A bibliometric study on culture research in international Business.
| Autor | Pinto, Claudia Frias |
Introduction
International business (IB) research seeks to understand firms' internationalization decisions. These decisions comprise location choices, foreign-entry modes, international strategies, organizational formats, international human-resource practices, among others. In fact, the domain of IB as a field of study is distinguishable from management of domestic large corporations because multinationals operate in a more complex international business environment than purely domestic firms. In fact, Ferreira, Li, Guisinger and Serra (2009) stated that IB is focused on understanding the environmental context in which firms operate. According to Boyacigiller and Adler (1997) "by definition, international business is contextual. International Business includes, specifically, the external international environment, in which firms conduct their businesses" (p. 398).
Culture is a core environmental dimension in IB studies. Ferreira et al. 's (2009) study of articles published in the Journal of International Business Studies over a span of thirty years noted that culture was the most often used environmental dimension. Tung and Verbeke (2010) argued that a measure cross-cultural research's impact is provided in the evidence that there were more than 54,000 citations of Hofstede's work as of June 2010. In fact, especially since the 1980s, several scholars started including national culture in their research, mostly using Hofstede's (1980) taxonomy.
Culture's importance is well established in the discipline but in this article we advance on existing studies to better understand the main streams of IB research that have incorporated culture and its ties to different phenomena and theories. Our methodological approach--based on a bibliometric study of 502 articles published in the top seven journals for IB research--permits deeper analyses than traditional literature reviews (Kirkman, Lowe, & Gibson, 2006; Leung, Baghat, Buchan, Erez, & Gibson, 2005; Minkov & Hofstede, 2011) and insights into past trends and evolution of the literature (Ferreira, 2011; Ramos-Rodriguez & Ruiz-Navarro, 2004).
In this study we gain a better understanding of the nature and evolution of extant IB culture-related research. The results point to noteworthy findings. First, and perhaps not surprising, is the central role of Hofstede's work on culture in IB studies, although there are alternative cultural taxonomies developed during the last two decades (see Taras, Rowney, & Steel, 2009, for a review). Second, we discovered that much of IB research dedicates attention to cultural distance, and not merely absolute dimensions of national culture. Third, we identified a substantial cluster of works pertaining to the conceptualization of culture and its components, and another cluster comprising works on cultural distance, both conceptual and applied to other IB phenomena. We also identify the importance of institutional and transaction cost arguments in these clusters.
This paper complements prior reviews, meta-analyses and bibliometric studies. For instance, some scholars have delved into examining the impact of Hofstede's (1980) research, how it has been incorporated (Kirkman et al., 2006), how Hofstede's doctrine has evolved over time (Minkov & Hofstede, 2011), and how Hofstede's work compares and contrasts alternative conceptualizations (Brewer & Venaik, 2011; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004; Javidan, House, Dorfman, Hanges, & Luque, 2006). Occasionally, this has meant examining the impact of specific cultural dimensions, such as individualism-collectivism (Earley & Gibson, 1998; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002; Triandis, 1995, 2004), that permitted only narrow implications and conclusions, or expanding to other cultural models (Brewer & Venaik, 2011). Or, as in Shenkar (2001, 2012) discussing how to better the conceptualization and measurement of cultural differences, and Taras, Rowney, and Steel's (2009) review of the extant instruments and measurements of culture. Other studies have either reviewed the entire IB discipline (Acedo & Casillas, 2005; Werner, 2002), noted the evolution and trends in intercultural research (Adler, 1983), or ignored the specific phenomena to which culture was applied, emphasizing only the cultural aspects and comparisons among cultures (Smith, Peterson, & Schwart, 2002). Yet others have examined culture in IB, such as Leung, Baghat, Buchan, Erez, and Gibson's (2005) conceptual piece on cultural convergence and divergence and proposals for future research, without assessing how it has been used. Hence, an analysis of even
recent works reveals little overlap between our study and other extant research, and our study adds value beyond previous reviews and related works, as we not only identify how culture has been integrated in IB studies, but we are also able to gain an integrative understanding involving culture. Moreover, at least to some extent, we overcome analysis that provides a fragmented perspective of Hofstede-inspired research.
This paper is organized in four sections. First, we briefly review what culture is, its dimensions or components, and its connections with international business. Second, we present the methods, including the procedures and sample. The third section includes the results. We then discuss the results and present limitations and future research avenues.
Literature Review
"The business of International Business is culture" (Hofstede, 1994, p. 1). Following Hofstede (1991), culture is "the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from another" (p. 21). Tihanyi, Griffith, and Russell (2005) defined culture as "the homogeneity of characteristics that separates one human group from another" (p. 271). Wit and Meyer (1998) noted national culture as a shared set of values, norms, beliefs and expectations. Hence, studying national cultures provides a profile of the characteristics of a society concerning norms, values and institutions, thus allowing for a better understanding of how societies manage interactions (Hofstede, 1980; Trompenaars, 1993). A different view on culture and its idiosyncrasies is put forth in Meyer, Boli, Thomas, and Ramirez (1997) arguing that, at least in many instances, there is a worldwide culture developing and cultures are not as isolated as Hofstede, and other scholars, espouse. In this vein, there are some isomorphic processes and pressures that may render a far more universalistic sharing of some values, norms and behaviors.
For multinational corporations (MNCs) with dispersed operations, understanding cultural differences and how they influence firms' operations is crucial. Thus, it is not surprising that national culture has a long tradition in IB research (Kirkman et al., 2006). Culture and cultural differences seem to permeate a broad set of firms' decisions and practices in IB, such as entrymode selection (Kogut & Singh, 1988; Morosini, Shane, & Singh, 1998), location (Erramilli, Agarwal, & Kim, 1997), MNC management and performance (Gomes-Mejia & Palich, 1997), joint-venture performance (Pothukuchi, Damanpou, Choi, Chen, & Park, 2002), knowledge transfer between subsidiaries (Sarala & Vaara, 2010), governance (Kang & Kim, 2010), and ethics (Ralston et al., 2009), among others.
Thus, understanding the nature and influence of national culture and how cultures differ is central to IB research (Ferreira, Li, Guisinger, & Serra, 2009). In a literature review, Griffith, Cavusgil, and Xu (2008) identified culture, conflicts and cognition--including the influence of national culture in research into strategic management and firms--among the eight themes researched the most in IB studies. For firms, there are substantial potential hazards and additional managerial and transactional costs of interacting and operating in unknown foreign environments (Anderson & Gatignon, 1986; Zaheer, 1995). These may entail, for instance, the transactional difficulties in sharing knowledge across borders (Kogut & Zander, 1993) and the choice of which entry modes to adopt (Shenkar, 2001).
Cultural taxonomies
One of the most notable contributions to understanding what a culture entails and to including culture in conceptual and empirical IB research was that of Geert Hofstede. In his 1980 book on Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values, Hofstede proposed that we examine four cultural dimensions to characterize a country. In later works, Hofstede and Bond (1988) added a fifth dimension--Confucian dynamism--and in 2010, a sixth dimension--indulgence vs. retention.
Other scholars have studied national cultures and advanced alternative, albeit often complementary, taxonomies that help explaining cultural differences between peoples and countries. Edward Hall (1976) stood out for his emphasis on communication differences between cultures. Schwartz (1994) identified seven cultural dimensions of values that included conservatism, intellectual autonomy, affective autonomy, hierarchy, egalitarian commitment, harmony and mastery. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1998) work Riding the waves of culture presented a set of seven cultural dimensions. These referred to relationships with other people, attitude towards time (past, present and future) and attitudes towards the environment. More recently, House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2004) and Gupta and House (2004) described the GLOBE project Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness, aiming to "describe, understand and predict the impact of specific cultural variables in leadership and organizational processes" (House et al., 1999, p. 492).
Some cultural research has been used to guide the theory and practice of management in IB (Scholtens & Dam, 2007; Tihanyi, Griffith, & Russell, 2005) and especially research. Rubera, Ordanini, and Griffith (2011) used Schwartz's cultural dimensions to empirically...
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