International and Cross-Cultural Management Research

Book excerpt: Written for students and others wishing to do international and cross-cultural research in business and management, this book provides an accessible introduction to the major principles and practices. A cross-cultural perspective has become vital to most contemporary management research. The increasingly global business environment has led to both a greater practical need for international management research and a questioning of whether management science follows universal rules. This book addresses the particular characteristics of international management research, including the important role of culture. A key introduction provides a comprehensive overview of the background, major issues and different approaches to international management research. The second chapter offers a typology of research designs in international management, and shows the role culture plays in such designs. The theories and paradigms that serve international and cross-cultural management research are examined in the third chapter. Chapter four examines and defines culture, its process and components. The final chapter pulls the describing arguments together to show how the construct of culture can be used in international management research. Throughout, the author provides numerous illustrative examples from key empirical studies.