Beyond a ‘paradigm cold war’,or: How to explore the new in cross-cultural management research

Abstract

Cross-cultural management seeks to develop new and alternative perspectives on management studies. The multi-paradigm approach has proven to be an important and necessary step in this direction. It is particularly important in overcoming a purely positivist perspective. In a broader perspective, however, paradigm-based thinking may also be a hindrance in the search for the new, especially when real-world issues are paramount and an open view of practice would be more important. Post qualitative inquiry argues that the coherence of an academic study is ensured by an internal coherence of epistemology, ontology and method, which is often lacking even within paradigms. Certainly, post qualitative inquiry can also be described as a paradigm, but it primarily aims to achieve radical openness while maintaining its internal coherence. Using Anna Tsing’s study ‘The Mushroom at the End of the World’ as an example, this paper shows how the field of cross-cultural management can generate even more radically different insights into its research object. As a result, this paper explores ways of thinking about cross-cultural management that go beyond paradigms.

Introduction: exploring the new in cross-cultural management

Cross-cultural management has always been dedicated to the expansion and rethinking of the broader traditional field of management studies. Jackson (2021) reminds us that Geert Hofstede’s original contribution as one of the founding fathers of cross-cultural management had no less than the status of a “counter-narrative” (Jackson, 2021: 175) to the previous discipline. Today, Hofstede’s views may be part of the controversial legacy of cross-cultural management, but in his time, they were a re-framing of prior knowledge to an extent that would have been unimaginable before. It is such dramatic advances and counter-narratives on such a scale that cross-cultural management should continue to be in search of. This will require some courage in the way we think (Jackson, 2021: 178).

However, the greatest barrier to innovation remains the largely positivist and Eurocentric focus of cross-cultural management research. Scholars agree that this needs to be addressed at a higher level. However, there are different views on how to achieve this: Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 182) argue for a closer look at alternative and underlying pardigms. Bonache (2021: 38) fears that the mainstream of positivist researchers still cannot even begin to imagine their ways into more than one paradigm. Szkudlarek et al. (2020a: viii) call for acknowledging a multiplicity of research cultures, while Jackson feels that none of this goes far enough: If anything, basic narratives need to be addressed and, above all, researchers need to go beyond theorising and witness real-world contexts, instead (Jackson, 2011: 3–4). Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 195) agree that as an applied field of study, cross-cultural management must be interdisciplinary, and therefore, theoretical debates between paradigms are rather a hindrance.

With this primary goal of finding something new in mind, this paper discusses the strengths and limitations of the multi-paradigm approach. The paper will argue that the very existence of paradigms may be in opposition to cross-cultural management’s mission for innovation. Therefore, this paper does not so much intend to beat the drums for yet another method or paradigm for cross-cultural management. Rather, it is to show that the multi-paradigm approach is a worthy and very necessary endeavour, but that it may be challenged when trying to do justice to the richness and complexity of the paradigms when considered altogether in a row.

This paper will try to see if and how it might be possible to go on without paradigms. Rather than rigidly adhering to closed paradigms, it is argued here, it may be more convincing to pay attention to a consistent fit between epistemology, ontology and method. Surely, we can call this a new paradigmatic approach. But it would be one that is itself geared towards the greatest possible openness. It is in this sense that this article will present what is known as the post qualitative approach as an example of how to ensure internal consistency. It can also show how intensive and deep a study of a single approach can be, and how far cross-cultural management can go – when rules are not applied more strictly than necessary, for example by including ethnographic work which is concerned with economics but would not be called cross-cultural management.

The long tradition of paradigm diversity in cross-cultural management research

Writers in the field of cross-cultural management never tire of emphasising that their subject can be viewed from different paradigm perspectives, and that each perspective adds value and has a right to exist (Adler et al., 2020; Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021; Primecz et al., 2009, 2015; Romani and Primecz, 2019; Sackmann and Phillips, 2004). Paradigms are usually understood as alternative ways of looking at the world, which makes a simple juxtaposition of paradigms just to avoid conflict seem somewhat defiant and naive. However, the reasoning behind the multi-paradig approaches is far from trivial. In the following, we will briefly examine these approaches to better explore ways and opportunities in the quest for innovation.

Two main reference works play a recurring role in the debate on the nature of paradigms: Thomas Kuhn’s (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and, of particular relevance to management research, Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis. In this sense, it is in these early authors’ assumption of the complete incommensurability of paradigms that Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 183) see the origin of the debate for the discipline. The ‘isolationist’ view was “based on incompatible ontologies, epistemologies and methodologies” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 183). For the following years, Grosskopf and Barmeyer distinguish further stages, which they call ‘integration’, assuming a common ground, and ‘multi-paradigm’, assuming that a mutual exchange of paradigms is also possible (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 183).

In practice, however, even the proponents of the multi-paradigm approach do not really challenge the incommensurability hypothesis, as they tend to conduct sequential analyses under each paradigm and then compare their findings at the end, which might well be expected to be different (e.g., Romani et al., 2018). Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 183-184) suggest that maintaining the incompatibility argument may actually strengthen the multi-paradigm approach, as it brings with it a third option for gaining even more insights. It would even be useful to retain the incompatibility hypothesis. In fact, they argue that the different perspectives should be sharpened and highlighted instead of merging them into another new single paradigm. The resulting conflicts should be seen as something positive because they produce a diversity of perspectives resonating with the complexities of our world. And finally, this is the only way to learn something new, say Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 193).

Strengths of the multi-paradigm approach

Grosskopf and Barmeyer argue that even keeping multiple paradigms separate will still promote dialogue. In fact, the multi-paradigm approach would actually reinforce the division between paradigms, but at the same time allow for a much deeper analysis of individual and specific questions at stake in a given study (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 183). Above all, however, Grosskopf and Barmeyer emphasise the ontological fit between the isolationist multi-paradigm approach outlined here as a view of the academic landscape on the one hand and the discipline of cross-cultural management’s understanding of the intercultural world on the other: If scholars advocate for the world’s ‘cultural diversity’, Grosskopf and Barmeyer conclude that they should acknowledge their ethical duty to appreciate and welcome a ‘cultural diversity’ in their discipline’s own academic approaches, too. Indeed, Grosskopf and Barmeyer note that “[a]s an analogy, these various paradigms can be compared to different cultures in intercultural relations” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 182). The old and classical, mono-paradigmatic view would therefore be tantamount to an ethnocentric attitude, including the low horizon it implies. In contrast, Grosskopf and Barmeyer argue that the multi-paradigm approach is consistent with what they term “paradigmatic ethnorelativism” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 182). Barmeyer and Grosskopf then go on to specify what it would take to discover something new through this approach. From this point of view, the multi-paradigm approach even includes the concept of intercultural learning, which comes from the field of educational research.

Barmeyer and Grosskopf then also specify what would be needed to discover something new through this approach. Seen from this perspective, the multi-paradigm approach even incorporates the concept of intercultural learning that comes from educational research: “Analogically this means transferring to questioning one’s own culture in intercultural situations and putting oneself in the place of the interaction partners” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 195).

Mendenhall and Hippler stress the necessity of such ontological parallelism as long as researchers acknowledge and share the ontological insight that they remain part of this world: “Such tolerance of paradigm diversity – and the will to allow oneself as a scholar to be informed by other paradigms – is exactly what we call for managers, politicians, religionists, and all people to do in cross-cultural contexts, but I have observed we are not highly skilled at it within our own discipline. The axiom ‘Physician, heal thyself’ comes to mind” (Mendenhall and Hippler, 2020: 86). But it may be that Mendenhall and Hippler are inadvertently pointing out here the limits and even the consequences of such ontological parallels. One of the most obvious questions may be whether this ontological parallelism is convincing from an ethical point of view: Why should scientific work operate according to the same rules as everyday life? Shouldn’t research be offering an alternative perspective? The usefulness of ontological coherence and reflection will be considered later in this paper. But ethics may not even be the strongest justification for it. Secondly, the hesitant adoption of ethnorelativism in our own scholarly practice may indicate that researching ourselves is very difficult – a problem that post-structuralism explores under the concept of the ontology of immanence.

Third, Grosskopf and Barmeyer’s intercultural ethical orientation seems most compatible with multiculturalism, now widely criticised for its naïve appreciation of cultural diversity and difference. This structuralist attitude has been repeatedly criticised for potentially raising and reinforcing the very cultural boundaries it is supposed to overcome (Nussbaum, 1998: 82–83). Again, we see that ontological assumptions about the world are crucial to the direction of academic inquiry. To return to the question of the consistency of the multi-paradigm approach, we must ask whether this parallel multiculturalism is considered appropriate and desirable. If this is not the case, and interculturality in the extra-academic world is seen through a different or alternative ontological framing, we need to consider what a respective way of managing academic paradigms might look like.

Limitations of the multi-paradigm approach

The multi-paradigm approach pursues the important goal of broadening the scope of knowledge by allowing for additional perspectives. Jürgen Bolten argues that in the long run, paradigms tend to be a hindrance to this goal. Paradigms suggest an exclusiveness of perspectives that does not exist in practice. Using the example of Ulrich Beck’s (2000) concepts of (structuralist) First Modernity versus (post-structuralist) Second Modernity, Bolten shows that in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries these scenarios always apply more to some parts of the world and less to others. Therefore, a focus on a single perspective runs the risk of an ethnocentric view that ignores the situation in other parts of the world (Bolten, 2004: 41). Conversely, it would be more accurate to assume a simultaneity of these perspectives. In a similar vein, Bolten later argued that debating with paradigms is to forget about one paradigm the moment you begin to talk about another. Thus, the challenge is not to think the paradigmatic perspectives in sequence as done by the multiparadigm approach, but in radical simultaneity (Bolten, 2020: 87).

Terence Jackson criticised another but similar dimension of the multi-paradigm approach, largely because he agrees with its aims but feels it does not go far enough. Jackson’s main problem is that even when different paradigms are applied to an object, they always provide answers to the same question and thus nothing new is produced (Jackson, 2021: 175). Jackson sees a further problem with the concept of paradigms in that, at a very abstract level on viewing social order, they all tend to converge in their views into one – particularly when it comes to defining ‘culture’. In this respect, the phenomena that Hofstede, for example, focuses on in a positivist view on culture, or Stuart Hall in an ideology-critical view on culture, tend to be very similar for Jackson at this general level: Two very different paradigms here give two congruent answers to what culture is (Jackson, 2021: 176).

What exactly is cross-cultural management, and what is the purpose of this field of study?

In the following section we will explore the chances and limitations of working with paradigms in the field of cross-cultural management. In doing so, it will always be necessary to try to push the boundaries. Having said that, it is also important to consider what the field of cross-cultural management is actually trying to achieve. As mentioned above, the field has embraced radical innovation. Cross cultural management as a “subdiscipline” should aim at reforming the whole overarching subject of management research, Jackson (2021: 175) claims.

Indeed, Szkudlarek et al. (2020a: xxvii) note that the boundaries of the discipline have broadened considerably in recent years, with many new issues being addressed. While the focus used to be on “expatriates, global teams and MNC profitability” (Szkudlarek et al., 2020a: xxvii), there is now a growing interest in “emerging and increasingly relevant questions such as bi/multiculturalism, global migration, refugee workforce integration, contemporary religion and ethics, to name but a few” (Szkudlarek et al., 2020a: xxvii). Given this openness, there is likely to be a degree of acceptance when it comes to moving beyond the paradigm dilemma in search of new forms of research.

In addition to the dispute inherent in the theory, there are also concrete, pragmatic and contemporary reasons for a paradigmatic opening. In our current era of re-nationalisation, a discipline such as cross-cultural management should have an emphasis on the similarities between cultures rather than an emphasis on their differences. This must also be grounded in epistemological and ontological assumptions that support such an orientation (Szkudlarek et al., 2020a: xxvii). Consequently, management can no longer be the sole focus, and such a (paradigmatic) opening can only be achieved if the subject is inspired by neighbouring subjects and opens up interdisciplinarily (Szkudlarek et al., 2020a: xxvii).

The genuine and fundamental application orientation of the field is another aspect that runs counter to the level of paradigms. Indeed, Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 195) argue for a pragmatic approach in which application-related questions and problems should be prioritised over rigidly pursuing paradigms in the sense of “mental gymnastics” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 195). This means that in the current discourse, for a number of reasons, the work with paradigms has already been downgraded to a secondary priority. Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 195) even argue that doing otherwise threatens the goal of generating knowledge.

Cross-cultural management beyond functionalism?

Yet the question of whether authors on cross-cultural management really succeed in such a huge paradigmatic emancipation as it is outlined and proclaimed here must be critically examined. Even if there are different levels of investigation, scholars would have to reflect constantly in order not to revolve around an imaginary organisation or even a Western-style capitalist enterprise. Otherwise, the paradigmatic orientation of a functionalist stance would thus follow almost automatically. Moreover, such a functionalist stance would usually be linked to further paradigmatic determinations. Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 185) equal the “functionalist paradigm, also known as the positivist or objectivist paradigm”, and this brings us back to the debate as to whether there can be research on cross-cultural management beyond positivism at all.

Indeed, case studies in the form of critical incidents (as in Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 187) are the basis of multi-paradigm studies, which work on a case using several paradigmatic approaches in succession. The concept of critical incidents, however, presupposes an inherent experience of difference as its core and trigger (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 187). In other paradigms, apart from the positivist one, this is not even presented and often not even conceivable, or their thinking is explicitly rejected.

In the end, the multi-paradigm studies even bear the risk of applying all other paradigms besides positivism according to the criteria and goals of the positivist model, so that other paradigms’ goals do not even come into play. This is expressed aptly when Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 186) refer to Jackson for a description of the interpretive paradigm: “The context is our content.” (Jackson, 2019: 247) he says. Grosskopf and Barmeyer themselves recognise these shortcomings when they state that “concepts such as leadership, feedback and performance are culturally subjective (Chevrier, 2009; Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 186). Moreover, Grosskopf and Barmeyer (2021: 187) recognise the epistemological limitations of their own perspectivism: “due to our scientific socialisation we also express a preference for certain paradigms in our analysis. We situate ourselves at the interface of the functionalist and interpretive paradigms” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 187).

In their seminal meta-study on paradigms and approaches, Barmeyer et al. (2019: 225) conceptualise functionalism as one paradigm of cross-cultural management research, adjacent to a number of equally important alternative approaches. Alternatively, they report that in some contexts, positivist and functionalist approaches in cross-cultural management research are traditionally equated (Barmeyer et al., 2019: 222). While this view makes sense in their meta-analysis in order to identify a range of alternative perspectives, an overall picture might still cast doubt on whether cross-cultural management research beyond this retains an overall functionalist flavour that is difficult to overcome. Overall, organisations and their management remain at the centre of the discipline by virtue of its very name.

Indeed, studying from other paradigms would require seeing something quite different in the broader ontological context of a case study: They would have to radically question entities such as organisations and companies, but also individuals and groups. Instead, to transcend paradigms, researchers would have to radically decentre and deconstruct their own positionalities in a post-structuralist way, as discussed later in the paper. Researchers would need to adopt an ontological worldview that goes beyond the premise that organisations and companies exist to perform a certain function. After all, on an ontological level, the very boundaries that cross-cultural management, in its ethical orientation, seeks to dismantle are already drawn by concepts such as organisations and firms. This certainly raises the question of whether a field of cross-cultural management can achieve this, or whether a contradictory self-limitation is inherent in the field’s name. Can non-functional thinking even be a topic of cross-cultural management?

A ‘paradigm cold war’ in cross-cultural management research

A look at the approaches that oppose the project of cross-cultural management could be particularly revealing if we want to understand how cross-cultural management research can search for something new. Dealing with paradigms has led to an early stalemate in organisational research, as Romani et al. (2011: 432) illustrate, referring to Norman Jackson and Pippa Carter’s “paradigm war” (Jackson and Carter, 1993: 721). The widening of the perspective of Burrell and Morgan (1979) to include the diversity of possible paradigms is certainly welcome in organisational research. However, on the assumption of incommensurability, the proponents of different paradigms are now often irreconcilably opposed to one another. However, the paradigm war is also about the question of whether the assumption of incommensurability is to be seen as something constructive or as something obstructive.

Romani et al. acknowledge the fact that, in the course of attempting to adopt approaches from the broader field of the multi-paradigm endeavours, some efforts were made to contain and reduce the destructiveness of this conflict, and so they already speak of a contemporary “post-‘paradigm war’ era” (Romani et al., 2011: 432). But perhaps aterm like paradigm cold war would be more appropriate, because on the one hand a certain common ground is being established, but on the other hand many central questions remain unresolved and there is still no prospect of resolving the dilemma posed by the use of paradigms. In contrast, a medium-term goal might be to overcome the ‘war’ and move from the ‘cold war paradigm era’ or the ‘post-paradigm war era’ to a simpler ‘post-paradigm era’.

But before we get too far into speculation, it may be worth looking at definitions of what a paradigm is to begin with. The first step is to look for definitions that come from, or at least are used in, the field of cross-cultural management itself. Grosskopf and Barmeyer write: “Paradigms are basic assumptions about how social reality is perceived, understood and explained” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 181). Elsewhere, they say that “so-called paradigms” are “parallel worldviews” (Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 182). And also: “Paradigms are systematic basic assumptions about how the world is perceived, understood and explained (Kuhn, 1970). Paradigms thus provide research fields with a framework, orientation points and structuring features that are used consciously or unconsciously to generate insights and explanations in the complex and contradictory (scientific) world (Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Kuhn, 1970; Grosskopf and Barmeyer, 2021: 182).

Contrary to this, Primecz et al. (2015) understand paradigms as different approaches to culture and to studying culture: “In cross-cultural management, research paradigms can be viewed as different understandings of what culture is, in what scientific ways one should study it, and what the roles of researchers in this endeavour are” (Primecz et al., 2015). What is striking here is, on the one hand, there is a certain diversity of definitions whereas on the other hand, there is a permanent vagueness and openness. The concept of the paradigm seems to refer to such a general level that it is not possible to grasp it per se. Furthermore, the notion of a paradigm tends to be used (as in Romani et al., 2011, e.g.) as a collective term for a number of aspects that apparently no longer need to be discussed individually and in detail.

Bonache and Festing (2020: 103) further diminish the power of Kuhn’s understanding of paradigms by pointing out that Kuhn had actually developed the term to apply it to the natural sciences. From a social science point of view, one could argue that this is the terrain of positivist research anyway. Bonache and Festing also refer to an earlier source that could identify a total of 21 different definitions of paradigm by Kuhn alone, which may indicate the inherent fuzziness of the concept. In addition, Bonache and Festing (2020: 103) point out that Kuhn understood paradigms to be both problems and questions that arose from a particular epistemological and ontological point of view and that, in a second step, their solutions were developed for them within this framework. Bonache and Festing’s summary is that paradigms can thus also be understood as “the ‘right way’ to do research within the discipline” (Bonache and Festing, 2020: 103), which is a good expression of the uncanny arbitrariness and indeterminacy of the term. This immense indeterminacy of the concept of paradigm can also be understood as a break with the lineage and thoroughness usually demanded of paradigms themselves, suggesting that it is primarily a discursive construction whose essential function might be to establish boundaries. Exploring such a role for paradigms would thus involve deconstructing the concept from a post-structuralist perspective.

While the multi-paradigm approach here delivers a well-deserved breakthrough, its tools and strategies could possibly become an obstacle to its further transcendence of paradigm limitations and its radical orientation towards seeking and finding the new. In order to identify aspects that need to be healed in a further developmental step, some of these points are briefly mentioned below.

From a pragmatic point of view, the multi-paradigm approach forces a degree of superficiality in presentation when it comes to fitting a classical treatment of an object according to multiple paradigms one after the other into a regular journal article. Often not much more than one page allows for exploring critical aspects of such an application, so the studies are forced to remain rather exemplary. This is usually done by relying on central and classical authors of the respective paradigm, which means that paradigm-internal debates or differentiations cannot come into play. Authors often use a pragmatic argument to set aside this reduced rigour. According to this, it is less important to resolve inconsistencies between the paradigms than to offer a multi-perspectivity. However, it must be critically examined whether this does not place the responsibility for a final synthesis of perspectives into the hands of the recipients, that is the readers of a study.

Ontological consistency instead of paradigms: the example of post qualitative inquiry

The dilemma of cross-cultural management research in search of something new can be summed up in two aspects, both revolving around the phenomenon of paradigms. Paradigms prescribe what research should look like in a very broad sense and as relatively rigid containers. However, the internal composition of paradigms is not necessarily a black box, but its composition is rarely called into question in terms of its internal coherence or its capacity for change.

A similar set of issues – less limited to single disciplines – has been discussed in recent years under the label of post qualitative inquiry, which even propagates a solution to the dilemma. This approach will briefly be outlined in the following sections. Then, we consider whether traces of this approach are already present in the field of cross-cultural management, or whether some of the work might benefit from a reappraisal in the light of this field. Basically, the aim is to find ways in which cross-cultural management can explore something new beyond paradigms.

The term ‘post qualitative inquiry’ was used for the first time in 2011 by Elisabeth Adams St Pierre (St Pierre EA, 2011), who founded the corresponding approach and has continued to disseminate it up to the present day. Her reasoning is based on the observation that there are a number of comparatively standardised research methods in qualitative social research, but that there is little reflection on whether they are actually consistent with a study’s remaining epistemological and ontological assumptions – that is the other components of what is traditionally understood as a paradigm. What is particularly problematic, in St Pierre’s view, is that in current research practice there is usually no consideration or even imagination of the fact that such a fit might be lacking (St Pierre 2023:21).

The fit between such an ontology and the methods of qualitative social research has become less and less obvious in recent years, as post-structuralist ideas, aspects and facets have increasingly crept into the worldviews of both researchers and everyday people. As a result, St. Pierre warns that even authors who follow post-structuralist epistemologies are often unaware that when they attempt to prove their assumptions by means of qualitative analyses of the real world, they not only contradict their previous assumptions, but even destroy the very potential of gaining real insights into the world and its post-structuralist aspects. To be precise, it is not possible on the one hand to denounce and reject the humanistic view of man in the sense of post-structuralism as being too westernised, too human-centred, too language-based and based on a rational universalism, while on the other hand and at the same time conducting interviews with selected people as a method in the empirical part of your own study (St. Pierre 2023: 22).

Consequently, St. Pierre believes that for a study to be convincing, it is particularly important that the internal components of a paradigm relate to one another in a coherent way. To ensure this, St. Pierre advises not to come up with yet another new method. Instead, it is better to abandon the idea of a method altogether and rely entirely on theory. In simple terms, for St. Pierre this means that researchers should read a post-structuralist theoretical work, and then let their object of inquiry work against this background (St. Pierre 2023: 28–29).

Even this basic idea of this approach itself corresponds to some of the basic assumptions of post-structuralism, and it also covers some more of its facets, which will be briefly discussed in a later section of this paper. Post-structuralism’s main aim is to discover something new through research (St Pierre 2023: 23), similar to the claims of cross-cultural management research.

Representatives of the post qualitative approach, however, criticise the fact that large parts of current quantitative and qualitative research do not allow this to happen. This is because all questions are always addressed using the same methods, which always produce the same results. In this context, Spivak (1999: 68) had called for both research and society to be in search of “the new new”. What she means by this is that not only should new things be sought, but that a new search should be undertaken to find out which questions need to be asked in the first place, and which methods are appropriate to deal with them. The radical implication is that all paradigm-bound approaches to social research, including cross-cultural management, must be reconsidered. These approaches fail to align their epistemologies, ontologies, and methods effectively—a necessity that paradigm-bound research neglects. Moreover, attempting to rethink or rearrange this alignment is futile. No methods can simultaneously satisfy the epistemological and ontological demands of a paradigm-based approach and generate new insights without merely reiterating the paradigm’s inherent assumptions about the world.

Such a demand for ontological consistency is neither new nor unique to post qualitative research, but it seems to be the first approach to take the issue seriously enough to develop an alternative research procedure as a consequence. It is only in the latter that this concern is given central importance, that the concern is brought to the point and that a very consistent implementation is developed. Indeed, research on cross-cultural management has at least touched on the problem as such – thus acknowledging the problem. For example, Piekkari et al. (2020: 162–167) discuss two case studies from what cross-cultural management calls the interpretive paradigm, showing that an interpretive case study can build on an interpretive theory, but that there are also ‘interpretive’ studies that build on a positivist case study. In the latter case, the authors argue, there is a significant reduction in the amount of knowledge that can be gained because the study cannot fully exploit the potential of the theory.

Similar to the starting points of post qualitative research, Søderberg emphasises in the field of cross-cultural management that methods must be consistent with the logic of the theories. Indeed, it has often been the case in the past that methods have either been seen as pure techniques to be worked through in isolation from theory, or that they have been taken further and theories have been bent so that they have to conform to the methods taken as given, rather than the other way around. According to Søderberg (2020: 171), Hammersley (2011) had called this constellation “methodology as technique” and “methodological rigor” (Søderberg, 2020: 176). But even this ‘rigour’ is just “a socially constructed – and contested – categorisation” (Søderberg, 2020: 176). The method, by contrast, would have to follow the theory and, so to speak, embody and support it – an understanding of method that Hammersley (2011) calls “method as philosophy”. Taking into account the perspective, intentionality, positionality and even emotionality of the researcher, a notion like “methodology-as-autobiography” seems even more adequate. However, Søderberg also notes that work in cross-cultural management that advocates a methodology-as-philosophy stance – and even more so those that advocate a methodology-as-autobiography stance – has so far been extremely scarce and should actually be encouraged more (Søderberg, 2020: 176).

Carusheela (2013) also observes, not only for cross-cultural management but for economics as a whole, that if decentring is to be achieved, it will not be enough to simply abandon the traditional humanist worldview. Rather, it would also have to abandon the discipline’s classical core objects, such as corporations and the capitalist business ethics often attached to them.

Finally, the demands of St Pierre have been the subject of a lively and critical debate in the post-structuralist social sciences. St Pierre’s demand to focus on post-structuralist texts often seems too narrow. On the one hand, it could be argued with some justification that this, too, is in the end nothing more than a method. On the other hand, the framework is already very clearly defined by its theory. Therefore, it does not seem conclusive how and why something new can still be found out. Rather, the argument is made that these rules should be relaxed so that, for instance, post qualitative inquiry can be combined with other social science methods and orientations (Wolgemuth et al., 2022). It is only this attitude that makes combining post qualitative inquiry with cross-cultural management even conceivable.

Example study: Anna Ting’s the mushroom at the end of the world

The author of this article is unaware of any studies explicitly committed to both post qualitative inquiry and cross-cultural management. However, the representatives of both schools of thought state that labels and designations are not so important to them. In cross-cultural management, this is based on the concern to broaden the field’s scope of action (Szkudlarek et al., 2020a: xxvii–xxvii), while in post qualitative inquiry a fixation on linguistic terms would run counter to its own aims of overcoming linguistic fixation and demarcating boundaries in general (St Pierre, 2023: 28–29). It is against this background that a study is presented in the following, which corresponds to a large extent to the concerns of post qualitative research and at the same time is able to provide new insights into fields of work in cross-cultural management.

In 2015, Anna Tsing published her ethnographic monograph The mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Tsing, 2015), focusing on matsutake mushrooms and trade. The matsutake mushroom prefers to grow on industrially exploited and devastated land, and was the first to recolonise the area contaminated by the Hiroshima bomb. Considered an expensive delicacy in Japan, the mushroom cannot be cultivated, but is collected and traded under precarious conditions in some parts of the world, such as Oregon and Lapland. Tsing explores these different sites of collecting, trading and consuming. In a post-structuralist sense, the mushroom rather than the person (now detached and decentred from humanism) is the focus of the book. The mushroom embodies the network-like dissolution of boundaries and the indeterminacy of post-structuralist thought with its root networks.

In the following, an interpretation of this book relating it to issues of cross-cultural management will be presented that is largely based on Tsing’s own positioning as well as on two reviews (Conrad, 2021; Gagnon, 2019) that see the work in a post-structuralist light. At the same time, however, they try to make it at least partially fruitful for management studies.

From this perspective, the discipline of cross-cultural management may be informed by the book’s depiction of a scenario beyond modernist and economic growth that de facto takes modernity’s ruins as the basis for new forms of life. This scenario does no longer correspond to the modern entrepreneurial spirit: the mushroom cannot be cultivated, and its project is therefore ‘not scalable’ (Conrad, 2021: 257–258). Instead of economic success, the precarity of collecting and trading in a contaminated environment and the hedonistic consumption of Japanese consumers take the place. Nonetheless, it is human beings who are primarily responsible for what, in the sense of cross-cultural management, can be called a trade and production chain in a globalised world.

In post-structuralist thought, the technique of deconstruction is clearly seen as something positive and helpful. Lisa Conrad (2021: 257), for example, argues in her review that the strong deterritorialisation and the orientation towards the material are particularly central to what is being described here. She also argues that the concept of capitalism alone no longer captures the core of these phenomena.

Also, the book challenges the idea of progressive modernity by the demonstration that destruction and growth are not opposites but are intertwined: “disturbance can be a source of flourishing. But disturbance and flourishing are relative” (Conrad, 2021: 256).

Tsing herself positions her work by referencing her reception of numerous post-structuralists, notably Gilles Deleuze (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) and his concept of ‘assemblage’. Originally, the term refers to social and discursive networks. But Deleuze, who speaks of ‘agencement’ in the original French, has freed the term from its discursive, social and also limiting properties, Tsing (2015: 292–293) writes.

Another concept inspired by post-structuralism for Tsing is that of ‘contamination’. This is of course characteristic of the destroyed environment of the matsutake mushroom, but it can also be applied to the post-structuralist ontology of what human beings are seen as. Thus, for Tsing, contamination is a counter-concept to the “homo economicus” (Tsing, 2015: 28) who acts purely rationally and whose inner logic is closed off and unchangeable. Instead, the human being is also subject to continuous contamination, so to speak, by every encounter, and thus permanently changes in its essence. This can be shown by ethnographic methods, especially in precarious contexts where survival is at stake (both with the mushrooms and with the collectors and traders who are under change) (Tsing, 2015: 27–28).

Ting’s ethnographic approach, inspired by Strathern (1999) and Haraway (2003), also follows post-structuralist orientations: “Strathern shows us how the startle of surprise interrupts common sense, allowing us to notice different world-making projects within the assemblage. Haraway follows threads to draw our attention to the interplay across divergent projects” (Tsing, 2015: 293).

In another review, Terese Gagnon (2019: 291) highlights this new, post-structuralist orientation of ethnographic research, which now seeks disjunctions and, in this case, focuses on the travelling mushrooms, implementing Marcus’s principle of ‘follow the thing’ (Marcus 1995: 106-107) as a multi-sited ethnography developed from Latour’s (1987) earlier work in science and technology studies (STS). When Tsing speaks of “contaminated diversity” (Tsing, 2015: 33) in a post-structuralist ontology, views on the nature of culture and interculturality become visible. Culture and diversity are de-essentialised. Diversity and difference are in constant flux. In fact, they are this flux. They change themselves and simultaneously always change their subjects, who are themselves de-essentialised. At the same time, however, diversity continues to be a characteristic feature. It is a phenomenon that characterises our world. However, it often escapes our perception due to our world view – similar to the reason why cross-cultural management struggles to transcend positivism: “I agree; contaminated diversity is everywhere. If such stories are so widespread and so well known, the question becomes: Why don’t we use these stories in how we know the world? One reason is that contaminated diversity is complicated, often ugly, and humbling” (Tsing, 2015: 33).

Dervin and Jacobsson (2022: 64) use Tsing’s work to explore interculturality in education, and for them her concept of precarity in particular allows for a decentred view of phenomena such as culture and interculturality: “The only reason all this sounds odd is that most of us were raised on dreams of modernization and progress (Tsing, 2015: 20). […] Openness, indeterminacy and loss of control is what radical equality brings to the table in discussions of interculturality” (Dervin and Jacobsson, 2022: 64).

More post qualitative inspirations in cross-cultural management research

Further applications of post qualitative research to aspects of cross-cultural management may be hoped for in the future. By overcoming the static and homogeneous world of paradigms, their orientation holds enormous potential for the current dilemma of cross-cultural management research. Instead, the focus is on ensuring internal consistency, with the respective ontology playing a special role: on the basis of theoretical work, it is clarified what the human being – and in the context of management research, perhaps also the company or organisation – is.

Although there is little consistent post-structuralist work on cross-cultural management, it is clear that in general, the field is familiar with this way of thinking. Very early on, Martin (1992) promotes a postmodern view of cultures as conflicts for the field of organisational studies, although she does not question organisations as entities and does not yet delve into the symbol-based approaches to deconstruction of post-structuralism. Benozzo (2018) introduces post-structuralism for business research and, lacking full studies from the field, only raises some, albeit very interesting, questions. However, there are countless ways in which post-structural ideas can be applied to the field. A few examples are given below – again, chosen to cover as many different aspects of post-structuralist thinking as possible.

For example, Svane et al. (2017) apply Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) rhizome root system metaphor to economics, and Clegg et al. (2007: 111) borrow Derrida’s notion of ‘undecidability’ (1992: 24) to point at the unpredictability of managerial decisions about the future and the responsibility this entails. Prasad (2016) interprets Donna Haraway (1988) for organisational research, and Durepos et al. (2016: 309) derive from this the insight that managers would always like to have an objective viewpoint from where to see everything and have the power. This colonial and powerful concern is still supported by parts of management research. A post-structuralist decentred perspectivism, as Prasad (2012) further concludes in another place, of course also requires the abandonment of any kind of thinking in dichotomies. McSweeney (2016) also refers to Haraway in order to show that the concept of culture in the positivist works of cross-cultural management is in opposition to the radical openness of post-structuralism.

Fundamentally, post-structuralist theories are often concerned with establishing a new ontology that thinks of human beings as an unbounded, fluid idea in constant flux. One way in which this can be achieved is by thinking of people in terms of their relationships and relationalities rather than in terms of fixed hierarchies. Okkonen et al. (2021), for example, describe this network-like integration using the example of managers in the care sector and in refugee care. They assume that in these relationships everyone is in relation to everyone else, for example researchers and refugees. The aspect of relationality is also finding its way into management research, especially through the new direction of complexity science, as reported by Maguire et al. (2006), drawing on Cilliers (1998).

This recognition of interconnectedness, relationality and complexity also means that humans can no longer be at the centre of scientific thinking. The Cartesian and humanist perspective must be abandoned. Instead, humans are equal participants in complex organic environments. “We are all compost,” Böhm et al. (2022: 480) quote Donna Haraway (2015: 161) in the Journal of Business Ethics. This post-humanist orientation is echoed in different ways in cross-cultural management research. For instance, Niesche and Gowlett (2015) claim that leadership should not be understood as a list of traits, but that it is always created in a performative way. Modliński and Bartosiak (2021) consider how humans are being dethroned by artificial intelligence. Spencer et al. (2019) and Jackson (2023) show how the phenomenon of climate change becomes a material phenomenon, substantially shaping the presuppositions instead of people. Mobility (Guttormsen and Lauring, 2022), for example, would be another material phenomenon through which management research could be placed in a post-human perspective.

In management research, however, there must also be a deconstruction and decentring of the idea of the firm. If this does not happen, writes Ortiz (2023), then it will remain undiscovered how global forms contribute permanently to global power imbalances and the reinforcement of national borders. These are actually aspects of political systems that should not play a role in purely economic contexts.

What remains problematic with all these new perspectives, however, is that in the end they have to be written down by a researcher in the form of a scientific publication and thus, from a certain point of view, be unjustifiably cemented. In this way, the old dilemma of the hegemony of the researcher actually persists, as Bright (2018) also states for the case of management research. In effect, this means that management research also exercises epistemic violence by describing foreign cultures, a concept that goes back to Spivak (1988: 280) and denounces colonial structures in a postcolonial global context.

At the same time, it must be stressed that such occasional mentions of post-structuralist phenomena show, on the one hand, that this point of view often finds a receptive audience in management research. On the other hand, there is often a risk that the occasional mention of post-structuralist phenomena is not a consistent reflection or application of the concepts to the whole of the phenomenon under study. As a result, many of these studies, and especially their reception in the field, fall far short of the post-structuralist perspective’s potential for revealing new ways of seeing, as Moore and Mahadevan (2020: 133) have already criticised.

Reed (2006) also criticises the fact that post-structuralist approaches in management research have so far mostly been used to describe a general macro-level, rather than concrete management activities. But organisational research has also managed to move away from the macro level, Reed adds, leaving potential for cross-cultural management. Last but not least, the frequent claim to inclusiveness would have to be abandoned in research on cross-cultural management. There will never be universal solutions for the whole world, for which there is no outside. Instead, solutions could at best be developed on an individual and local basis and for a limited period of time (Adler et al., 2020: 2–8).

Cross-cultural management beyond paradigms? Some prospective thoughts

The discussion in this article has shown that authors in cross-cultural management research are, in fact, dedicated to a constant search for the new, and that this is precisely what justifies the existence of the field as opposed to traditional, fixed management research. The predominant strategy to achieve this, that is, the promotion of a multi-paradigm approach, has been outlined and discussed. On the one hand, this is a tremendously important step in the liberation of the discipline. On the other hand, the continued setting of a paradigm discussion can be counterproductive when considering how to continue this liberation. It makes it difficult to look inside paradigms and to ask which and how many paradigms actually exist, or what other views there might be. For this reason, it has been considered in this paper whether there might also be ways of ignoring this layer of paradigms and of being able to work properly without them. A parallel concern has emerged in post qualitative inquiry in recent years, where there has been criticism that paradigms are often propagated without attention to whether they are actually internally consistent. As a result, there is often a lack of fit between the method and the theory, or at least little attention is being paid to this fit. Szkudlarek et al.’s (2020b) handbook, for example, covers theories and methods of cross-cultural management in two large, separate sections.

However, some representatives of cross-cultural management (Bonache, 2021: 145) and post qualitative inquiry argue that a coherent epistemology and ontology throughout a study is much more important for consistent scientific work. There is currently no explicit work from post qualitative inquiry on cross-cultural management. Both schools of thought, however, advocate a less rigid approach to the terminology of the disciplines. This would allow for the inclusion of related fields or work that is coherent in terms of content. The example of Anna Tsing’s work The Mushroom at the End of the World (Tsing, 2015) was then used to show how the field of cross-cultural management can be imagined in a radically different mode if one (post-structuralist) ontology, once adopted, is consistently adhered to. Aspects of post-structuralist thinking can also be found in many works in the field of cross-cultural management. However, they are often only mentioned as one aspect of many and are therefore not applied consistently enough to the subject. As a result, these works often fall far short of the potential they have to find out something new. Similarly, the multi-paradigm approach often has to work with truncated descriptions and interpretations, which also leads to an implementation that is not thorough enough for an approach to truly realise its potential.

Admittedly, such an approach involves some risks and requires a certain amount of courage and daring. It also needs to be prepared to get criticised. For example, Grosskopf and Barmeyer’s (2021: 187) observation that we, as human beings, will not be able to leave our own perspectives and that the adoption of a neutral metaperspective is fundamentally impossible is entirely valid. Moreover, it is precisely the internal coherence in the epistemology and ontology of post qualitative inquiry that can lead to the fact that, once again, nothing really new can come out of it. What is new is at most an unfamiliar and changed ontology that, when applied consistently to the subject, may cast it in a startling new light. Last but not least, it can be assumed that post qualitative inquiry is at best just another paradigm, but a particularly open one. This undertaking can also be interpreted as a utopian endeavour (Mignolo, 2012: 20), but its potential is always worthwhile.