Intercultural warrant: deploying cultural warrant ethically

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss deployment of cultural warrant in intercultural environment, aiming to better achieve ethical warrant. Design/methodology/approach: This paper synthesizes research on cultural warrant and classification, and uses examples of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) to illustrate cultural warrant in a case of cross-cultural adaptation of bibliographic classification. Findings: The notion of intercultural warrant was suggested as an operational approach to cultural warrant in the context of intercultural use of Knowledge Organization System (KOS). Research limitations/implications: The research focuses on discussions of cultural warrant in the context of intercultural uses of KOS but lacking diverse examples of KOS and beyond (such as descriptive metadata standards). Originality/value: This paper suggests the development of intercultural warrant as a theoretical view to understand classification systems commonly used worldwide and a path to achieve ethical treatments of cultures in such systems.