Making the Case for a Post-national Cultural Analysis of Organizations

Abstract

Isolating the cultural within organizational analysis and extracting cultural lessons from managerial situations have generated cross-national categories of culture and competing paradigms for studying the cultural, intercultural, and cross-cultural influences of economic and social life. As organizations around the world combine different cultural diversities, and the use of individual, national, and political aggregates of study do not necessarily transpose well onto many business situations (especially in atypical examples such as those presented in nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], clubs, associations, and public agencies), the use of nation profiles and dimensions as analytical terms for culture in organizations has become questionable. This conceptual article draws from critical theory, anthropology, cultural studies, and management literature in investigating to what extent national character and dimensions should still be the dominant filter for studying people and culture in organizations. Postcolonial theory has revealed that research paradigms promoting gender, nation, age, ethnic, and other categories suffer from bias implicit in all “essentializing” and “reifying” projects. Such designs are too overconfident in their account of culture and do not sufficiently recognize a diversity of organizational subjects as a variable for study. A postnational cultural analysis is prescribed requiring a mitigated use of nation and dimension frameworks, a stakeholder perspective, and a research standpoint that transcends the perspective of the managerial function. Cross-cultural, intercultural, and multicultural business situations in the context of global work require a transcultural paradigm, created by and serving multiple cultures and acting across national and occupational boundaries. This accommodates the fact that much global trade is conducted primarily by oligopolistic corporations and that organizations not prioritizing profit objectives (NGOs, humanitarian associations, virtual chats, and public agencies) offer completely original avenues of cultural research. This article explores options for integrating the cultural credibly among the explanatory tools of contractual human organization and for innovating on the methods, designs, and formats of cultural research for management studies.