New approaches in cross-cultural management research

Abstract

The field of cross-cultural management is expanding rapidly. Traditional approaches are being critiqued and new approaches put forward. The latter mainly adopts an interactionist perspective, pay more attention to context and different levels of analysis (local, regional, national etc.) and propose more qualitative methods as well as a more dynamic definition of culture. Our research is in keeping with this new shift and contributes to this renewal in two ways. First, it shows the variability of the perceptions of individuals from a given culture regarding the management practices existing in another culture when they find themselves working in that other culture. This variability is based on contextual elements that we have identified: duration of work experience in the country of origin, occupation of the respondent, quality of the relations with locals and so on. Then, the research reveals the link that exists between the quality of the respondents’ integration into this culture and their interpretation of the others’ management practices. These findings were obtained by combining a qualitative approach (some 40 semi-directed interviews) and a quantitative approach (a questionnaire administered to a population of more than 1000 respondents) among a population of French nationals working in Quebec and Quebecers working in France.