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The purpose of this paper is to gain some insights from a leading scholar of the cross-cultural cognitive social psychology field on how cultural differences are viewed, understood, and dealt with, and thus to contribute to enrich the way cultural differences are framed in cross-cultural management research.

The author conducts a formal, semi-structured interview with Richard Nisbett for a duration of 90 minutes. The author extracts the key message from the interview and re-structures the conversation in a meaningful manner.

From his cognitive social psychology lens, Richard Nisbett views that any cross-cultural contact between different thinking styles is advantageous because differences help address the limitations of one’s own thinking style.

The insights from cross-cultural cognitive social psychology encourage cross-cultural management researchers to further investigate the positive consequences of cultural differences.

Richard Nisbett’s own journey from a young scientist who describes himself as an extreme universalist, to a mature intellectual who understands and appreciates different thinking style, is itself a concrete example of how differences can lead to the positive. The author summarizes three factors that are key to a positive outcome of cultural differences: curiosity and openness to cultural differences; habit of critical thinking; and intense interaction with culturally different others.

This study examines the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) capabilities on corporate association and, consequently, customer orientation and price premium, which are key to competitive advantage.

This study adapts survey instrument targeting employees of a Korean firm. A total of 168 usable questionnaires were collected from seven Korean firms that were conducting CSR and public relations (PR) activities.

CSR and PR capability induce positive CSR and corporate ability (CA) associations, which improve customer orientation and increase price premium. The results of our empirical study indicate that a company should consider both CSR and PR capabilities to enhance its employees’ positive attitude to its CSR activities and CA association.

This study has undertaken a holistic examination of important role of CSR and PR capability and their outcomes, namely customer orientation and price premium.

Understanding of CSR capabilities in terms of competitive advantage is imperative to the establishment of strategic CSR initiatives. This study attempts to answer whether corporate capabilities for social responsiveness improve a company’s competitive advantage.

Utilizing a paradox perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the leadership-followership dynamic in foreign firms in China, specifically, the extent to which Yin-Yang leadership behaviors of Japanese expatriates and cosmopolitanism of Chinese employees influence employee commitment.

Data were collected through an online survey of Chinese employees who directly report to a Japanese supervisor in a Japanese subsidiary in China. Based on responses from 97 Chinese employees in three Japanese subsidiaries in China, the authors test if their cosmopolitan orientation and perceived Yin-Yang leadership behaviors of Japanese supervisors are related to employee commitment.

Yin-Yang leadership and cosmopolitan followership have a positive effect on employee commitment. Further, cosmopolitanism moderates the link between Yin-Yang leadership and employee commitment such that the follower’s cosmopolitanism compensates for lower levels of Yin-Yang leadership, especially a relative lack of Yin leadership behaviors.

Results suggest that Yin-Yang leadership and cosmopolitan followership work together as a two-way street of cultural adaptability to build employee commitment, highlighting the interplay between leadership and followership in multinational enterprises. Future research should attempt to further refine the Yin-Yang leadership construct, and to gain a larger sample representing multiple expatriate nationalities to corroborate the relationships found in this study.

The study applies a context-based approach to developing culturally relevant leadership, through analyzing both the emic and etic concepts of culture in China. In doing so, the authors extend the application of paradox theories to the cross-cultural leadership literature utilizing the Yin-Yang principle, which is particularly relevant in societal contexts where rapid and dramatic change brings to the fore competing values, needs and employee preferences.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage scholars to look at commonly considered phenomena in international business and cross-cultural research in new ways and to theorize and explore how cultural diversity, distance, and foreignness create value for global organizations. These considerations should result in a more balanced treatment of culture in cross-cultural management (CCM) research.

The idea that there are negative consequences associated with cultural differences is pervasive in hypotheses formulation and empirical testing in international business and CCM literature, as reflected in widely used constructs such as “cultural distance,” “cultural misfit,” “foreignness,” and related concepts. Consistent with a Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) perspective on culture and cultural differences, the authors emphasize the positive role of distance and diversity across national, cultural, institutional, and organizational dimensions. In addition, they provide an overview of the contributions to the special issue.

Examining the positive side of culture is not only beneficial theoretically in terms of filling the existing gaps in the literature, but is also crucial for the practice of international and global business. Accordingly, the contributions to the special issue highlight how explicitly considering positive phenomena can help better understand when and how cultural diversity, distance, and foreignness can enhance organizational effectiveness and performance at multiple levels. They include five research papers, a Distinguished Scholar Essay by Kim Cameron, the Founder of the POS movement, and an interview piece with Richard Nisbett, a Pioneer Researcher in culture and cognition.

The overemphasis on adverse outcomes associated with cultural differences in existing research has hindered the understanding of the processes and conditions that help organizations leverage the benefits of cultural differences in a wide range of contexts. This introductory paper together with the contributions included in the special issue showcases the positive dynamics and outcomes associated with cultural differences, distance, and diversity in a wide range of international business contexts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether a societal context of ethnic conflict influences employee innovation behavior in the work domain and whether a collaborative conflict management style adopted by supervisors plays a moderating role.

Drawing on the conflict, organizational behavior and innovation literature, the study examines the main and interaction effects of employee sensitivity to ethnic conflict, organizational frustration and collaborative conflict management style of supervisors on employee engagement with colleagues to innovate products, services and job processes. Hypotheses are tested using hierarchical regression analysis, controlling for ethnic diversity in workgroups.

Employee innovation behavior is greatest when employee sensitivity to ethnic conflict is high, organizational frustration is low and when supervisors are perceived to be highly collaborative in managing conflict, regardless of whether the workgroup is ethnically homogenous or diverse.

The study findings expand our knowledge of the effects of sociopolitical conflict on employee behavior and the role of collaborative conflict management. Future research can address limitations including self-reports, cross-sectional design and single country setting.

The findings of this study suggest that employee innovation behavior can be enhanced through developing collaborative conflict management skills of those in leadership positions.

This is the first study to empirically examine the influence of ethnic conflict on employee innovation behavior and is of value to businesses operating in conflict settings.

With the steady increase in the number of female expatriates and multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) pressing need for global female talent, understanding the factors that attract and retain female expatriates is urgent. Drawing from the literatures on gender differences in (domestic) labor turnover and gender differences in social networks, the purpose of this paper is to investigate gender differences in expatriates’ turnover intentions.

The authors collected data via a questionnaire survey from an international sample of female (n=164) and male (n=1,509) expatriates who were on a company-sponsored international assignment at the time of completing the survey.

The findings show that female expatriates’ turnover intentions are mainly explained by satisfaction with company support. In contrast, male expatriates’ turnover intentions are explained by repatriation concerns and perceived gap between within- and outside-company career-advancement opportunities, in addition to satisfaction with company support. The authors did not find any gender differences in the levels of turnover intention per se.

Since males dominate the expatriate cadre of most companies, existing expatriate retention strategies are likely to be geared toward males. Companies that value and want to retain their female talent need to gain a better understanding of what matters to female expatriates in their decisions to stay or leave the company, and adjust their expatriation and repatriation management strategies accordingly.

The study is one of the first to empirically test the gender differences in expatriate turnover intentions. The authors propose two underlying mechanisms that explain gender differences in expatriate turnover intentions: social integration and career advancement. The findings point to an important new research frontier that focuses on gender differences in the underlying mechanisms of turnover intentions rather than in the level of turnover intentions.

Work from home has become as regular as the traditional commuting system after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies have discussed the influence of working at home on the work–family interface. However, there is limited understanding of how diverse workforces manage their work–family issues with various family-friendly policies. This study aims to bridge this research gap by examining the collective influence of work conditions and family-friendly policies on work–family balance.

A survey experiment featuring two working conditions (work from home or commuting) × four family-friendly policies (household subsidy, family-friendly supervisor, financial profit, paid leave vs no policy) was approached based on 703 valid responses in China.

The results indicate that family-friendly policies are more effective under the work-from-home condition than the commuting condition, household subsidies and financial profits are considered more helpful for work–family balance under the work-from-home condition and employees’ policy preferences depend on personal identity and work conditions, which help them maintain work and family issues concurrently.

This study explores the joint impact of work conditions and family-friendly policies from a situational perspective. This study indicated that professional organizations need to perform delicacy management considering policy preferences. Moreover, changing working arrangements help employees facilitate their work–family balance.

Graduates of cross-cultural management (CCM) courses should be capable of both tackling international and cross-cultural situations and creating positive value from the diversity inherent in these situations. Such value creation is challenging because these situations are typically complex due to differences in cultural values, traditions, social practices, and institutions, such as legal rules, coupled with variation in, for example, wealth and civil rights among stakeholders. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors argue that a scientific mindfulness approach to teaching CCM can help students identify and leverage positive aspects of differences and thereby contribute to positive change in cross-cultural situations.

Scientific mindfulness combines mindfulness and scientific thinking with the explicit goal to drive positive change in the world.

The authors explain how the action principles of scientific mindfulness enable learners to build positive value from cultural diversity. The authors then describe how to enact these principles in the context of CCM education.

This study aims to test negotiation outcomes when bilinguals negotiate in a foreign rather than their native language. Decision research on the foreign language effect indicates that bilingual individuals may be less susceptible to framing bias when using a foreign language because they make less emotional and biased choices. With increasing international business activity, there is a pressing need to examine the effect of language on bilingual negotiators.

The authors tested the hypotheses using a two (task frame: gain vs loss) × 2 (language: foreign vs native) factorial design recruiting 246 Korean–English bilinguals. A negotiation simulation with three issues was used, and participants exchanged offers with a preprogrammed computer they believed to be a real counterpart.

There was no significant interaction effect between framing and language on the offers made, but the framing effect was mitigated and nonsignificant for negotiators who used their foreign language. The interaction between framing and language conditions significantly affected negotiators’ positive emotions and satisfaction with the negotiation.

The uniqueness of this paper is related to its effort to investigate the effect of negotiation language on a negotiator’s decision-making. Considering globalization and the increasing prevalence of international negotiations, this paper has implications for researchers and practitioners.

This paper gives an overview of major issues in trust research, identifying common foundations and multiple constellations of organizational trust. In doing so, the paper also addresses important implications of theory development and empirical research. First, it provides a historical sketch of different approaches to understanding the phenomenon of trust, drawing upon various social science disciplines. Second, it discusses different levels of analysing trust in organizational settings. Third, it deals with important issues of operationalisation and measurement of organizational trust. Finally, it briefly summarises the contents of the five papers that follow this introductory paper in the special issue of JMP on “The micro‐foundations of organizational trust”.