| 1. |
- Moulettes, Agneta, et al.
(författare)
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Cultural (In)Sensitivity in International Management Textbooks: A Postcolonial Reading
- 2009
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Ingår i: [Host publication title missing].
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this paper is to analyze, with a broadly postcolonial sensibility, the discourses on culture found in some of the international management books that: 1) especially claim to emphasize the cultural factor, and 2) claim to be ‘international’, supposedly appropriate for reading in all parts of the globe. We intend to show that very similar discursive patterns characterize the conceptualizations of culture found in these books. We especially emphasize three striking features, present in all five textbooks, which reveal how managers are meant to get to see the world once disciplined by these powerful discourses on culture: - a unanimous call for ‘cultural sensitivity’, which is presented as a skill that should be found in international managers – but has insidious implications - a general tendency to essentialize national cultures, presenting them as static and homogeneous - a way of addressing a managerialistic purpose through a reductionism that subjugates culture to the needs of successful business We contend that the claimed book audiences - ‘international’ or even ‘global’ - are constructed upon the legacy of a colonial thinking in the sense that the knowledge is meant to be propagated through a one-way communication from the Western, mostly Anglo-Saxon, world (through standardized MBA education) to a rest of the world that is considered as economically and culturally peripheral. We conclude that the books contribute to producing both a guilt-free Western subjectivity and a collective cultural responsibility on the part of the people from so-called ‘developing countries’.
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| 2. |
- Moulettes, Agneta, et al.
(författare)
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Development and Modernity in Hofstede's Culture's Consequences: A Postcolonial Reading
- 2006
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Along with an increasingly globalized business environment and a strongly held corporate belief that the world can be rationally managed, the last two decades have witnessed a growing demand for normative models dealing with cross-cultural management issues. This trend has allowed cross-cultural management to establish itself as a significant research field, with much of the initial inspiration coming from Hofstede and his cultural model from 1980. In this paper, our intention is not to merely repeat the already formulated objections to the latter model concerning its ontology, epistemology and methodology, but rather to focus on the very words of Hofstede himself in his second edition of Culture’s Consequences (2001), which he wrote partly in order to address the criticisms that his work received in the previous twenty years and to demonstrate that his findings are still valid. Our main aim here will be to explore how the discourse generated by Hofstede through his model and his comments on his results constructs the world by dividing it especially according to dichotomies of 'development'/'underdevelopment' and 'modernity'/'tradition'.
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| 3. |
- Moulettes, Agneta, et al.
(författare)
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Development and Modernity in Hofstede's Culture's Consequences: A Postcolonial Reading
- 2007
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Ingår i: Journal of Multicultural Discourses. ; 2:1, s. 1-19
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper studies the discourse deployed in Hofstede´s Culture's Consequences (1980, 2001), the international best-seller that introduces a model classifying national cultures according to four (later five) supposedly universal dimensions. Noting that this management-oriented scholarly discourse has had a huge impact in both the business world and academia, we take a critical stance towards the Western-based, ethnocentric perspective that characterises it. Our aim is not to merely repeat the already formulated objections to the model, concerning its ontology, epistemology and methodology, but rather to focus on the very words of Hofstede himself in his second edition of Culture's Consequences (2001). With a broadly postcolonial sensibility, drawing on authors such as Said and Escobar, we contend that Hofstede discursively constructs a world characterised by a division between a 'developed and modern' side (mostly 'Anglo-Germanic' countries) and a 'traditional and backward' side (the rest) and discuss the cultural consequences of such colonial discourse.
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| 4. |
- Moulettes, Agneta
(författare)
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The absence of women’s voices in Hofstede’s Cultural Consequences: A Postcolonial Reading
- 2007
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Ingår i: Women in Management Review. - 0964-9425. ; 22:6, s. 443-455
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Embedded in the Western scientific rationality Hofstede’s methodological approach is constructed on a quantitative method characterized by a carefully selected sample of well educated white ‘men’ from the middle classes working for the same company and sharing similar occupation. The appointment of these men as the norm for national culture might mislead one to believe that Hofstede perceive of culture as equally distributed among men and women. Considering that he has dedicated one of his five dimensions to gender and constructed his model on a bipolar distinction between Masculinity and Femininity this is clearly not the case. Instead it shows that he has a distinct understanding of the differences between masculinity and femininity which he uses for his construction of national cultures. This raises the following question; Is the absence of women’s own voices in Hofstede’s theory reducing them to objects of patriarchy in order to maintain men’s power positions in the globalized economy? The aim of my paper is to discuss these and similar questions from a postcolonial angle.
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| 5. |
- Moulettes, Agneta
(författare)
-
The absence of women’s voices in Hofstede’s Cultural Consequences: A Postcolonial Reading
- 2007
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Along with the increasingly globalized business environment that we have witnessed over the past decades cross-culture management research has establish itself as an important research field with much of its inspiration coming from colonialism and a Western rational thinking. The legacy of colonialism and Western rationality is apparent in its engagement in research practices involving the essentialising, exoticing and appropriation of the other (cf. Said 1995, Prasad 2003, Westwood 2001) with the underlying assumption that cultural models could serve as competitive devices in the conquest of the global market. It is my contention that current cross-cultural management studies, with Hofstede (1980, 2001) as one of its front figures, is founded on a colonial discourse that gives prominence to the universal at the sacrifice of alternative conceptualizations of social life. Hence, embedded in the Western scientific rationality Hofstede’s methodological approach is constructed on a quantitative method which among other things is characterized by its carefully selected sample consisting of a group of well educated white ‘men’ from the middle classes working for the same company and sharing identical or similar occupations. The appointment of well educated men from the middle classes as the norm for national culture might mislead one to believe that Hofstede perceives of culture as equally distributed among men and women and that there are no differences in regard to the possession of power. However, considering that he has dedicated one of his five dimensions to gender and constructed his model on a bipolar distinction between Masculinity and Femininity this is clearly not the case. On the contrary his Masculinity/Femininity dimension (MAS) shows that he has a very clear and distinct understanding of the differences between masculinity and femininity which he takes advantage of for his construction of national cultures. For example, Hofstede argues that statistically men as a rule will be more achievement oriented while women as a rule will be more care-oriented.
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| 6. |
- Moulettes, Agneta
(författare)
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The discursive construction, reproduction and continuance of national cultures: A critical study of the cross-cultural management discourse
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Considering that businesses, whether they operate on a global or a domestic market, are affected by globalization, cross-cultural management is without doubt an urgent topic in current management and education. However, despite this urgency and the commendable intention behind the endeavour to enhance people’s cultural knowledge, current models on national cultures are problematic since they rely on simplistic ideas and crude stereotypes which perpetrate prejudice representations of self and others. This is problematic because these models are presented as ‘true’ portrayals of national culture rather than constructed representations. It is problematic also because it continues to hold the power to shape the perception of self and others by disseminating cultural representations based on neocolonial structures. Informed by postcolonial ideas and using critical discourse analysis, the aim of this thesis is to critically investigate the way the concept of national culture has been constructed by cross-cultural management scholars and the way it is treated by international textbooks authors. It further aims at investigating how the notion of national culture is rhetorically and discursively used by organizational members in mundane conversations. Instead of contributing to the critique that already has been raised towards current cross-cultural models or trying to refine these models by adding yet another quantitative study, the intention here is rather to critically investigate the underlying causes that made the reproduction of cultural stereotypes and the construction of cultural hierarchies between nations possible. Hence, the thesis includes four independent but interrelated chapters that can best be described as qualitative studies, which are seeking to understand how national cultures have been constructed, disseminated, and reproduced through discourse.
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