The SAGE Handbook of Contemporary Cross-Cultural Management

Betina Szkudlarek, Laurence Romani, Dan V. Caprar, Joyce S. Osland, Betina Szkudlarek, Laurence Romani, Dan V. Caprar, Joyce S. Osland, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781526441324
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781529729597
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

This Handbook presents a comprehensive and contemporary compendium of the field of cross-cultural management (CCM). In recognition of current trends regarding migration, political ethnocentrisms and increasing nationalism, the chapters in this volume not only cover the traditional domains of CCM such as expatriation, global (virtual) teamwork and leadership,  but also examine emerging topics such as bi/multi-culturalism, migration, religion and more, all considered from a global perspective. The result is a Handbook that acknowledges and builds on a variety of research traditions (from mainstream to critical), updates existing knowledge in relation to current challenges, and sets the direction for future research and developments, making this an invaluable resource for researchers in the field, and across related areas of international business, management, and intercultural relations.

Part 1: Multiple Research Paradigms for the Study of Culture

Part 2: Research Methods in Cross-Cultural Management

Part 3: Cross-Cultural Management and Intersecting Fields of Study

Part 4: Individuals and Teams in Cross-Cultural Management

Part 5: Global mobility and Cross-Cultural Management

Part 6: Developing Intercultural Competence

Part I Multiple Research Paradigms for the Study of Culture

1 Culture in Cross-Cultural Management: Its Seminal Contributors from a Positivist Perspective

Sonja A. Sackmann

Introduction

Several interlocking developments fostered the rise of cross-cultural management (CCM) research from a positivist perspective in the first half of the twentieth century pertaining to society, the political, economic and business sphere, as well as to the scientific community. With technological developments in transportation, travel became easier and several waves of migration and immigration, mainly due to economic and political reasons, led to a multicultural workforce in the United States with different kinds of value orientations underlying the common quest for a new and promising future. The long period of peace after Napoleon's wars and the beginning of World War I had resulted in flourishing inter- and multinational trade with Europe accounting for almost two-thirds of global trade and even more of global investments, which had grown 20 times between 1855 and 1914 (Stevenson, 2014).

Hence, curiosity in different and especially foreign peoples had grown. Around 1800, Wilhelm von Humboldt coined the term Völkerpsychologie (folk psychology) and the social scientist Wilhelm Wundt later set out to study the laws of development of language, myths and mores across peoples including the arts, history, society, law and culture (Wundt, 1900-1920/2015). With his quest for discovering general laws, Wundt conducted research from a positivist perspective, which had become increasingly popular in the social sciences as a method of inquiry after the scientific and industrial revolutions. The natural sciences had set the standards for conducting good research and many social scientists adopted these standards as best research practice in their quest to predict behavior and develop universal laws in their respective domains of study, assuming that social reality is objectively given.

Two world wars left European countries destroyed and brain-drained, citizens exhausted, and, after World War II, the center of economic power shifted from Europe to the United States, accounting for 75 percent of the world's GNP (Thurow, 1988). As a victorious power, the United States recognized both business opportunities and the political importance of rebuilding defeated nations with the Marshall Plan as a bulwark against communism. Hence, the United States originated management ideologies and models based on a predominant functionalist and positivist view were exported to other countries (Boyacigiller, Kleinberg, Phillips, & Sackmann, 2004). In their comparative study, Haire, Ghiselli, and Porter (1966) tried to shed light on the link between values and managerial attitudes and behaviors in different countries with a focus on managerial attitudes. Different groups of North American researchers, funded by the government-friendly Ford Foundation, started to study and compare economic development and systems of management in a multi-year, multi-country study (Westwood & Jack, 2008).

These early research efforts considered culture an independent variable – or often a residual – and equated culture with nation. One exception in this early positivist stream of CCM research was the study on variations of value orientations by a group of anthropologists and social psychologists (Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961) influenced and informed by the ethnologist C. Kluckhohn (1951). Their work on societal values informed the research of Hofstede (1980) and other CCM researchers.

This chapter addresses first the major characteristics of positivist CCM research before discussing selected streams of research. Given their influence on the field, the work of Hofstede (1980, 2001), the GLOBE project, the European Value Studies and World Values Survey, as well as the value research by Schwartz (1992, 1994), are chosen as examples of positivist CCM research highlighting the contributions and limitations of positivist CCM research. Contextual challenges and ways to move forward are discussed before drawing some conclusions.

Characteristics of Positivist CCM Research

Positivist CCM studies share several commonalities, being rooted in a functionalist paradigm (Burrell & Morgan, 1979). As ‘the set of common beliefs and agreements shared between scientists about how problems should be understood and addressed’ (Kuhn, 1996), a paradigm influences researchers’ assumptions about reality, their questions, and their choices of what they consider appropriate ways for studying them, including the research design and methodology. Positivism assumes that social reality is objectively given and can be understood by systematic, empirical observation with the aim to discover the general/universal laws of certain aspects of a particular society or social group. The goal of this type of research is to explain and predict behavior while observing issues of validity and reliability, the latter being critical for comparisons and replication (Donaldson, 2003).

Positivist research in the field of CCM is also sometimes referred to as etic (van Oudenhoven, 2017) – researchers remain outside observers to their research setting; they try to be neutral and objective experts collecting data for their specific research purpose. Data collected are analyzed using different kinds of statistical analyses and reported to the research community.

Because of its large scope and complex nature, positivist CCM research tends to be a multinational, multidisciplinary research team ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Editorial Board
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on the Editors and Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Contemporizing the Field of Cross-Cultural Management
• Setting the Stage: Cross-Cultural Interaction – Creating Success in the Twenty-First Century
• Part I Multiple Research Paradigms for the Study of Culture
• 1 Culture in Cross-Cultural Management: Its Seminal Contributors from a Positivist Perspective
• 2 Interpretive Approaches to Culture: What is Interpretive Cross-Cultural Management Research?
• 3 Critical Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Management
• 4 The Concept of Culture in Cross-Cultural Management: Genealogical Considerations
• 5 Reflexive Chapter: On Paradigm Tolerance in Cross-Cultural Management Research
• Part II Research Methods in Cross-Cultural Management
• 6 Survey Methods in Cross-Cultural Management
• 7 Experimental Methods in Cross-Cultural Management
• 8 Ethnography and Cross-Cultural Management
• 9 Methods of Critical Cross-Cultural Management
• 10 The Uneasy Relationship Between the Case Study and Cross-Cultural Management
• 11 Reflexive Chapter: Towards Greater Methodological Awareness and Researcher Reflexivity
• Part III Cross-Cultural Management and Intersecting Fields of Study
• 12 Languages and Cross-Cultural Management
• 13 Cross-Cultural Issues in Knowledge Management: A Multi-Discourse Review
• 14 Global Talent Management
• 15 Ethics in the Context of Cross-Cultural Management
• 16 The Role of Religion in Cross-Cultural Management: Three Perspectives
• 17 Cross-Cultural and Diversity Management Intersecting in Global Diversity Management: Tensions and Opportunities
• 18 Reflexive Chapter: Producing Knowledge on Cross-Cultural Management: Conditions, Connections, Consequences
• Part IV Individuals and Teams in Cross-Cultural Management
• 19 Cross-Cultural Management and Cultural Identity: Past Perspectives and Present Prerequisites
• 20 Culture, Context, and Work Motivation
• 21 Cross-Cultural Management and Intercultural Communication
• 22 The Role of Trust in Cross-Cultural Management
• 23 Cross-Cultural Teamwork
• 24 Cross-Cultural Comparative Leadership Studies: A Critical Look to the Future
• 25 The Birth of a New Field from CCM: Global Leadership
• 26 Reflexive Chapter: Some Thoughts on Cross-Cultural Management Research
• Part V Global Mobility and Cross-Cultural Management
• 27 Global Migration and Cross-Cultural Management: Understanding the Past, Moving Towards the Future
• 28 The Changing Context of Expatriation and its Impact on Cross-Cultural Management
• 29 A ‘Change’ Perspective of Repatriation: Review and Research Recommendations
• 30 Refugees and Cross-Cultural Management Studies
• 31 Reflexive Chapter: The Non-Linear Relationships in Cross-Cultural Management and Global Mobility
• Part VI Multiple Research Paradigms for the Study of Culture
• 32 Conceptualizing Cross-Cultural Management Competence
• 33 Developing Intercultural Competency: With a Focus on Higher Education1
• 34 Cross-Cultural Training: History, Developments, Future Directions
• 35 Reflexive Chapter: Developing Intercultural Management Competencies: The Next Frontier is Inward Bound
• Index