Seeking and explaining culturally meaningful within-country regions: A functional, institutional and critical event analysis

Kara, Aycan; Peterson, Mark F.; Søndergaard, Mikael

doi:10.1177/14705958211060159

Cited by 2 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 82 publications

(163 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…First, we review theoretical and empirical studies that define what can be considered a unit of cross-cultural analysis, focusing on nations versus in-country administrative regions. The latter unit of analysis was selected because of its growing popularity in the cross-cultural management literature (Kara et al, 2021), surpassed only by that of "nation". Then, we discuss empirical criteria, such as those proposed by Kara et al (2021) that can be used to establish whether regions within a given country can be considered cultural units and used in empirical analyses.…”

Section: Concept and Goal Of The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latter unit of analysis was selected because of its growing popularity in the cross-cultural management literature (Kara et al, 2021), surpassed only by that of "nation". Then, we discuss empirical criteria, such as those proposed by Kara et al (2021) that can be used to establish whether regions within a given country can be considered cultural units and used in empirical analyses. We propose specific, relatively simple empirical tests that can be applied within any country.…”

Section: Concept and Goal Of The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the measures of subjective culture to be practically useful, they should be related to some outcomes demonstrating differences between cultural units, such as objective measures of gender equality, transportation and industrial fatalities, or innovation rates. Kara et al (2021) list other potentially useful outcomes for analyses in the field of business or management. Knowledge of such differences can help managers make culturally-informed decisions.…”

Section: Ccsm 303mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the existing analyses have justified the use of nations as units of cross-cultural analysis and suggest that "nation" is a meaningful concept from the viewpoint of that analysis, since they satisfy all of our criteria (the five postulates in the previous section) (Akaliyski et al, 2021;, much less is known about the properties of any sub-national elements as potential units of cross-cultural analysis. Kara et al (2021) reviewed the existing literature and concluded that studies that analyze all administrative regions of a country tend to find that cultural differences between them are smaller than those between countries. Those authors tabulated and summarized 43 studies that analyze differences between regions in and between countries.…”

Section: In-country Regions As Cultural Units: Do They Satisfy the Em...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Concept and Goal Of The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Is “regional culture” a meaningful concept? Cultural differences across 60 Russian regions

Minkov

Соколов

Ponarin

et al. 2023

CCSM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeThere is an increasing interest in the international management literature in cultural differences between in-country regions. Yet, the regions of any country may be merely political products and not necessarily cultural units. The goal of this article is to propose clear empirical criteria for deciding if a set of entities, such as a country's administrative regions, can be legitimate units of cross-cultural analysis and to test these criteria in an empirical study.Design/methodology/approachThe authors review the literature on what constitutes a unit of cross-cultural analysis and propose empirical criteria. For instance, the regions of a given country are meaningful units of cross-cultural analysis if one can replicate (an) established dimension(s) of culture at the regional level, including some of the dimension(s)' antecedents and predictive properties. The authors apply this test in the context of the Russian Federation (RF), using an RF database (18,768 respondents from 60 administrative regions) with items borrowed from the World Values Survey.FindingsThe RF regions pass the authors’ test. At the regional level, the selected items yield an individualism-collectivism (IDV-COLL) dimension that is similar to its nation-level counterpart in the revised Minkov-Hofstede model in terms of concept and antecedents (wealth differences and geographic latitude) and outcomes that are relevant in business (innovation rates and quality of governance). The authors also find other patterns that confirm the properties of RF regions as meaningful units of cultural analysis.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors’ criteria and the test based on them are suitable for large countries, with significant geo-climatic variety and ethnic diversity, but may be inapplicable in small countries with less diversity. It is questionable if the latter countries contain enough cultural variation to justify a cross-cultural analysis of their sub-national regions.Practical implicationsThe authors’ criteria can be used in future research in any large country to decide if its regions justify a cross-cultural analysis in the field of management and business or any other field.Social implicationsCultural differences within a country are important as they may inform political and management decisions. Yet, to demonstrate that those differences are real, and not imaginary, one needs a methodology like the authors’.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the discussion of the meaningfulness of in-country regions as cultural units for cross-cultural analysis in international business by focusing on the RF.

show abstract

Section: Concept and Goal Of The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Concept and Goal Of The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ccsm 303mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: In-country Regions As Cultural Units: Do They Satisfy the Em...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Concept and Goal Of The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Is “regional culture” a meaningful concept? Cultural differences across 60 Russian regions

Minkov

Соколов

Ponarin

et al. 2023

CCSM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

What we inherit and what we create. Making the case for an interpretive approach to societal cultures

Chevrier

2024

Int'l Jnl of Cross Cultural Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To deal with the omnipresence of otherness in today’s culturally-complex world, Cross-Cultural Management (CCM) investigates the interrelations between culture and management. The most recent research denaturalizes culture to emphasize the construction of otherness as an instrument of power plays. Thus, it refutes the very possibility of vast national cultures, given the cultural diversity found in modern societies. This conceptual article revisits the notion of culture and provides a definition that makes it possible to grasp both what is inherited and what is created in ‘otherness’. It draws upon an interpretive approach to culture which, although still overlooked in English-language research on CCM, has for several decades been developed in France. The socalled Gestion & Société approach posits that the root causes of otherness lie in the diversity of culturally-shared major fears and ideal ways of living together to counteract them. This approach breaks new ground by emphasizing the inherited cultural references underlying the individuals’ sense-making and by acknowledging the individual agency of the stakeholders who use these references to create new intercultural arrangements in cross-cultural encounters at work. A language metaphor is used to show how the inherited part of culture and the part that is created are articulated. Examples of empirical findings illustrate the benefits of this approach to overcome the critical effects of otherness. The value of its contribution to the understanding of otherness is assessed in comparison with other interpretive approaches, and avenues for future research are discussed.

show abstract

Seeking and explaining culturally meaningful within-country regions: A functional, institutional and critical event analysis

Cited by 2 publications

References 82 publications

Is “regional culture” a meaningful concept? Cultural differences across 60 Russian regions

Is “regional culture” a meaningful concept? Cultural differences across 60 Russian regions

What we inherit and what we create. Making the case for an interpretive approach to societal cultures

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About