In this article, we discuss the importance of a cross-cultural approach to organizational behavior. To do so, we illustrate how cross-cultural research in the past two decades has enabled us to reconceptualize constructs, revise models, and extend boundary conditions in traditional organizational behavior theories. We focus on three domains-teams, leadership, and conflict-and review cross-cultural empirical evidence that has extended several theories in each of these domains. We support the claim that even well-established organizational behavior theories vary in the extent to which they may be applied unilaterally across cultures, thus identifying the critical need to advance these theories via a cross-cultural research agenda.
Sampling champagne in Paris. Swimming in the Indian Ocean. Salsa dancing in Puerto Rico. And mud slides. And getting lost. And (never-ending) jet lag. And yes-cockroaches the size of cats (we swear!). Ah, the joys of multinational fi eld research! Even if it is not always glamorous, it is always and forever enlightening. We three coauthors are addicted-and no, we do not plan on ever recovering. Over the past decade, we have become particularly enamored with an approach to multinational organizational researchthe proximal approach, which is characterized by openness to the unexpected, acceptance of uncertainty, and appreciation of multiplicity. This approach can be contrasted with more distal approaches, which emphasize end states, linearity, and ordered structure (Cooper, 1992;Cooper & Law, 1995). In this chapter, we endeavor to explain why we so much appreciate the proximal approach and to provide practical suggestions for carrying out research in a manner incorporating its insights.To do so, we tell the story of a comprehensive multimethod, multinational, multiyear research project. This project was not explicitly (initially) guided by a proximal approach. Rather, most of the work has unfolded within a traditional distal mode, involving deductive, quantitative hypothesis test-
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