Leading cultural research in the future: a matter of paradigms and taste
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COMMENTARY
Leading cultural research in the future: a matter of paradigms and taste P Christopher Earley National University of Singapore Business School, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Correspondence: P Christopher Earley, National University of Singapore Business School, National University of Singapore, 1 Business Link Office: BIZ2, Level 6, Singapore 117592, Singapore. Tel: þ 65 6516 3075; Fax: þ 65 6779 1365; E-mails: [email protected] or [email protected]
Received: 5 June 2006 Accepted: 5 June 2006 Online publication date: 21 September 2006
Abstract The styles and approaches used in cross-cultural organizational research are nearly as varied as the cultures under study. We see two variations of one dominant style in the work of Hofstede and the GLOBE research consortium. In this commentary, I shall place these approaches in context and discuss alternatives that seem to be highly promising but largely overlooked. Based on this analysis, I conclude that it may well be time that this form of large-scale, multi-country survey be set aside for the development of alternative mid-range theories having a more direct application and explanation for organizational phenomena in a cultural and national context. Journal of International Business Studies (2006) 37, 922–931. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400236 Keywords: cross-cultural values; global mindset; intercultural research paradigms and GLOBE
Introduction Researchers have long sought to understand the nature of culture and its potential influence on human activity. Presumably, when the first of our species crossed a desert or river and encountered neighbors who exhibited alternative ways of behaving was when the first cultural anthropologist emerged. Certainly, formal study of a group of people by outsiders is evidenced in Western and Eastern civilizations for thousands of years (Mead, 1967). Of course, our fascination with cultural differences and similarities among people has been piqued again in the last century and this by the advance of business and economic transactions across national and geographic boundaries. It is with this spirit that we see modern-day cultural scientists who seek to understand the relevance of such differences amongst people working in an organizational or work context. Well beyond the scope of this particular essay is a review of this vast literature, but I shall focus on the task at hand – a discussion between Geert Hofstede and Robert House and the GLOBE researchers concerning the GLOBE cultural assessment exercise recently published (House et al., 2004). I begin my analysis of these two scholarly camps in the first section by focusing on fundamentals, including the nature of the analysis used and the level of constructs, followed by a discussion of the underlying quagmire implied by such levels. I address the ideological similarities of these approaches as well as their theorydriven vs empirically derived nature. In th
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