Paradoxes of Culture and Globalization

Martin J. Gannon

• Editorial: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Año: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781452278810
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Business
• Categoría: Comportamento organizzativo

"A truly extraordinary book! The range of knowledge revealed by the author is quite astonishing and the material presented is done so in a clear and unambiguous writing style."The book includes astonishingly varied perspectives on issues that will impact the hoped-for positive consequences of globalization. I felt I was being informed by an expert who grasps the complexity of the issues involved in ways that make them clear and useful. If I was teaching a course that had anything to do with globalization and/or culture, I would assign this book—and if I knew of someone who was being assigned to another country, I would require him or her to read this book."

—Benjamin Schneider, Valtera Corporation and Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland

What is a paradox? Why are cross-cultural paradoxes essential for understanding the changes that are occurring because of globalization? Encompassing a wide variety of areas including leadership, cross-cultural negotiations, immigration, religion, economic development, and business strategy, Paradoxes of Culture and Globalization developscross-cultural paradoxes essential for understanding globalization.

Key Features

• Highlightsover 90paradoxes structured in a question/discussion format to actively engage readers and provide an integrative overview of the book
• Presents key issues at a higher and integrative level of analysis to avoid stereotyping particular cultures
• Facilitates class discussions and the active involvement of class members in the learning process of culture and globalization.
• Enlarges individuals' conceptual understanding of cross-cultural issues
• Focuses on both traditional and controversial topics including motivation and leadership across cultures, communicating and negotiating across cultures, immigration, religion, geography, economic development, business strategy, and international human resource management

Intended Audience

This is an excellent text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in International Management, International Business, Comparative Management, World Business Environment, Cross-Cultural Management, Cross-Cultural Communications, and Cultural Anthropology in the departments of businessand management, communication, and anthropology.

Meet author Martin J. Gannon! www.csusm.edu/mgannon

Martin J. Gannon is also the author of the bestselling text Understanding Global Cultures (SAGE, Third Edition, 2004) and Cultural Metaphors: Readings, Research Translations, and Commentary (SAGE, 2000).

PART I

Conceptual Foundations

Understanding the basic concepts of paradoxical reasoning and some of the major issues related to it is the focus of this part of the book. Chapter 1 begins with five illustrative paradoxes that are discussed at greater length in later chapters of the book. The chapter also provides a definition of the concept of a paradox and describes various types of paradoxes as well as the three methods used to enhance our understanding of them.

Further, globalization is defined and described at length since two of the key ideas in the book are that (1) culture and globalization can be directly linked via paradoxes and (2) paradoxical reasoning allows us to understand these cross-cultural paradoxes and why they exist in our globalizing world. Concluding sections of the chapters stress the positive features of paradoxical thinking and limitations.

Because culture is of central interest, Chapter 2 emphasizes the manner in which it is conceptualized and perceived. We begin our exploration of specific paradoxes in this chapter with a discussion of eight paradoxes in the area of conceptualization and six in the area of perception. These paradoxes constitute important building blocks for the paradoxes analyzed in Parts II and III of the book.

1

Thinking Paradoxically

We live in a world of bewildering paradoxes. As globalization has proceeded, it has created many changes that influence all or most of us, sometimes in very minor ways and at other times critically. In turn, we now confront many cross-cultural paradoxes associated directly with, and resulting from, globalization. But what is a paradox, and why are cross-cultural paradoxes helpful and frequently essential for understanding and casting light on the changes that are occurring because of globalization? These two basic questions represent the underlying rationale for this book.

Professor Maggi Phillips of Pepperdine University, who reviewed an early draft of this book, captured its fundamentals by pointing out that the following propositions could be gleaned from what I had written and the realities confronting all of us (I have edited her last point slightly):

• Paradoxes exist.
• Recognizing this reality and employing paradoxical reasoning are necessary attributes of successful functioning in the globalizing world.
• The process of globalizing highlights, develops, propels, and creates culturally-based paradoxes.
• Paradoxes are viable links between culture and globalization.
• Cross-cultural paradoxes help us understand and shed light on the changes that are occurring because of globalization.

Before defining paradox and the various types, let us consider some important paradoxes focusing on culture and globalization:

1. Tony Fang (1999), a native of China now teaching at the University of Stockholm, has authored an insightful book built around one central paradox, namely, that Western negotiators regularly complain that Chinese negotiators are both very deceptive and very sincere. Frequently I have heard the same complaint when training international executives and negotiators. How can the Chinese be both very deceptive and very sincere simultaneously, and why?

2. Languages are dying at a dramatic rate, from an estimated 15,000 languages just 100 years ago to some 7,000 today. Cultural anthropologists and linguists are so alarmed by this development that they regularly hold conferences on the “death of languages.” They believe, most probably correctly, that all or most languages possess unique and critical features helpful for understanding our past, present, and future. However, once lost, a language can rarely if ever be retrieved. Yet, while languages are dying, they are becoming increasingly influential. Why and how can this be?

3. Today it is generally agreed that the world is rapidly globalizing, with increasing economic, political, and cultural links within and across nations. At this point it is useful to define globalization fully before discussing our third paradox. Globalization refers to the increasing interdependence among national governments, business firms, nonprofit organizations, and individual citizens. Three primary mechanisms facilitating globalization are (1) the free movement of goods, services, talents, capital, knowledge, ideas, and communications across national boundaries; (2) the creation of new technologies such as the Internet and highly efficient airplanes that facilitate such free movement; and (3) the lowering of tariffs and other impediments to this movement (Bhagwati, 2004; Friedman, 2005; Gupta & Govindarajan, 2004). Between 1948 and 2000 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) reduced tariffs from an average of 40% to less than 4% among participating nations. An outstanding example of increasing interdependence occurred in 1997–1998 when investors rapidly withdrew capital from Southeast Asian nations because of rising risk levels, nearly creating a global depression. However, the quick and interdependent actions by international financial agencies such as the World Bank and the central banks of several nations saved the day. Similarly, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was founded in 1995 as a logical extension of the GATT. The WTO now consists of 149 nations (out of the 220 in the world) and rules on numerous issues involving nations and companies, such as whether a particular nation is violating the agreed-on trade regulations governing international commerce. If a nation is found to be in violation, the WTO describes the steps it must take to avoid severe penalties.

Further, globalization as measured by trade expansion has been increasing dramatically for at least two centuries, in spite of two world wars and other impediments. Between 1820 and 1992, the following increases occurred: world population, 5-fold; income per person, 8-fold; world income, 40-fold; and world trade, 540-fold (Streeten, 2001). Since 1992 trade has more than doubled, with developing nations’ trade expanding at more than twice the rate of that of industrial nations. Estimates by the World Bank and the McKinsey Company indicate that the percentage of gross world product involved in international trade will rise from the current 20–25% to a probable 80% within three decades (Mann, 2006), barring occurrences such as a widespread nuclear war.

However, at the same time that interdependence is increasing, nations are taking unilateral actions—such as the invasion of Iraq by the United States, the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol concerning environmental degradation, and the failure of other nations to live up to their agreements on this Protocol—even when the majority of nations express great disapproval. As this discussion suggests, it is not only the United States that engages in such unilateral activities; other nations do so on a variety of issues, such as persecuting citizens of minority groups, openly flouting international law (as happened in the Balkans during the 1990s), and supporting either openly or implicitly such commercial activities as the dumping or transporting of an excessive number of low-priced goods in violation of the rules governing world trade. These examples and our discussion relate directly to our third paradox, namely, that nations are becoming increasingly powerful and powerless simultaneously in terms of the actions they can take as globalization proceeds. Why?

4. Time is a critical feature of many activities, such as negotiating across national and ethnic cultures. Time can be thought of as three separate circles, representing past, present, and future, with the size of each circle representing its assumed degree of importance. An individual can express definite preferences in terms of the relationships among the three circles and the perceived degree to which they overlap. However, time is frequently considered as only one circle. How can time be considered as both three circles and only one circle, and why? What are the implications of these differing perspectives?

5. China is the world’s largest nation in terms of population, with 1.3 billion people of an estimated world population of 6.5 billion. But China is a very large and a very small economic market simultaneously. How can this be, and why?

This chapter presents some essential concepts that serve as background for understanding the links between paradoxical reasoning, culture, and globalization. We then describe the positive features of paradoxes, followed by their limitations.

Essential Concepts

Marieke de Mooij (2005) succinctly defines a paradox as a statement that seems to be untrue but is in fact true. In addition, Lewis (2000) defines a paradox as a situation involving “contradictory yet interrelated elements—elements that seem logical in isolation but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously” (p. 760). Similarly Quinn and Cameron (1988) point out that paradox is characterized by the “simultaneous presence of contradictory, even mutually exclusive elements” (p. 2), while Eisenhardt (2000) defines paradox as “the simultaneous existence of two inconsistent states such as that between innovation and efficiency” (p. 703). This book incorporates all these ideas into the following definition of a paradox: It is a statement consisting of inconsistent or contradictory or even mutually exclusive elements that seems to be untrue but is in fact true.

This book also highlights a particular type of paradox, the dilemma. Specifically, a dilemma is a situation facing a decision maker who can select only one of either two equally attractive or two equally unattractive alternatives. For example, managers can cut costs by decreasing investment in innovation, or they can promote innovation, which automatically increases costs. For additional examples of dilemmas, see Paradoxes 3.1 and 3.10. After reading each chapter, the reader may want to identify those paradoxes that are dilemmas. Class discussions can focus on the selections made by individuals or small groups.

As this discussion indicates, this book follows closely this widely shared perspective on paradox, as the examples of the thought-provoking paradoxes provided directly above confirm. Paradoxes may contain three or more contradictory or inconsistent elements, although such formulations are rare. For ease of understanding, we will focus on paradoxes of only two elements. It is the simultaneous existence of two contradictory or inconsistent elements that represents the essence of paradox.

As Osland (1995) points out, there appear to be three methods for shedding light on paradoxes and understanding them (see also Quinn & Cameron, 1988; Smith & Berg, 1987). First, an individual can accept both truths or elements in each paradox, even though they are contradictory or contrasting. Second, an individual can reframe the situation, which is the method Bertrand Russell (1913) employed to shed light on the famous Liar Paradox: All Cretans are liars; I never tell the truth. Russell argues that each of these statements is valid but in different contexts and at different levels of analysis. The third method accepts the paradox but looks for a higher unifying principle to understand it. In this book the higher unifying principle for each paradox in our globalizing world is cultural explanation, as the title of the book indicates. Still, paradoxes exist and will not go away because we have a good understanding of them. The focus is on paradoxes in a globalizing world, which can be reasonably addressed and understood through an analysis of cross-cultural considerations.

Also, the book examines the research relating to many national and ethnic cultures but formulates each of the 93 paradoxes so that no national culture is specifically mentioned (see the Table of Contents). The objective is to move the analysis of culture to a higher level, or to ask, for example, how do individualistic cultures differ from collectivistic, or group-centered, cultures?

Paradoxes are usually framed as statements. For example, a famous paradox espoused by the Bauhaus school of modern architecture is that “less is more.” Advocates of this school of thought argue that the more elaborate a structure is, the less beauty there is in it. There is no reason, however, that paradoxes cannot be framed as questions, such as “Less is more?” No meaning is lost. I employ the question format in this book for several reasons, the most important of which is that it captures the imagination and the active collaboration of readers in the process of transmitting ideas from author to reader. However, the reader will note that the questions do not contain a formal statement or treatment of the paradox. Rather, the formal treatment of each paradox is found within each of the chapters. It is interesting to note that even though the paradox of “less is more” is well known, it represents an ideology or definite point of view rather than an actual reality or situation. In this book ideological paradoxes are not of interest. The focus is on using cross-cultural paradoxes to understand the changes being wrought by globalization.

There are various types of paradoxes. In this book we focus on only three major types. First, some paradoxes can be tested empirically, such as the hypothesis that there are free riders or shirkers in small groups in some cultures and very involved contributors in small groups within other cultures. I will explain such fascinating paradoxes, even when additional research seems warranted. However, proving that the paradox exists does not eliminate it. There are concrete suggestions that can be formulated to get around the paradox and soften its impact, but its reality is a fact of life. We must live with paradoxes. Second, some paradoxes cannot be tested empirically with any finality, but close observation of history and experience suggests that they are valid, such as whether globalization as we are experiencing it is significantly different from its counterparts at previous points in history or whether globalization is impossible/doomed or inevitable unless some unforeseen event such as a worldwide epidemic occurs. Our third type of paradox is the dilemma, discussed above.

I have defined globalization and the three primary mechanisms for facilitating it on page 4. It is noteworthy that researchers and theorists are now using the word complexity as a synonym for globalization, with all the attendant connotations of high risk, uncertainty, and unknown outcomes. For example, the Handbook of Global Management is subtitled A Guide for Managing Complexity (Lane, Maznevski, Mendenhall, & McNett, 2004). Globalization, as that book suggests, is not an easy phenomenon to understand, but paradoxical reasoning can facilitate our understanding.

Paradoxical reasoning has been much neglected and may be the least emphasized way of thinking about our rapidly globalizing world. Books have been based on a single paradox. For example, Richard Layard (2005) points out that the standard of living in developed nations has dramatically increased in the past 50 years but personal happiness has, paradoxically, declined. However, only rarely does a book move beyond one paradox and typically only in a very specific area of study, such as the treatment of nine expatriate paradoxes in Osland and Osland (2006; see Osland, 1995) or Smith and Berg’s treatment of paradoxes in cross-cultural groups (1997; see Paradox 3.10). Only one book, John Naisbitt’s Global Paradox (1994), with its major paradoxical proposition of the simultaneous increase of nationalism and globalization, has incorporated the terms global and paradox in its title. In contrast, this book describes a very large number of paradoxes and discusses them in some depth. It is my hope that we can address these paradoxes explicitly so that we can understand each one in a new and insightful manner, even to the extent of being able to offer suggestions for softening the impact of some of them. The intent of this book is to place paradoxical thinking at the forefront of the analysis and interpretation of culture and globalization.

Paradoxes and Their Positive Features

Given the complexity of both culture and globalization, it was difficult creating a structure for presenting each paradox and integrating the chapters and the 93 paradoxes. I believe that this difficulty has been overcome, as the Table of Contents indicates. Also, as a result, I invite the reader to be actively involved in the discussions that the question format should facilitate. The reader can easily read and critique the description that follows the paradox.

Thinking and reasoning paradoxically emphasizes a conceptual approach. There is also the possibility that because of the large number of paradoxes in this book, the reader may become emotionally committed both to examining cross-cultural issues in depth and to reasoning paradoxically. At the very least, the reader is encouraged to refine or disagree entirely with any of the paradoxes. This process may increase not only the range and power of conceptual frameworks but even the emotional commitment to undertake additional reading and action-based activities. Such activities include experiential cross-cultural exercises and residencies of 6 months or longer in another national culture.

When a reader disagrees with the formulation or resolution of a specific paradox, it should be possible to describe the reasons for such disagreement in detail. Even more positively, the reader is invited to develop an alternative explanation of the paradox. The reader can also formulate paradoxes in addition to those presented in this book. All these activities facilitate the active involvement of the reader in the learning process. You can e-mail your suggestions ...