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Different forms of inter-organisational encounters, including joint ventures, alliances, mergers and acquisitions, have over the last decades become fashionable and much-sought means of globalisation. A continuous concern shared by managers involved in these different forms of inter-organisational encounters is the challenge of making them work in practice – their successful implementation and management. The cultural dimensions of these different kinds of inter-organisational encounters, particularly in cross-border contexts, have been deplored as being particularly difficult. This paper builds on prior research and aims to understand how the cultural dimensions of inter-organisational encounters have been approached by researchers on mergers and acquisitions on the one hand and researchers on alliances and joint ventures on the other hand. Based on a comparative literature review, the findings suggest that the two fields, despite their valuable contributions and the similarities in the phenomena they study, have remained surprisingly isolated from one another and would offer opportunities for cross-fertilisation. Through its theoretical contribution, the paper intends to offer insights to researchers in both streams of research.

Prior reports on theory and research focusing on describing and explaining national cultural influences on purchase and consumption behavior use a net effects approach (i.e., theory and analysis relying on main and interaction effects via statistical analysis). Theory and research in this chapter advances qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of a configuration perspective of culture's consequences on consumption behavior. This research informs the view that national cultures represent causal recipes (conjunctions) of cultural values; the study of main and interaction effects offer meager representations of national culture's consequences in comparison to adopting a cultural configuration stance. The configuration research here includes transforming Hofstede's country cultural scores into fuzzy set values and applying Boolean algebra to estimate the relevancy of alternative cultural configurations for each of 14 nations to consuming experiences during visits to Australia. The findings support primary and additional hypotheses that specific cultural configurations are sufficient (but not necessary) for describing substantial culture's consequences on consuming tourism experiences. For example, the animus (i.e., Carl Jung's unconscious masculine personality-force) configuration — the combination of high power (P), high individualism (I), high masculine (M), and low uncertainty avoidance (∼U) (i.e., P·I·M·∼U) — is sufficient in indicating not-shopping-for-gifts while visiting Australia. Western national cultures (e.g., United States) have higher fuzzy set scores than Eastern national cultures (e.g., Japan) for the animus configuration.

It is generally recognized that multinational enterprises must take into account country differences in deciding the degree to which it makes sense to localize their human resource management (HRM) strategies and organization cultures to fit with the host country or rather standardize HRM strategies and organization cultures across countries. However, an important vein of academic work assumes that country differences, especially in national culture, are so important that management is “culturally dependent” (Hofstede, 1983) and that “national culture constrains variation in organization cultures” (Johns, 2006). I critically evaluate the logical and empirical evidence (including methodological issues regarding effect size) used to support such constraint arguments and conclude that the evidence is much weaker than widely believed. One implication then is that organizations may be less constrained by national culture differences in managing workforces in different countries than is often claimed. A second implication is that researchers may wish to re-think how they study such issues. I provide suggestions for future research.

This chapter aims to make sense of the growing research that examines the role of culture in mergers and acquisitions. We provide a detailed review of the many related but distinct constructs that have been introduced to the literature. While each construct has contributed to our understanding of the role of culture, the lack of connections made among constructs has limited the consolidation of contributions. The review shows what these constructs mean for mergers and acquisitions, what major findings have been discovered, and, most importantly, how constructs interrelate. Our discussion provides several opportunities to foster the needed consolidation of this research.

A model focusing on the role of the individual in national and corporate culture clash situations, during post-merger integration, is presented. The theory of psychological contract is adapted to explain different individual expectations in domestic versus international mergers and acquisitions (M&As). It is proposed that expectations on the part of both parties to the merger can act to moderate the effects of culture clash in M&As on acquired management attitudes and behavior, and thereby influence post-merger turnover and integration success. Thus, the model explains the inconsistencies of empirical findings about the different effects of national versus corporate cultural differences on M&A performance. The implications of these ideas for research and practice are discussed.

This paper discusses national differences in the interpretation of time in mixed motive decision contexts, such as negotiation. Specifically, we consider how members of different national cultures (Portugal, Turkey, and the United States) experience temporality in these situations. We argue that cultural temporality such as polychronicity, future orientation, and uncertainty avoidance form part of a broader national environment. The national environment is also expressed in national stability factors such as legal systems, family ties, and homogeneity of populations. We propose that temporality and stability aspects of national environment determine negotiation paradigms, which subsequently influence temporality in negotiations. We conclude by suggesting that inclusion of complex and interdependent national environment factors in the study of negotiation has the potential to substantially advance our understanding of mixed motive decision situations.

On a global scale, leadership takes place within a complex environment that is molded both by national culture and organizational culture influences. This chapter explores leader-culture (L-C) fit in this global context. Drawing together distinct perspectives on national culture and organizational culture, we identify potential contingencies of L-C fit across these levels. In addition to identifying key gaps and areas for future exploration, we also discuss the practical uses of fit when selecting and developing leaders. Overall, we argue that researchers and practitioners could benefit from an expanded perspective on cultural fit to simultaneously address aspects of national and organizational culture.

This chapter shows how to construct and test case-based macro models. The chapter makes use of national data to examine influences on quality-of-life of national cultures as complex wholes and entrepreneurship activities in Brazil, Russia, India, China, Germany, and the United States (the six focal nations) plus Denmark (a small-size, economically developed, nation). The study tests McClelland’s (1961) and more recent scholars’ proposition that some cultural configurations nurture entrepreneur startups, while other cultures are biased toward thwarting startups. The study applies complexity theory to develop and empirically test a general theory of cultures’, entrepreneurship’s, and innovation’s impact on quality-of-life across nations. Because culture represents a complex whole of attitudes, beliefs, values, and behavior, the study applies a set-theoretic approach to theory development and testing of alternative cultural configurations. Each of 28 economical developed and developing nations is scored for the level of the national cultures for each of six focal countries. The study selected for the study enables multi-way comparisons of culture-entrepreneurship-innovation-QOL among large- and small-sized developing and developed nations. The findings graphically present the complex national cultural configuration (x-axis) with entrepreneur nurture/thwart (y-axis) of the 28 nations compared to the six focal nations. The findings also include recognizing national cultures (e.g., Switzerland, the United States) nurturing entrepreneurial behavior versus other national cultures (e.g., Brazil and India) thwarting entrepreneurial behavior. The study concludes with a call to recognize the implicit shift in culturally implicit thinking and behavior necessary for advancing national platforms designed to successfully nurture entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur strategy implications include the observation that actions nurturing firm start-ups by nations low in entrepreneurship will unlikely to be successful without reducing such nations’ high levels of corruption.

The purpose of this cross-cultural study was to investigate whether the embraced national culture was a distinguishing factor of preferred downward influence tactics and targeted goals by principals of different countries. The participants of the study were the public school principals in Turkey and the United States, two culturally distinct countries. The conceptual framework for the study incorporated the Cultural Dimensions (CDs) of Hofstede and the Profiles of Organizational Influence Strategies (POIS) of Kipnis and Schmidt; two pioneers in their respective fields. The findings of the study supported Hofstede's framework for three of the four dimensions for both countries. By employing a pseudoetic cross-cultural research methodology and a relational causal-comparative research design, the study first tested the reliability and construct validity of POIS (Form S) influence tactics scale, both in the Turkish context and in the public education contexts of the two countries. The findings partially supported the applicability of POIS in both countries by yielding a three-factor model for the Turkish context and a four-factor model for the public education context. The multivariate analyses strongly supported literature in regards to the culture-specific nature of leadership influence practices, and it identified national culture as a significantly distinguishing factor of both Turkish and American principals in their preferred influence tactics. Similarly, national culture was also a significantly distinguishing factor of groups in principals' targeted educational goals.