This book is a collection of 16 empirical cases in critical Cross-Cultural Management (CCM). All cases approach culture in CCM beyond national cultures, and all examine power as an integrative part of any cross-cultural situation. The cases also consider diversity in the sense of culturally or historically learned categorizations of difference (such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion and class), and acknowledge how diversity categories might differ across cultures. Furthermore, each case suggests a specific method or concept for improving upon the situation. Out of this approach, novel insights emerge: we can see how culture, power and diversity categories are inseparable, and we can understand how exactly this is the case. The uses and benefits of this book are thus both conceptual and methodological; they emerge at the intersections of Critical CCM and diversity studies. All cases also discuss implications for practitioners and are suitable for teaching.
Mainstream CCM often limits itself to comparative models or cultural dimensions. This approach is widely critiqued for its simplicity but is equally used for the exact same reason. Often, academics teach this approach whilst cautioning students against implementing it, and this might be simply due to a lack of alternatives. Through means of rich empirical cases, this book offers such an alternative.
Considering the intersections of culture, diversity and power enables students, researchers and practitioners alike to see ‘more’ or ‘different’ things in the situation, and then come up with novel approaches and solutions that do justice to the realities of culture and diversity in today’s (and the future's) management and organizations. The chapters of this book thus offer concepts and methods to approach cross-cultural situations: the conceptual gain lies in bringing together CCM and (critical) diversity studies in an easily accessible manner. As a methodological contribution, the cases in this book offer the concise tools and methods for implementing an intersectional approach to culture.
List of Contributors Preface Introduction Chapter 1 The paradoxical consequences of ‘the perfect accent’! A critical approach to cross-cultural interactions Jane Kassis-Henderson and Linda Cohen Chapter 2 Race and privilege in CCM: A cross-cultural life-story Simon Cedrick Nunka Dikuba and Jasmin Mahadevan Chapter 3 From Impossibility to Visibility: An intersectional approach to LGBT Muslims and its benefits for CCM Momin Rahman and Sébastien Chehaitly Chapter 4 Corporate Christmas: Sacred or profane? The case of a Hungarian subsidiary of a Western MNC Anna Laura Hidegh and Henriett Primecz Chapter 5 Wasta in Jordanian banking: An emic approach to a culture-specific concept of social networking and its power-implications Sa’ad Ali and David Weir Chapter 6 Selling cultural difference: The position and power of cross-cultural consultants François Goxe Chapter 7 Configurations of power and cultural explanations: The Case of a Chinese-Pakistani mining project Qahraman Kakar and Jasmin Mahadevan Chapter 8 Cultural rhetoric in onshore/offshore project work: How Swedish IT consultants talk about ‘the Indian team’ and what this means in terms of power Helena Fornstedt Chapter 9 Lived ethnicity: Two ‘Turkish’ women in Germany Jasmin Mahadevan, Esra Cetinkaya and Dilara Özer Chapter 10 Familiar strangers: Two ‘Turkish’ employees in a Danish SME Heidrun Knorr Chapter 11 The ethnicization of identity Chidozie Umeh Chapter 12 Unequal integration: Skilled migrants’ conditional inclusion along the lines of Swedishness, class and ethnicity Elin Hunger, Miguel Morillas, Laurence Romani and Mohammed Mohsen Chapter 13 Gender initiatives between support and denial: A cross-cultural study of two automotive companies in Germany and France Mounia Utzeri, Beáta Nagy and Iuliana Ancuţa Ilie Chapter 14 Global North and Global South: Frameworks of power in an international development project Hamid Foroughi Chapter 15 Exploring outsider/insider dynamics and intersectionalities: Perspectives and reflections from management researchers in sub-Saharan Africa Emanuela Girei and Loice Natukunda Chapter 16 How and why an academic expert legitimatized social marginalization: The case of making and shaping a corporate language policy Anders Klitmøller Index
Jasmin Mahadevan is Professor of International and Cross-Cultural Management at Pforzheim University, Germany. She is interested in studying culturally complex contexts by means of various approaches. Henriett Primecz is an Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest. Her research interest is cross-cultural management, gender and diversity and organizational theory. Laurence Romani is Associate Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Her work focuses on issues of representation and interaction with the cultural Other in respectful and enriching ways.
