Contextualising the Irrelevance of “Values” to the Study of International Business

A response

Bibliographic Data

ID7870902
AuthorsM W Sedgwick (0000-0002-9517-3451, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume3
Issue2
Pages191-200
Publication date2014-11-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Business Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2245-4217 • E-ISSN: 2245-4217
PublisherCopenhagen Business School (PUBLISHER • DK)
DOI10.22439/jba.v3i2.4707
OpenAlexW1515465674
LanguageEN
References cited17

At the small gathering at the University of Hong Kong that resulted in many of the papers published in this issue of the JBA, I was paired with Nigel Holden, well-known for his work on cross-cultural management (CCM) in the field of international business (IB). I am an anthropologist with over 20 years of experience researching cross-cultural business contexts. As we did in Hong Kong, here I respond to Nigel's commentary. Specifically, I discuss Hofstede's project and the implications of CCM's emphasis on "values" and "measurement" from an anthropological perspective. I then turn to the state of the field for qualitative research in IB, adding my voice to the growing chorus concerned with the imbalances of quantitative and qualitative methods in that discipline. As an anthropologist, I am naturally flattered by Nigel's suggestion that anthropology take back the "keys to the kingdom" in qualitative IB/CCM research. I, too, welcome the cross-fertilisations so implied, of which the present exercise is an excellent example. That said, I also feel compelled to respond to Nigel's claim that, historically, "anthropology ceded its legitimacy to Hofstede's concept of culture." I outline anthropology's long term, if uneven, interest in business contexts and describe a surge in recent anthropological projects where "modern formal organisations," including businesses, are of central concern

Economics · Political science · Positive economics · Sociology · Global and Cross-Cultural Management · International Business and FDI · International Student and Expatriate Challenges

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access