Abstract
Purpose: For several decades, national culture has been
described as having major influence over international
business outcomes. Yet national culture has been framed
often by vague terms and simplistic scales. The purpose
of this paper is to explain why and how the influence of
national culture should be reframed.
Design/methodology/approach: Review of literature
concerned with causation in the behaviour of individuals
and groups: anthropology, cognition, psychology,
cross-cultural psychology, cultural psychology and
cultural geography.
Findings: Within every nationality, and across
international business, there is dynamic complexity of
thought and action among individuals and groups. This
derives from differences of genders, age, cultures,
personality types and past experiences; the highly
complex interactions between them; their commingling with
common traits; and the varying influence of contextual
factors. This dynamic complexity cannot be addressed by
managers through use of vague simplistic
conceptualizations of national culture.
Practical implications: As an alternative to vague
simplistic conceptualizations, scientific theories, such
as resource-based theory, knowledge-based view, contagion
theories and social cognition theory, can be referred to
in the formulation of multi-resolution simulation models.
These models can enable managers to analyze dynamic
complex international business scenarios, in terms of
situation-specific variables.
Originality/value: The originality of this paper is that
it provides a detailed explanation of why vague
simplistic conceptualizations of national culture are of
limited usefulness to managers of international business.
The value of this paper is that it describes a practical
alternative: theory-based multi-resolution simulation
models.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 521-545 |
Journal | Management Research Review |
Volume | 39 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- international business
- national culture
- multi-resolution simulation models
- scientific theory