What Is Culture And How Do We Measure It?

   

    Understanding the influence of culture on business operations has been one of the most enduring components of international business (IB) and international management (IM) theorizing and empirical investigation. The purpose of this special issue is to build on the learning from previous debates regarding different approaches to studying culture as well as bringing to the IB/IM audience insights from other disciplines that take an interest in culture. Hence, we seek to create a volume that: (a) shows how traditional research programs have evolved as a result of accumulated knowledge and/or in response to specific critiques, and (b) incorporates alternative and completely new theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding and measuring culture.

    In doing this we encourage researchers from economics, psychology, sociology, political science, education and other domains as well as IB/IM scholars to make their latest work available to the IB community via this special issue. We welcome conceptual and empirical papers using quantitative, qualitative or mixed approaches aimed at providing comprehensive solutions to previously raised issues and that illustrate the most advanced methods for studying culture and other related constructs.

From a methodological perspective we are interested in work that addresses or encapsulates three fundamental logics:

• culture is ultimately manifested in the behavior, decisions and choices of individuals;
• the measurement of culture is about capturing and categorizing both homogeneity & heterogeneity
• the most effective means to critically test theory in the social sciences is to triangulate multiple methods

     Simultaneously and as one research paradigm as a means to ensure that one is testing the theory and not simply validating a joint test of theory and method. Hence, we are interested in papers that go beyond traditional psychometric approaches and thus examine culture across levels of analysis and via multiple methodologies. Some examples include:

• Can we move beyond standard psychometrics? Is the standard ‘reflective’ approach utilized for decades relevant in light of a more advanced understanding of scale development?
• How do our measures of culture relate to other aspects of an individual’s existence? Can we use ‘fusion’  of different data sources to come up with a more parsimonious and valid understanding of the dimensionality of culture?
• Are surveys, particularly self-report instruments, the best way forward? What is the role of experimental based approaches? What can we learn from other fields - such as behavioural decision theory and experimental economics?
• Can we move beyond standard econometric methods? What is the role of Bayesian estimationprocedures? Might we be able to apply multi-level methods that look at both the dimensions and levels of culture simultaneously?

Culture Pie Chart

            From  a theoretical  perspective we are  interested in work that not just examines the standard  historic conceptualizations but  also examines  the  socializing  aspects  of culture, how  our   meaning   of  culture  has  changed ,  and  how   we  can  examine  culture  in  an environment faced by new technologies that render national boundaries less meaningful. For example, papers examining topics such as:

• Who are the socializing agents of culture: How do they differ? When do they differ? Where do they  differ? How do they become legitimized?
• What and how do specific socializing agents operate? Examples include the role of religion; family and the tightness of familial bonds ; the culture of poverty and the shared values, beliefs, etc. of those living in poverty.
• How does culture evolve in a world of complex institutions and technologies? Examples include the role of immigration and diaspora s, modern media and new technologies.
• Is our standard dimensional approach to culture meaningful? How might we gain and develop a deeper understanding of specific dimensions of culture that addresses the idea that individuals occupy different cultural places and spaces simultaneously?

A Journal Special Issued by : Timothy M. Devinney , Bradley L. Kirkman , Dan V. Caprar , Paula Caligiuri