain drain’ if the country does not have the fiscal space to employ all of the SRMNAH workers it produces. Many LICs are in this situation, which means efforts are required both to increase the supply of SRMNAH workers and to boost market-based demand to ensure that the increased supply of qualified individuals can get jobs in the health sector.Even among HICs and UMICs, very few countries are predicted to achieve a good match between supply and economic demand, which implies the need for better workforce planning systems across the board.Some of the SoWMy 2021 indicators relating to quality of care indicate widespread systemic issues. For example, the only region in which most countries offer a postgraduate qualification in midwifery is Europe, which perhaps partly explains why so many LMICs and LICs in other regions rely on other types of health professional to teach midwives. Stronger midwifery departments in universities would encourage further study and research on midwifery, and encourage midwives to take the lead in the education and research which is greatly needed. Similarly, in most regions fewer than half of countries have a requirement for periodic proof of CPD as part of midwifery regulation. Coupled with the well-documented weaknesses in midwife pre-service education in many countries , this meThe dependence in HICs and UMICs—especially in the Americas region—on doctors and nurses to provide SRMNAH interventions raises questions about whether the lower mortality rates for women and newborns observed (on average) in these settings come at the expense of access to the unique philosophy and model of care provided by midwives, which has been shown to facilitate positive birth experiences and improve other types of health outcomes. This concern is underlined by the finding that the scope of practice of midwives tends to be more restricted in HICs and UMICs  than in LMICs and LICs. SoWMy 2021 points out that midwives who are educated and regulated according to global standards can meet around 90% of the need for essential SRMNAH interventions, but this is achievable only if they are authorized to operate to their full scope of practice within an enabling work environment .Similarly, the heavy reliance in some LMICs on associate professional midwives calls into question their ability to provide midwifery services across the full continuum of care, so the high density of midwives in LMICs—especially those in South-East Asia—may not translate to widespread access to high quality midwifery care. By contrast, nearly all of Africa’s midwives are classed as professionals, perhaps indicating a greater appreciation of the potential of midwives to meet most of the need for essential SRMNAH interventions, even if currently this region does not have anywhere near enough of them and quality of care can still be poor.Addressing the issues highlighted in SoWMy 2021 requires strong leadership for the midwifery profession, focusing on the four areas of investment shown in Fig. Since the first SoWMy report in 2011, there has been much progress in midwifery, including greater recognition of the importance of quality of care, widespread accreditation systems for health worker education institutions, and greater recognition of midwifery as a distinct profession. On the other hand, many of the issues highlighted in the two previous SoWMy reports remain of concern, such as workforce shortages, an inadequate working environment, low-quality education and training, and limitations in health workforce data.Governments and relevant stakeholders are urged to use SoWMy 2021 to inform their efforts to build back better and fairer from the COVID-19 pandemic, forging stronger primary health-care systems as a pathway to UHC and fostering a more equitable world. It is hoped that the pandemic will be a catalyst for change given the heightened profile of health workers. SoWMy 2021 can help make this happen.Additional file 1: Table S1. Health occupations classed as part of the SRMNAH workforce. Table S2. List of WHO Member States by World Bank income group, 2020. Table S3. List of WHO Member States by WHO region, 2020.


A key element of migrants’ well-being is their emotional integration, that is, the extent to which they perceive themselves as members of society and their identification with the country they are living in. To foster this sense of belonging, many integration programs aim to increase the migrants’ social integration, for example, by organizing events for migrants to meet natives in various settings. The validity of this strategy is supported by decades of international research. It remains unclear, however, which aspects of social integration are most relevant for national identification. Multiple theories concerned with contact and group identification support the assumption that contact to natives should foster a sense of belonging and national identification. However, for a contact situation to bear this potential, a certain set of criteria, including aspects like direct personal contact, a similar social status, and the presence of egalitarian norms, needs to be fulfilled. It is expected that these characteristics are more likely to be fulfilled within family and friendship settings than in contact situations within the employment context. Hence, I expect contact to natives within the network of friends and family to be more greatly associated with migrants’ national identification. I analyzed data from a 2013 cooperation between the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), that is, the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample, as well as the 2014 wave of the SOEP. The subsample used included 2,780 first- and second-generation migrants living in Germany. The results indicate that not all kinds of contact are equally linked to national identification. In contrast to expectations, in neither the cross-sectional models nor the lagged models was living together with native family members significantly linked to national identification. Similarly, the association between having predominantly native co-workers and national identification was insignificant when controlling for migrant-specific characteristics. Only the relation with having predominantly native friends was significant and positive across all models. This as well as a comparison of the associations lead to the conclusion that when it comes to migrants’ national identification native friends might be the most relevant form of contact to natives. In recent decades the integration of migrants has become a prominent challenge for many Western and non-Western societies. And with this development more and more sociological research has focused on migrants’ integration as well. Many researchers in the past have focused on cultural, social, and structural integration, by asking which determinants lead to the assimilation of migrants’ concerning their knowledge and skills, their social networks, and their positions in society e.g., . BesidesThis is unfortunate because emotional integration is a key element for migrants’ well-being. In addition, emotional integration is not only of great relevance for the individual migrant; rather, the whole society benefits from migrants having high levels of emotional integration. This is because high levels of emotional integration, specifically national identification, can be considered the basis for national solidarity and an overall effective democracy . ExistinHowever, previous research focused on individual aspects of social integration rather than analyzing the influence of different aspects simultaneously and comparing their relevance for national identification. It is therefore unclear, which aspects of social integration are most relevant. Yet, to increase migrants’ national identification and, therefore, their well-being and to develop integration policies and programs, it is vital to understand which aspects of social integration are most relevant. Only when this knowledge is acquired can effective integration policies, programs, and interventions based on contact to natives be designed. My aim it to fill this gap by inspecting the influence of various kinds of contacts to natives on national identification simultaneously and comparing the respective effects empirically. Specifically, I will describe and compare the relationships between family, friendship, and workplace settings and national identification.In a first step, I will present some theoretical considerations on the concept of emotional integration. Further, I will discuss previous studies on the relation of social and emotional integration. Based on this theoretical background and additional theories, concrete expectations for the results will be stipulated in form of testable hypotheses. Subsequently, after presenting the dataset used as well as the methods applied, I will analyze and compare the relationship between different forms of social integration and national identification. The article will conclude with a discussion of the results as well as potential limitations of the study.Emotional integration has been described as the emotional relationship between a migrant and the social system . This emIn the last decades, different approaches to measure emotional integration have been developed. These include the widely accepted Collective Self-Esteem Scale (CSES) , which iIntegration theories suggest a strong relation between other forms of integration and national identification . These fIn the recent past, many studies investigating these relations supported the assumption of a close relationship between different forms of integration and national identification. Concerning structural integration, factors like naturalization, and entitlement to vote were identified as being relevant for migrants’ national identification , and witHowever, only few researchers were specifically interested in the effect of contact to natives on national identification in adults. Many researchers focused on children or when using adult samples merely included aspects of social integration as control variables into their models when analyzing the influence of other characteristics on national identification. Nonetheless, their work can be used to study the effect. Therefore, in the following, both studies explicitly focusing on the relation between social integration and national identification as well as studies indirectly contributing will be discussed.Research including variables indicating the occurrence of contact to natives generally were able to show that migrants’ national identification was strongly linked to increased contact to natives in everyday life . While tOne setting that has been explored further with respect to the relation between social integration and national identification is the neighborhood. For instance, in a sample of Caribbean and South Asian migrants in Britain, A more personal sphere, and the sphere most frequently applied, are migrants’ friends and friendship networks. Specifically, many studies utilized information on the ethnic composition of the migrants’ friendship networks . In a saIn addition to these studies on adult migrants, there is also a line of research focusing on national identification in migrant children and adolescents. While some studies in this field confirm the results found in studies with adults , others Further, researchers considered the contact to natives within the migrants’ immediate families. This sphere is most likely the most personal one, as it considers migrants’ choice in relationship partners. Results from Germany as well as the Netherlands indicated that migrants having a native partner display substantially higher levels of national identification than those who have partners sharing the same ethnicity . With siAs can be deduced from the presented studies, most research focused on spheres in which migrants are able to choose whether to have contact to specific others or not to engage in such contacts. Having a native partner and having native friends are choices made by the individual. Similarly, having contact to natives within the neighborhood can also be seen as a voluntary act, however, perhaps to a lesser extent than that of friendship and partner formation. To compare the relevance of different spheres, it would also be interesting to discuss settings in which migrants have no or relatively little influence on the composition of their network. One example for such a setting would be their place of work and the ethnic composition of their colleagues. Unfortunately, this context has been neglected to date. What exists, however, is research on the relation between schools’ ethnic compositions and the national identification of adolescent migrants . SimilarHowever, while the composition of the school did not exert statistically significant correlations with national identification, both studies highlight the relevance of friendships formed between migrant and native adolescents . This emOverall, previous research has shown the importance of contact for migrants’ national identification across several different settings. From research including multiple factors, first indications for potential differences in the effects of various spheres can be drawn. However, due to the variations in the scale of the included variables, these comparisons suffer from limited comparability. In the next paragraphs I will discuss these differences from a theoretical perspective and frame concrete hypotheses.First assumptions on the relation between social integration and national identification can be drawn from the concept of social distance. Social distance is seen as a subjective measure describing the perceived void toward another person or social group . One exaThe self-categorization theory , an advaThe contact theory further endorses these expectations, specifically with respect to the effect of social integration. The main idea of the contact theory is that interactions between groups or between individuals from different groups are necessary to dissolve group barriers that exist between them . The conWhile all three theories indicate that increased contact to natives should lead to a higher sense of belonging as well as a higher level of national identification, further aspects need to be considered in order to evaluate the potential effects of contact in various settings. This is due to the fact that contact alone is not considered to be sufficient to provoke a lasting attitude change . To achiOne contact setting that can be assumed to fulfill multiple of the mentioned characteristics is contact to natives within the family setting, for example, migrants who are married to a native partner. Within families, direct personal contact on a regular basis is given, and it can be assumed that the possibility to contest stereotypes is given as well. Family members are often named as individuals’ closest contacts and as the people with whom individuals discuss important issues . FurtherSimilar to contact within the family, contact among friends usually fulfills the criterion of direct contact as well. Further, it probably provides a sphere which allows the contestation of stereotypes since research has shown that discussions among friends include very personal as well as intimate, but also political topics . There aConcerning the workplace, a collective goal and a certain level of interdependence can be assumed. Co-workers work on projects together and the success of the project or company depends on the whole workforce and not just the individual worker. Besides that, employees might also depend on fellow co-workers to fulfill their duties and obligations so that one’s own responsibilities can be fulfilled. However, even though there is interdependence and contact at the workplace tends to be personal contact, it is questionable whether the possibility to challenge stereotypes exists. When asked about the individuals with whom one discusses matters that are important, people rarely named their co-workers . LikewisOverall, it appears that most of the conditions would be fulfilled within the family setting. Similarly, contact to friends is likely to occur under conditions advantageous for positive attitude and identification change. The workplace environment, on the other hand, seems to fulfill only some of the conditions mentioned above. This leads to the following hypotheses:The association between having native family members and national identification is stronger than the link between having native friends and national identification (H2).The association between having native family members and national identification is stronger than the link between working together with natives and national identification (H3).The association between having native friends and national identification is stronger than the link between working together with natives and national identification (H4).N = 2,780.The analyses presented in this article use data from the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample collected in 2013 . The datRespondents from the 2013 IAB-SOEP Migration Sample were invited to become members of the SOEP panel in the following year . While lnational identification was measured by the item “To what degree do you think of yourself as German?” with response categories ranging from 1 (completely) to 5 . The variable was recoded, so that higher values indicate greater national identification. In the following sections, national identification 2013 refers to the data collected with the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample in 2013 and national identification 2014 refers to the information gathered from those individuals who also participated in the 2014 wave of the SOEP. Besides national identification, information for all other variables was taken from the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample (2013).At both time points, the dependent variable native family member, that is, a household member who is not a first- or second-generation migrant. Respondents who had a native family member were assigned the value 1, and respondents who had no native household members or only household members with a migration background were assigned the value 0.Contact to natives within the family setting was operationalized as having a mostly native friends. Respondents were assigned the value 1 if about one-quarter, less than one-quarter, or none of their friends were foreigners, and they were coded 0 if about half, most, or all of their friends were foreigners.Contact to natives within the friendship setting was measured by the variable mostly native work). Respondents were assigned the value 1 if about one-quarter, less than one-quarter or none of the staff at their workplace were foreigners, and they were coded 0 if about half, most, or all of their fellow staff members were foreigners.A similar operationalization was used for contact to natives in the workplace setting , level of education was included into the analyses. Because no information on the years of schooling was available for most migrants, two dummy variables using the available ISCED-2011  coding scheme were created. Secondary education was designated as 1 for respondents whose highest degree came from an institution of secondary education and 0 for everyone else. Higher education was designated as 1 for respondents who reported having an educational qualification that exceeded the secondary level and 0 for everyone else. Participants who only received a primary education formed the reference category. In addition to aspects of education, I also considered aspects of the employment situation by including variables controlling for part-time  and marginal employment . The reference category was comprised of individuals working full-time.As control variables I included various aspects, including sociodemographic as well as migration specific characteristics. Besides language skills as an index of the reversed self-reported writing, reading, and speaking skills (each 0–5). The overall scale varied between 0 and 15, with higher values indicating a better understanding of the German language. In addition, I included second-generation, a variable indicating whether a respondent was a first- or second-generation migrant , German citizenship  as well as the migrants’ region of origin. The latter was operationalized as dummy variables following an allocation scheme by Turkey, member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), countries from the Arab League, and Other origins. Migrants from the European Union (EU) built the reference category. Details on the specific countries belonging to each category can be found in Concerning the migrant-specific variables, I included national identification 2013 as the dependent variable and only includes the three contact variables as independent variables. Model 1.2 also includes the general control variables, and Model 1.3 includes all three contact variables as well as general and migrant-specific control variables. For better comparisons between the three models, all three used the same sample, meaning that only those respondents for whom information on all variables was available (those included in Model 1.3) contributed. Also, to increase comparability between the three contact variables, they were standardized in all models.To test the hypotheses, I ran ordered logit regressions. As a starting point I used cross-sectional models only including information from the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample. Model 1.1 uses national identification 2014 as the dependent variable. All other variables (contact and control) stem from the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample from 2013. Again, I ran three models following the above-described scheme  also using the standardized contact variables and the sample retrieved from the model including all variables as discussed above. However, as indicated earlier, the available sample for regressions including information from the SOEP 2014 wave is much smaller than the original IAB-SOEP Migration Sample, therefore, the sample sizes vary strongly between Model 1 and Model 2. To address these differences and increase comparability, I reran the former regressions with the sample used for the latter, following the same variable scheme . Model 3, therefore, includes the same sample as Model 2 which allows comparisons between the cross-sectional model and the lagged model.In a second step, I ran the same regressions now using I used Wald-Chi-tests to compare the associations of national identification and the three standardized contact variables with each other. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) were used to assess the overall fit of the models.Of the 2,780 respondents from the IAB-SOEP subsample, 53% were male. The average age was almost 39 years, and the majority of respondents had completed secondary education (55%) and worked full-time (67%). With a mean of 12.2, the overall language skills were quite high. Overall, only 17% of respondents were second-generation immigrants, and almost half were German citizens (46%). Concerning origin, the largest group was composed by respondents originating from a member state of the European Union (39%) followed by respondents originating from member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (28%). More detailed information on the sample can be found in With regard to feeling German, 10% reported not feeling German at all, 12% reported feeling barely German, 31% felt German in some respects, 29% felt mostly German, and 19% felt completely German. As indicated by The three contact variables vary strongly in their distribution. While only 9% of respondents lived with a native family member, 28% reported that less than half of their friends are foreigners, and 51% of respondents reported that less than half of their co-workers are foreigners.The starting point for the discussion of the link between national identification and the three contact variables is a multivariate cross-sectional analysis using all available cases. As discussed above, three models were run: a model without control variables, a model with general control variables, and a model including both general and migrant-specific control variables. The results, summarized in Regarding the link between contact and national identification, not all of the three contact variables had the expected positive and significant association. The link between having native family members and national identification was negative across all three models, however it was very small and statistically insignificant. This finding indicates that having native family members is, unlike expected, not associated with individual’s level of national identification. The association between having mostly native friends and national identification on the other hand was as expected, with respondents who have higher shares of native friends being more likely to report high levels of national identification. This relation was independent of the inclusion of control variables. The association with working in a predominantly native work setting, however, strongly depended on the inclusion of the migrant-specific control variables. When migrant-specific aspects were not controlled for, the association was positive, substantial, and statistically significant; upon the inclusion of these variables, the association was no longer significant and became quite small.The comparison of the associations revealed that the association between national identification and having mostly native friends was significantly stronger than the relations between national identification and having native family members or large shares of native co-workers. The latter two associations, both statistically insignificant, did not differ in strength upon the inclusion of the migrant-specific control variables. Prior to the inclusion, having predominantly native co-workers appeared to be more strongly linked to national identification than having native family members.As expected, most of the control variables—general and migrant-specific—had a statistically significant association with national identification. While the coefficient for age was positive and significant, it was quite small. The variables covering education and employment situation on the other hand all had strong negative associations with national identification. Concerning the migrant-specific variables, increased language skills, and being a second-generation migrant, as well as having the German citizenship were associated with higher levels of national identification. Out of the five regions of origin, respondents coded as originating from a CIS member state or a region belonging to the category “other origin” were more likely to report high levels of national identification than those originating from an EU member state.The results obtained from Model 3, the models using the sample from the lagged analyses but the cross-sectional approach, were very close to the results from Model 1. The main associations, the directions, sizes of the coefficients, and significances only changed slightly between the models. Similarly, the conclusions about the overall fit were practically unchanged. Concerning the differences in the strength of the associations, the general results from Model 1 hold, with the exception that prior to the inclusion of migrant-specific control variables there was no statistically significant difference in the strength of the associations of having mostly native friends and having mostly native co-workers with national identification. Further, for some of the control variables noteworthy changes concerning the size and significance of the association with national identification were observed. While in the full model with the larger sample (Model 1.3) secondary education, part-time employment and being of Turkish origin were all negatively associated with national identification, this significant link could no longer be found in the smaller sample. Overall, the associations between national identification and the control variables appeared to be smaller in Model 3. However, because of the overall similarities, the results obtained from Model 3 will not be discussed further. Details on the models and results can be found in Like the change towards the smaller sample, changing the analyses strategy to the lagged variable approach (Model 2) yielded few changes in the results. In comparison to Model 3, the association between having native family members and national identification was positive, however it was still very small and stayed statistically insignificant Model 2, . This waThe comparison of the associations again drew a very clear picture in favor of the contact situation including native friends. The association between having predominately native friends and national identification was significantly larger than the respective associations regarding having native family members and having larger shares of native co-workers. The difference between the latter two was again insignificant upon the inclusion of the migrant-specific control variables. Prior to the inclusion, working in a predominantly native work setting appeared to be more strongly linked to national identification than having native family members.The associations between the general and migrant-specific control variables and national identification mostly stayed the same upon applying the lagged approach. The only noteworthy change was that while coming from a CIS member state was significantly and substantially linked to national identification in the reduced cross-sectional model (Model 3.3.), this link could no longer be found in the lagged model (Model 2.3). For all other control variables, the significance structure stayed generally the same, with only small changes in the strength of the associations.While previous research discussed the relevance of contact to natives for migrants’ national identification and tested this assumption in specific settings, little is known about the differences in effects of various kinds of contact. It is therefore unclear which kinds of contact are most strongly linked to national identification. Or assuming causality, which kinds of contact are most influential for migrants’ national identification. I gathered first indications concerning this relation by looking at the existing studies that have examined the link between national identification and various contact settings individually and by discussing the results of studies that included multiple contact settings as control variables.Aspects of the concept of social distance in combination with the self-categorization theory, the social identity theory, and the contact theory suggested that, in general, migrants’ national identification should be positively associated with the amount of contact they have to natives (H1). However, extensions of the contact theory suggest that for attitudinal changes to occur, the contact situation needs to meet specific requirements . I argueContrary to expectations, the results indicated that the link between national identification and contact to natives was not generally positive. Rather, the existence of the association was highly dependent on the specific contact situation. Therefore, H1 could not be corroborated.Concerning the link between having native family members and national identification, neither the cross-sectional models nor the lagged models’ results supported the generally expected positive association. Migrants with native family members were not more likely to report high levels of national identification than migrants without native family members. Therefore, it seems as if there is no link between having native family members and national identification. Unlike the family aspect, having mostly native friends was positively associated with national identification in all models, that is, cross-sectional and lagged. Further, this association was significantly larger than the insignificant association between having native family members and national identification. Therefore, H2 had to be rejected. H4, in contrast, could be corroborated since the association between having predominantly native coworkers and national identification was significantly smaller than the association between having predominantly native friends and national identification. However, it should be mentioned that the link between having a larger share of native co-workers and national identification was insignificant in both the full cross-sectional and the full lagged model. Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the link between the two variables depended highly on the inclusion of the control variable related to the respondents’ language skills. Lastly, H3 suggested that the association with having native family members would be larger than the association with working in a predominantly native work setting. Contrary to the expectations, the associations, both being insignificant, did not differ significantly from each other in the full model. In the models without the migrant-specific control variables the associations differed significantly, however, the association between working with larger shares of native co-workers and national identification consequently appeared to be larger.Drawing from these results, it can be concluded that contact to native friends is the most relevant form of contact to natives with regard to migrants’ national identification. Programs aiming to increase national identification or, more generally, emotional integration among migrants should therefore focus on settings in which friendships between migrant and native participants can be formed.This study, however, is not without limitations. One issue concerns the measure for national identification. The concept was measured by a single question: “To what degree do you think of yourself as German?”. No further indicators for national identification were available in the data set. Therefore, no indices covering multiple aspects of national identification or similar approaches could be applied and the possibilities to validate the instrument were severely restricted. Future research should aim towards creating a measure which includes multiple aspects of national identification and apply this measure in the replication of studies analyzing the relation between aspect of social integration and national identification.Besides that, the variable measuring the contact to natives within the family setting should be discussed. The sample is very unbalanced regarding the family setting, less than 10% of the sample were coded as living with a native family member. Since the family setting variable was constructed from information on the migration status of migrants’ participating family members, it is possible that migrants who were coded as living without a native family member actually had native family members who simply chose not to participate in the study. An equal participation rate across non-migrant and migrant family members needs to be assumed for a valid interpretation of the results. However, there is no information backing the assumption.Further, while lagged models were used, no full longitudinal analyses were possible since the contact and migrant-specific variables were only collected in the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample and not in later waves of the SOEP. This also meant that no analyses regarding the reversed causation was possible. It is therefore unclear whether the link between having native friends and national identification is solely based on the effect of contact on national identification or if the migrants’ level of national identification might also influence their choice of friends.In conclusion, there are still a few issues that require further attention, such as the small sample of migrants with native family members and the topic of (reversed) causation. Nonetheless, the presented study provides valuable insights into the field: first, by presenting an overview of the existing literature on the influence of social integration on national identification; second, by offering a theoretical approach linking the two aspects; and finally, by simultaneously analyzing the associations between national identification and contact to natives across multiple settings. Overall, for migrants in Germany, the formation of national identification was strongly linked to their friendships with natives, but not so much to their contact to natives within the family or workplace setting.