Mirror mirror on the wall-cultures consequences in a value test of its own design Essay

The newsprint offers a critical reading of Geert Hofstedes (1980) acculturations Consequences use an analytical strategy where the book is mirrored against itself and analyzed in hurt of its own proposed value proportions. Mirroring unravels the books normative viewpoint and political subtext and exposes discursive interests in its interrogation process. Making all this evident in the canonical books own toll, this paper communicates critical concerns crossways prototype boundaries. It indicates the need to reconsider concepts and convictions that predominate cross-cultural inquiry and to suck in norms of reflexivity that transcend existing notions of cultural relativism.Globalization, there seems to be a need to further these attempts at reevaluating its foundations. To a great extent, the knowledge produced in this field is still firmly rooted in the orthodoxy of functionalist, mean(prenominal) cognizanceits positivist epistemology and objectivist rhetoric (see Burrell & Morgan, 1979). While there be a some interpretive, emically oriented case studies (e.g., Ahrens, 1996 Brannen, 2004), these more often than not remain a marginalized pursuit (MarschanPiekkari & Welch, 2004) studies are usually nomothetic and quantitative, with researchers posing themselves as discoverers of world-wide regularities and dustatic causal relationships. Cultural relativism, when admitted, is seen to relate to the scientistnot to scienceItselfand is accordingly corrected by rituals of confession, (rare) attempts to create crosscultural research teams, or various bias control techniques. In this vein, inter discipline focussing thought is evolving into quite a large proboscis of thought one that, despite its name, underrepresents many regions of the world in terms of authorship and topics of compendium (Kirkman & Law, 2005). Moreover, like other managerial disciplines that aspire to exploit actual workplaces, its influence extends into the world of practice as well.The book and so entailed various substantive contributions. Apparently, as globalization progressed into the 1980s, crossing traditional boundaries, issue refining could no longer be disregarded. What until then constituted a beast too soft or vague for the positivist epistemology of normal science became a focus of much interest. Hofstede, it can be said, meek the beast he divided it, counted it, tabled it, and graphed it. Culture was reduced to values, which were reduced to a limited set of questions on an IBM questionnaire. National society was reduced to spunk class rather than the working class (1980 56), which was reduced to IBM personnel from the marketing and service divisions. Answers were quantified, computerized, statisticalized. Things cultural could finally be said in scientific language.OctoberSubsequently, the book promoted sensitivity to cultural diversity at the workplace (and beyond it). In addition, it undermined the widespread assumption that American management knowledge is universal and thus easily transferable crosswise farmings, and challenged psychologys long-standing refusal to recognize the relevance of culture as anything but an external variable (see Joseph, Reddy, & Searle-Chatterjee, 1990 21 Triandis, 2004). Culture, Hofstede claimed, is a mental programming instilled in peoples mindsan inherent variable, shaping behavior from the inside out. Thus, for organisational practice, management theory, and psychology, topic culture is relevant it does count. And as farther as the scientific community of his magazine was concerned, he had the right numbers to prove it.There were, however, very serious-minded review articles from the outset (e.g., Baskerville, 2003 Eckhardt, 2002 Harrison & McKinnon, 1999 Kitayama, 2002 Merker, 1982 Robinson, 1983 Schooler, 1983 Singh, 1990). In what appears to be one of the most damning critiques of the book, McSweeney claimed that the on-going credulous acceptance of Hofstedes nati onal culture research by his evangelized suite suggests that in parts of the management disciplines the criteria for acceptable evidence are far too loose .Hofstede never failed to respond to the ongoing stream of criticism, defended his methodological decisions, and clarified the scans claims and implications (e.g., 1990, 2001, especially p. 73). 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Cheltenham, UK Edward Elgar.Triandis, H. C. 2004. The many dimensions of culture. Academy of Management Executive, 18(1) 88 93.Williamson, D. 2002. Forward from a critique of Hofstedes model of national culture. Human Relations, 55 13731395.Galit Ailon (ailonsgmail.biu.ac.il) is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-IIan University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Labor Studies at Tel-Aviv University. Her research interests include organizational globalization, organizational culture, organizational theory, and managerial ideologies.