Cross-cultural Business Research Research Articles

Business research methodologies: cross-cultural business research

Business research methodologies: cross-cultural business research

Conducting Qualitative Research in Russia: Challenges and Advice

This article addresses some of the challenges of conducting qualitative research across cultures, focusing on the challenges of being a Western researcher conducting in-depth interviews in Russia. To conduct quality business research in a foreign cultural setting, it is important to gain understanding of cultural differences that may influence the research and the means of managing them. Despite of a need for more exploratory and theory-generating studies in international business research and growing recognition of the benefits associated with qualitative methods, there has been little examination of specific challenges arising in their application in an international context. This conceptual article is based on literature addressing qualitative research, elite interviewing, and Russian culture, combined with descriptions of the researchers' experiences. It addresses how culture may challenge cross-cultural business research related to gaining access, balancing power, and attaining openness.

Cross-Cultural Business Research: Introduction to the special issue

As markets become increasingly global, an understanding of the world's cultures is imperative. This special issue consists of nine articles devoted to increasing our understanding of culture. It follows the 11th Cross-Cultural Research Conference, which was held in Puerto Rico in December 2005. An open invitation to conference participants and other interested researchers resulted in 56 submissions for the special issue. Articles chosen were subjected to several rounds of double-blind reviews and revisions. They cover a variety of topics including vacationing, managerial competency appraisal, horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, consumer services, cultural conditioning, electronic word-of-mouth, the global hip-hop culture, ethical attitudes, and impulse buying behavior.

Toward a Theory-Based Measurement of Culture

In reviewing the history of the conceptualization and measurement of “culture,” one quickly realizes that there is wide-ranging and contradictory scholarly opinion about which values, norms, and beliefs should be measured to represent the concept of “culture.” We explore an alternate theory-based view of culture via social identity theory (SIT), which suggests that each individual is influenced by plethora of cultures and sub-cultures–some ethnic, some national, and some organizational. In IS research, the culture of subjects and respondents is problematic because it is typically an overly simplistic categorization. IS research nearly always assumes that an individual living in a particular place and time belongs to a single “culture,” e.g., someone living in Egypt is automatically classified as being a member of the Egyptian culture, or, more broadly, the Arab culture. This dearth of clear concepts and measures for “culture” may explain why cross-cultural research has been so exceedingly difficult to conduct. It may also explain why it has been hard to develop and refine theories. Moreover, it may give insight into why reasonable explained variance in predictive models has not been higher. Finally, it is very possible that much cross-cultural business research could be rightly accused of advancing an “ecological fallacy” by not recognizing the individual makeup of persons with respect to culture. Using SIT (or other theory bases) as grounding for cultural research programs implies the use of certain methodological approaches. Each study would have to establish the salient “cultures” in each individual’s background and include these different “cultures” as independent variables in positivist research. In qualitative research, there would need to be an equally rigorous assessment of the cultural identifiers of each individual.

Lessons in ‘Cross-Vergence’: Restructuring the Thai Subsidiary Corporation

This paper explores the impact of indigenous business culture upon the corporate restructuring program initiated in the Thai subsidiary of a Western multinational. Defined in terms of behavioral institutionalization, change implementation was largely resisted by one of two key strategic departments. Using a conceptual framework developed from existing cross-cultural business research we examine the key determinants of local opposition and trace the emergence of ‘cross-vergent’ business practices acceptable to both ‘Thai-market’ and ‘Western-corporate’ agendas. Implications for the management of western corporate subsidiaries in the developing economy of Thailand are then discussed.

Strategies for Overcoming Barriers Inherent in Cross-Cultural Research

The term cross-cultural implies comparison, juxta-position, and differentiation. Cross-cultural research contrasts two or more distinctive cultural groups in terms of some quality, value, belief or behavior. Business communication examples include studies of business negotiation styles, compliance-gaining appeals, genre creation in electronic media, reader orientation in business letters, and symbolism in group meetings. The focus may be verbal or nonverbal, oral or written, group or interpersonal, organizational or individual communication. Cross-cultural research thus cuts across all other kinds by adding a layer of study: the juxtaposition of two or more cultural groups. BARRIERS This definition of the concept of cross-cultural communication suggests two critical barriers that often impede research: (1) the formidable logistics of gaining access to two or more cultural groups, and (2) failure to acknowledge underlying assumptions about culture, causality, and context. A doser look at these two barriers will lead to some conclusions about how researchers can break through them. THE LOGISTICS OF CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH The logistics of gaining access to two or more cultural groups complicates research considerably. Access often requires physical proximity, psychological insight, and linguistic expertise. To compare cultural groups, the researcher must know people or make connections in order to conduct interviews, run experiments, administer surveys, or gather existing data or documents. Building up the trust necessary for access takes time. Face-to-face meetings usually speed the process, so physical proximity is desirable. Equally critical is psychological insight into the cultural group, which enables the researcher to know what to ask and how to ask it. Such research requires being fully bicultural and having the financial resources to spend substantial time in several parts of the world. Unfortunately, few researchers possess these credentials. Language is an even more imposing barrier in much cross-cultural business communication research. Few researchers are fully bilingual; functional ability in a second language does not provide the awareness of nuances and subtleties of language that are central to the study of business communication. As a result, researchers often depend upon translations of instructions, survey instruments, or sample documents. However, many expressions, images, or ideas are impossible to translate precisely. Communication cannot be divorced from its social, political, legal, and economic context. Translation inevitably changes meaning. An alternative approach used by many business-communication researchers is to use only one language, usually English, for all participants in crosscultural surveys or experiments. In international corporations where the corporate language is English, there is a clear rationale for this approach. Yet, because employees are communicating in their corporate roles, research findings cannot be generalized to larger cultural groups. Whenever nonnative speakers participate in a research study, there arises an inevitable question concerning their degree of fluency. Do participants fully understand the directions? Do participants have the vocabulary in the second language to express ideas fully? What is the effect of time limits? ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH The logistics challenge is a more obvious barrier to cross-cultural research than the second: recognizing researchers'assumptions about what culture is, how it is related to behavior, and the extent to which it interacts with context. Cross-cultural research is impossible if distinct groups cannot be defined and compared. Most cross-cultural business research has defined cultural groups in terms of only one dimension: nationality. Thus, we have studies of German versus French business letters, Brazilian versus Japanese negotiating styles, and Russian versus American compliance-gaining appeals. …