Cross-Cultural Research Essay ⋆ Business Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Culture shapes the values, attitudes, and behavior of human beings. In a managerial context cultural differences lead to diverse management activities and processes, which may present barriers to effective decision making and profit orientation in international management. Information and knowledge on cultural differences and their effects on modern management can help overcome these differences and improve and ease business processes.

Cross-cultural research therefore investigates managerial research questions in two or more cultural settings. Cross-cultural management research focuses on comparing management processes in corporations located in different cultures. Its overall aim is to make these differences understandable and allow managers to develop solutions to overcome and bridge cultural differences and challenges in an international business environment.

Cross-cultural research methods can be divided into qualitative and quantitative research methods. Data can either be gathered by getting hold of secondary data sources, which is information that has been collected before, or by collecting primary data, which refers to the researcher conducting his or her own cross-cultural research project to receive the necessary information to answer a specific research question. The main challenges when conducting research in a cross-cultural context are conceptual and functional equivalences of data collected in different cultures.

Culture In International Management Research

Culture is a critical factor in a global economy. While internationalizing, multinational corporations enter markets that differ in economic, legal, political, social, and cultural levels. But whereas economic, legal, and political differences between countries and their citizens can be observed easily, cultural differences between countries are often not so obvious.

Culture can be defined as a set of common values within a certain group or system, which is communicated from older members of the group to younger ones. According to Nancy Adler, culture becomes evident through common values, attitudes, and actions within a group or system. Cultural differences present challenges to perform management processes effectively. In a corporate context, they lead to different managerial actions, different consumer attitudes and buying behavior as well as particular expectations of international negotiation partners, all of which subsequently may lead to misunderstandings or conflict between employees of multinational corporations.

From an international manager’s perspective, culture and differences between cultures therefore play an increasingly important role. To avoid mistakes and promote goal-oriented decision making, gaining information on cultural differences and their effect on international management is vital. Cross-cultural research provides this information and refers to any kind of research in which a research question is investigated in two or more different cultures.

The idea of investigating exotic cultures is not new and was originally a research topic of cultural anthropology, a research field that concentrates on culture and involves the investigation of different societies, their cultures and norms. Management studies, on the other hand, has so far not developed a research stream investigating cultures and their particularities from within, but focuses on comparisons between cultures or groups of cultures. This is done through a number of theoretical frameworks on cultural diversity that have been developed.

The most prominent classifications are Hall and Hall’s, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s, Hofstede’s, and Trompenaar’s cultural dimensions. All of these authors distinguish culture across several dimensions. E. T. Hall and M. R. Hall identify cultural differences among the following dimensions: structure of space, structure of time, speed of messages, and context orientation (low-context or high-context). F. Kluckhohn and F. L. Strodtbeck defined six different dimensions and classify cultural differences along time orientation, relation to nature, relations with other people, mode of human activity, space, and belief about basic human nature. The most cited author in this area is Geert Hofstede, who developed the following categories to classify cultures: individualism versus collectivism, power distance, masculinity versus feminity, and uncertainty avoidance.

The final classification presented here was developed by Fons Trompenaars and Charles HampdenTurner. In this classification, cultures are grouped along these dimensions: universalism versus particularism, individualism versus communities, neutral culture versus affective culture, specific culture versus diffuse culture, achievement culture versus ascription culture, sequential time orientation versus synchronic time orientation, and inner-directed culture versus outer-directed culture. All these frameworks present the base of cross-cultural research and aim to provide an overview on the complex topic of culture. They also allow cultural comparisons that support managers in understanding differences in managerial practices.

Aims

Cross-cultural research is important at every stage of a corporation’s internationalization process. The first stage of entering a foreign market is dominated by the question of which market is the most suitable for the corporation. Researchers need to compare economic, legal, and political information on different countries to assess the business opportunities of each market. Once the host market is decided upon, the conditions of this particular market need to be investigated in greater detail. In this area, cross-cultural research often focuses on the examination of international consumers, their attitudes, behavior, and preferences. Information on consumers helps multinational corporations to adapt their marketing activities and improve profits in international markets.

Cross-cultural management research further examines processes inside the firm. Cultural differences among employees may lead to complications in reaching company goals or to manage efficiently. The overall goal of cross-cultural management research is to compare management processes in different national cultures. Areas investigated include differences in corporate culture, attitudes, values, and behavior of organizational members, as well as culture-related management processes, such as differences in leadership styles, human resources management styles, decision making, and process development. Based on cross-cultural research results, managers can develop effective solutions to overcome these differences and to create effective management processes for multinational corporations.

Cross-Cultural Research Methods

Cross-cultural research can be conducted via collecting secondary or primary data. Secondary sources refer to data that was collected beforehand and is readily available. Primary sources, on the other hand, are data that are collected by the researchers personally to answer a specific research question. Cross-cultural secondary sources can be found at governmental or government-related organizations, trade associations, universities, or market research institutes. Primary sources are collected by the researcher himself and find answers to specific questions that have not been previously investigated. Primary cross-cultural research can be conducted via qualitative and quantitative research methods. Qualitative cross-cultural research methods include observations, experiments, focus groups, and qualitative interviews. Quantitative cross-cultural research methods refer to standardized surveys conducted in two or more countries.

Challenges

The differences in national cultures between corporations, managers, and employees also create challenges for researchers of international management. Researchers engaged in cross-cultural research face problems and research conditions that differ from their traditional research setting. Not only is the research project conducted on more than one market, it is also conducted in environments that have very unique characteristics.

Using secondary sources in cross-cultural research can save on cost and effort. However, secondary data sources may not always be reliable, and may lack in accuracy, comparability, and timeliness. Secondary data must be carefully selected and examined for its usability in a cross-cultural research project.

When conducting primary research in a cross-cultural setting, researchers need to think about how to avoid in equivalence between data collected in different countries or in different cultural settings. Information and data may not be available or comparable to data from other cultures. Jean-Claude Usunier divides equivalence into conceptual and functional equivalence. The researcher must first assure that concepts investigated have an equivalent meaning in each country’s setting. Survey translation must be carefully conducted to confirm that all respondents are not only asked the same questions, but also understand these questions in the same way. Sample equivalence, which refers to finding a comparable sample in every culture investigated, is another aspect that ensures that data collected is comparable.

Functional equivalence, on the other hand, refers to similar standards applied when developing measurement and collecting data. Respondents of cross-cultural surveys may show biases and may answer according to their national culture. Accuracy, reliability, precision of measurement, and survey supervision may differ from one country to another and need to be constantly administered and supervised by cross-cultural researchers in order to gain data that can be compared across cultures.

Bibliography:

Nancy J. Adler and Allison Gundersen, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, 5th (Thomson/South-Western, 2008);
T. Hall, Beyond Culture (Anchor Press, 1976);
T. Hall and M. R. Hall, Understanding Cultural Differences (Intercultural Press, 1990);
Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (Sage, 1980);
Lenard C. Huff and Scott M. Smith, “Cross-Cultural Business Research: Introduction to the Special Issue,” Journal of Business Research (v.61/3, 2008);
Karin Ikas, and Gerhard Wagner, Communicating in the Third Space (Routledge, 2009);
Kluckhohn and F.L. Strodtbeck, Variations in Value Orientations (Peterson, 1961);
Peter Bevington Smith, Mark F. Peterson, and David C. Thomas, The Handbook of Cross-Cultural Management Research (Sage, 2008);
-C. Usunier, Marketing Across Cultures (Prentice Hall, 1996);
Jan Pieter Van Oudenhoven and Kenneth Cushner, “Convergence of Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Research,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations (v.32/2, 2008);
Jingyun Zhang, Sharon E. Zhang, and Gianfranco Walsh, “Review and Future Directions of Cross-Cultural Consumer Services Research,” Journal of Business Research (v.61/3, 2008).

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