The Consequences of Culture in International Business: A Long Overdue Commentary

Abstract

It has been observed that “culture”―note the inverted commas―”is said to be one of the two or three most complex words in the English language” (Eagleton, 2000: 1). Despite Raymond Williams’ admonishment―“culture is ordinary” (Williams, 1958; see also Williams 1976, 1981)―over the years the general international business (IB) literature has been awash with definitions of this troublesome term. The dominant one in the general management literature is that of the Dutch scholar, Geert Hofstede, which by now must be as famous for its lasting power as for its content. In this contribution I am going to overwhelmingly confine the discussion about the influence of Hofstede to the academic discipline of cross-cultural management, which we might term the specialist sub-division of IB for leading―let us hope―the latest thinking about culture in the context of international business endeavour.1