Cultural Spaces in International Business : Theories and Applications

Culture studies in international business are passing through difficult times of scrutiny and critique. This is due to the fact that the paradigms, approaches, and methods used so far to study culture have been limited in their scope. For several decades now, approaches that consider national cultures and geo-ethnic origins of interacting individuals have dominated management literature.

This book distinguishes itself from other books on Culture in International Business (CIB) studies in two important ways. First, it illustrates how Mary Douglas’s Cultural Theory framework (referred to commonly as DCF) can be used to explore different aspects of international business. This sets the stage for future scholars to consider DCF as an alternative tool of cultural sense-making as opposed to limiting themselves to categorical frameworks grounded in static notions of national and/or corporate culture. The second unique feature is that it focuses on the complexities of the applied side of culture (i.e., it takes a culture-in-practice perspective), while simultaneously emphasizing the dynamicity and diversity of culture. The book concludes by offering suggestions for the future of CIB studies. This domain, it predicts, may witness significant changes in the way culture is seen as influencing workplace relations. It also identifies other areas on which CIB scholars may need to focus attention in the future: culture in an increasingly digitalized world, culture and the organization as a system, and culture and the intelligent/knowledgeable organization.

It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of cross-cultural management, international business, human resource management.