National culture and organisational culture in lean organisations: a systematic review

Despite the extensive literature suggesting that culture plays a key role in lean implementations, no previous review has focused on the topic. This study is a systematic review of the literature that synthesises over two decades of publications according to the levels of national culture (NC) and organisational culture (OC) and maps which cultural dimensions foster or hinder lean implementation. In terms of NC, this study shows that Japanese cultural traits might hinder lean, such as masculinity and power distance, hence avoiding the over simplification that lean is a country-specific management approach. In terms of OC, the literature review unveils a lack of consensus and underlines two paradoxes, namely the co-existence of both process and result-focused orientations and both normative and pragmatic approaches. This review ultimately offers a relevant agenda for lean research as well as a guide for managers who face the challenge of implementing and sustaining lean in their organisations.     

The impact of national culture on negotiating behaviors across borders

Recent declines in American competitiveness and the increasing globalization of American business underscore the importance of one's culturally-based negotiating ability in international business transactions. This paper examines the impact of cultural dimensions on negotiating effectiveness on three levels: the role of a single dimension of culture, the interactive effects between multiple dimensions of culture, and the degree of cultural compatibility between negotiating parties. Two existing models of negotiation are integrated, outlining the critical importance of culture in each stage of effective international business negotiations. The integrated model is then applied to the cultures of eleven nations. Propositions and suggestions for future research are provided.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Academy of International Business Conference. The authors wish to thank two anonymous AIB reviewers and session participants at the AIB meeting for their constructive comments concerning the paper.     

Not All Differences Are the Same: Dual Roles of Status and Cultural Distance in Sociocultural Integration in Cross-border M&As

Despite, or perhaps due to, its central role in international business research, cultural distance is a widely debated and criticized construct. In this paper, I will examine the conditions under which two specific assumptions regarding the cultural distance construct (viz., symmetry and discordance) can get illusionary and misleading. Understanding the reasons behind the (in)admissibility of these assumptions is especially important to guide future cross-cultural research to take necessary steps towards conceptual and methodological adjustments and remedies. Towards that end, I introduce the idea of status heterogeneities between social actors who interact in a multicultural context, and how these heterogeneities can mold the mutual perceptions and attitudes between individuals. As the primary means with which firms internationalize, cross-border mergers and acquisitions are used as the context within which dual roles and implications of status and cultural distance are theorized. Auxiliary insights provided by status theories can explain why and when assumptions of symmetry and discordance could be wrong and misleading. Furthermore, incorporating status into the extant literature can reconcile inconsistent empirical results and help future research avoid under-specified models that do not account for systematic biases in their sample sets.     

Culture and cross-functional coopetition: The interplay of organizational and national culture

Scholars now recognize coopetition—the joint occurrence of cooperation and competition—between functional units as an important factor for a firm's learning and performance. We know little, however, about the drivers of cross-functional coopetition and in particular the roles of organizational culture and national culture. This study introduces cross-functional coopetition to the international management literature by illuminating the cultural antecedents of cross-functional coopetition. Specifically, we develop a cross-cultural model to analyze the influence of organizational and national culture on cross-functional coopetition. Drawing on a dataset of 646 companies from seven countries, we theoretically advance and empirically validate the influence of organizational culture and the moderating role of individualism and uncertainty avoidance on cross-functional coopetition. Organizational cultural dimensions directly enhance cross-functional coopetition. Furthermore, strong social values of individualism and uncertainty avoidance weaken the relationship between organizational culture and cross-functional coopetition. This study provides a novel perspective on how organizational culture can represent a strategic resource by illuminating the cultural mechanisms that influence coopetition within the firm.     

IT服务企业中文化对知识共享与创新行为关系的影响

在全球一体化进程加速、IT服务企业员工文化价值取向趋于多元化的背景下,有必要了解员工文化观念对企业的影响。本文研究员工的集体主义观念和权力距离观念对IT服务企业中知识共享与创新行为之间关系的影响。在北京、西安的具有不同文化特色的IT服务企业进行问卷调查,收集了484份问卷,运用SPSS及SmartPLS进行数据分析。研究结果表明:员工的集体主义观念增强时,知识共享对创新行为的影响会增加;权力距离增大时,知识共享对创新行为的影响会减弱。对实践的启示是:管理者应培养、提高员工的集体主义文化价值观;根据公司的企业文化特色,区分对待员工权力距离对知识共享与创新行为之间关系的影响作用。     

Using mental maps to highlight cultural differences: visual portraits of American and Japanese patterns of thinking

This research offers new pedagogical tools derived from linguistic analysis that provide intriguing visual portraits communicating cultural differences. Using associative group analysis to systematically examine free associations to key management terms, this research produces charts that reveal how business students from different national groups hold different understandings of key management terms, reflecting their differing views of workplace participation derived from education and experience. Applying this method to American and Japanese workforce entrants, the resulting charts convey in visually appealing ways key cultural differences between the groups. It further yields mental maps that portray the dominant mindset of people from these two countries. The charts offer important new pedagogical tools for teaching international business and the promise of deeper understanding of cultural difference and cultural change.     

Cultures have consequences: A configural approach to leadership across two cultures

This research compares the influence of country membership and cultural values (power distance and individualism/collectivism) in a model of LMX and organizational change. The results reveal cultural differences in the relationships among LMX, consultation and affective commitment to organizational change, supporting prior studies. However, there are substantial differences in the moderation of the cultural values in the relationships among the research constructs at the individual level. Our results suggest that understanding national culture and its influence on leadership may be incomplete when we focus only on mean differences at the country level to examine cross-cultural differences. To address this concern, we offer a configural approach to examine the role of culture in a leadership model across two cultures (the U.S. and Korea).     

Managerial sensemaking of interaction within business relationships: A cultural perspective

In this study, we take the perspective of the individual manager in order to understand the role of culture in managerial sensemaking on interaction within business relationships. Extant literature has found business-to-business relationships and interaction between managers to be an essential part of conducting business. However, it has mostly ignored the role of culture in the process. This has not accounted for the possibility that managers with different cultural backgrounds may differently make sense about business interactions.     

Safety sans Frontières: An International Safety Culture Model

The management of safety culture in international and culturally diverse organizations is a concern for many high‐risk industries. Yet, research has primarily developed models of safety culture within Western countries, and there is a need to extend investigations of safety culture to global environments. We examined (i) whether safety culture can be reliably measured within a single industry operating across different cultural environments, and (ii) if there is an association between safety culture and national culture. The psychometric properties of a safety culture model developed for the air traffic management (ATM) industry were examined in 17 European countries from four culturally distinct regions of Europe (North, East, South, West). Participants were ATM operational staff (n = 5,176) and management staff (n = 1,230). Through employing multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, good psychometric properties of the model were established. This demonstrates, for the first time, that when safety culture models are tailored to a specific industry, they can operate consistently across national boundaries and occupational groups. Additionally, safety culture scores at both regional and national levels were associated with country‐level data on Hofstede's five national culture dimensions (collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long‐term orientation). MANOVAs indicated safety culture to be most positive in Northern Europe, less so in Western and Eastern Europe, and least positive in Southern Europe. This indicates that national cultural traits may influence the development of organizational safety culture, with significant implications for safety culture theory and practice.     

The antecedents of psychic distance

This study investigates the antecedents of psychic distance. Building on original data in 25 of the world's largest economies, we investigate potential drivers of perceived psychic distances to foreign countries. The results show these perceptions to be influenced by a range of cultural, geographic, political and economic factors. Among these, absolute geographic distance accounts for the largest share of the explained variance, suggesting that physical distance should be given a more prominent role when it comes to empirically investigating international business decisions for which psychic distance perceptions may be important. The findings also suggest that, used in isolation, ‘cultural distance’ – as measured by the so called Kogut and Singh index – is a poor predictor of such perceptions.     

Advancing our understanding of cultural heterogeneity with unsupervised machine learning

National boundaries and country averages are commonly used as delimiters and proxies for culture. By doing so, not enough attention is paid to cultural heterogeneity within and overlays between countries. Deploying a Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) as an unsupervised machine learning technique on 106,382 individual-level survey data from 66 countries, this article identifies distinct worldwide cultural prototypes, isolates dominantly occurring prototypes within countries, and uses them to calculate cultural core values. It also provides new measures for within-country cultural heterogeneity, between-country cultural differences, and cultural isolation. The results not only show the usefulness of machine learning algorithms in inductive international business research, but also have managerial relevance for international marketing and management.     

The effect of supply chain integration, modular production, and cultural distance on new product development: A dynamic capabilities approach

Little research has examined how international firms' operations strategies affect dynamic capability creation or how cultural distance affects operations management. This study addresses these gaps by bridging the work on dynamic capabilities, two operations management techniques (product modularization and supplier integration) and cultural distance. Using a sample of 111 Brazilian automobile suppliers, the study finds that new product development is marginally increased by product modularization but decreased by supplier integration. Cultural distance negatively moderated these relationships. This research extends the dynamic capabilities literature and indicates that operations management strategy is an important part of the dynamic capability formation process.     

Evolution of industry 4.0 and international business: A systematic literature review and a research agenda

Industry 4.0 has attracted significant attention from researchers in the international business field for a decade. This paper critically analyzes the literature on the relationships between Industry 4.0 and international business. A systematic literature review of 59 studies published between 2011 and December 2020 is conducted. Using the Theory, Context, Characteristics, and Method (TCCM) framework, the review identifies various gaps in research and proposes future research agenda. The results show that (1) Industry 4.0 modifies specific domains in the field of international competitiveness and organization and (2) international business affects the choices and opportunities of adopting Industry 4.0. The need for further theoretical development in the relationships between international business and Industry 4.0 is observed especially in terms of location choices, global value chains, international organizations and international trade. The results contribute to the relevant research field and provide substantial managerial implications.     

National cultures and safety orientation: A study of seafarers working for Norwegian shipping companies

Up to now, little work has been conducted on safety in relation to national culture. This paper examines the association between national culture and the safety orientation of seafarers on Norwegian-owned vessels. Safety orientation is the result of cultural, organizational, and contextual factors that create attitudes and behaviours that in turn influence safety. In this study a safety culture/orientation questionnaire was designed and used to determine risk and safety characteristics. Survey data was collected from 2,558 seafarers from 27 countries. The sample used consisted of seafarers from the 10 countries for which there were more than 10 respondents. Five national (cultural) characteristics were calculated using Hofstede's Value Survey Model 94. Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that (a) the number of nationalities represented on a vessel was related to their attitude towards safety issues, such that two-nation vessels obtain relatively negative scores regarding these issues, and (b) national culture was related to safety culture, such that high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, and high individualism were positive for safety. The implications of these findings for practice and future research are discussed.     

Host country culture and language identification,and their workplace manifestations: A study on corporate expatriates in China and Japan

Although multiculturalism has drawn increasing attention in international business research, relatively little is known about multiculturalism beyond individuals who have immigrated to a new host country. This study uses interviews with 79 assigned expatriates in two host countries – China and Japan – to develop a cultural and language identification-based typology of monocultural, cosmopolitan, integrated bicultural, and conflicting bicultural expatriates. We also use the interview findings to demonstrate the workplace manifestations of each expatriate type. This study contributes by deepening research on multicultural employees in situ, moving beyond the assumption of monocultural identification in expatriate research, and discussing workplace manifestations of both culture and language identification.     

International business thought: A 50-year footprint

As international business marks 50 years of its establishment as a distinct domain of academic research, discussions on both the major contributions of the field and its future research directions have drawn great interest in the current literature. The arrival at a clear consensus on these issues, however, has been set back by the lack of resolution in the search for a unifying, integrative framework of international business. Drawing on theories of knowledge organisation and on extant reviews of international business research, this paper proposes an emergent international business research framework anchored around four unifying themes expressed as broad international business research questions. A content analysis of 1689 studies in the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) from its maiden issue in 1970 to 2008 and studies classified as international business in nature done prior to 1960 confirms the trajectories of international business research along the four themes. It is suggested that these major research themes serve as the main research pillars that define the international business domain, framing research done so far, and driving future research in the field. Areas of research intensity and opportunity are identified along with implications for international business research and theory-building.     

The impact of international business education on career success—Evidence from Europe

In today's globalized world, career paths are becoming increasingly international, and so managers need respective cross-cultural strengths in order to act effectively in various cultural environments. Even though education—especially business education—is progressively becoming more international to meet these organizational demands, little is known about whether the extent of international business education influences careers, and in particular career success. In addressing this research deficit, we explore whether and how international business education affects career success. As the major contribution of this paper we suggest a conceptual framework which posits global identity and international experience as mediators of this relationship. The assumptions of this framework are confirmed by an investigation amongst 450 alumni of a European business school. Additional contributions include that we extend the limited body of research on the construct of international business education and its measurement, by providing an all-encompassing definition and much-needed operationalization. Furthermore, we contribute a European perspective on international business education through our empirical evidence.     

如何应用国家文化原型实现品牌的国际化传播——基于中国品牌海外社交媒体广告的多案例研究

本文基于中国品牌海外社交媒体广告的多案例研究,深入探讨了基于国家文化原型的品牌国际化传播策略,并检验了不同应用策略在不同情景下消费者反应的差异。研究表明:(1)国家文化原型资源可以根据文化层次和文化类属分为4种不同的组合方式,相应地,品牌文化原型应用策略也可分为工具性审美、差异化表现、目标消费者认同、全球共识意义获取四种类型;(2)东道国类型(文化距离近vs.远)、企业国际化发展阶段(初期vs.快速发展期)以及企业的传播诉求(产品vs.品牌)会对不同应用策略的传播效果产生影响。本研究不仅丰富了品牌国际化的研究成果,还可为新兴市场企业如何应用国家文化原型助力品牌的国际化传播提供指导和借鉴。     

Country differences in the relationship between leadership and employee engagement: A meta-analysis

Leadership is frequently related to important organizational outcomes such as follower engagement. However, to date we have little insight into the degree to which this relation is contingent upon (a) types of leadership style and (b) national culture. These two issues are addressed in a meta-analysis of 209 independent (257 effect sizes), mainly cross-sectional studies (79%), involving 82,386 participants from 45 countries. The findings show that whereas abusive supervision was negatively associated with work engagement, several leadership styles (e.g., servant, empowering, ethical, and charismatic leadership) have positive correlations with subordinate engagement; some dimensions of national culture (e.g., gender egalitarianism, human orientation, performance orientation, future orientation, and power distance) moderate the leadership–employee engagement relationship. However, the correlations between servant, ethical, and transactional leadership and subordinate engagement are less likely to vary across national cultural characteristics. Notwithstanding the proliferation of leadership–employee engagement literature with more than 200 published articles, a strong reliance on cross-sectional designs have impeded it to gain any solid conclusions about causality due to endogeneity biases. We conclude by providing a detailed future research agenda and discussing how our results can stimulate future leadership research and inform practices with regards to leader development.     

Globalization and cultural change in international business research

The four articles in this special issue invite the reader to reflect on the impact of global business on values, ideas, and ethics around the world. In this comment, I advance four arguments that question assumptions regarding the impact of global business on culture. First, national cultures are not homogeneous and the impact of globalization on heterogeneous cultures is not easily predicted. Second, culture is not the same as cultural practice. The spread of practice does not equate with the spread of culture. Third, globalization does not represent a rupture with the past but is a continuation of prior trends. Fourth, globalization is only one of many processes involved in cultural change. By questioning these assumptions, we can build on the work of the authors of this special issue in order to develop a more accurate understanding of cultural change around the world.