Title: Manageable inequalities (theoretical landscaping of cross-cultural studies)

Authors: Slawomir Magala

Addresses: RSM Erasmus University, Postbus 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: Cross-cultural studies emerged from an unstable consensus. Cultural anthropologists, social psychologists, economists and sociologists of organisations, structured new managerial sciences. Researchers pushed for interdisciplinary compromises. Demands were voiced from |inside| of formal bureaucracies. Organising and managing in required recognition and utilisation of inequalities – providing a pull for re-landscaping theories of cultures and organisations. A quarter of a century after the first publication of Hofstede|s |Culture|s Consequences|, three major approaches towards theoretical compromise and pragmatic social engineering emerged: the translation, globalisation and |management of meaning| strategies. All of them converge on manageability of inequalities.

Keywords: cross-cultural research; cultural patterns; management of meaning; social engineering; translation strategies; globalisation strategies; culture; management science; international management; interdisciplinary studies.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2007.012917

European Journal of International Management, 2007 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.56 - 68

Published online: 24 Mar 2007 *

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