FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF PARANA – BRAZILGRADUATE PROGRAM IN ADMINISTRATION

Luciano Minghini, MsDoctoring StudentFederal University of Parana StateE-mail: lminghini@ufpr.br

Zandra Balbinot, Ph.DIB and Innovation Professor and ResearcherFederal University of Parana StateE-mail: zbalbinot@hotmail.com

WHY CROSS-CULTURE AND NOT CROSS-PRACTICES?

1. INTRODUCTIONInternational business studies concerning the organization international performance,

differences and similarities between cultural values and management practices of different social groups have been revisited and discussed with increasing intensity since the middle of the 1990’s. This is due to the increased significance given to relationships between countries with more developed economies and the emerging markets of Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia (Kogut, 2002; Ricart, Enright, Ghemawat, Hart, & Khanna, 2004). An understanding of these convergent or divergent movements could help answer questions linked to organizational strategy and performance in international markets, or comparatively between different domestic markets (Chiao, Yu, Li, & Chen, 2008; Papadopoulos & Martín Martín, 2010). Ralston (2008) commented that the countries considered emerging markets or undergoing political transformation, such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRIC countries) have attracted the attention of academics because they are constantly increasing their level of participation in global commerce and also exhibit high levels of conflict between their sociocultural elements and their business environments. Brazil, in particular, draws international academic interest as a area of research due to its immense geographic area, ethnic diversity, and regional subcultures (Hofstede, Hilal, Malvezzi, Tanure, & Vinken, 2010; Ralston, 2008). These factors, as well as societal habits inspire investigation to identify possible significant differences (Ghemawat, 2003) in comparisons studies with Brazilian companies or managers. Furthermore, Brazilian academia itself has a relevant history of research about local cultural values, their relation to managerial practices (Machado-da-Silva & Oliveira, 2001), and international relations after globalization effects (Chu & Wood, 2008).

Even though cross-culture and international business (IB) scholars agree in many points of the relation between managerial values and practices findings, currently, the international academic debates about convergence, divergence and its relations with international business (IB) activities seems to be far from consensus. GLOBE comparative studies found a negative correlation between managerial cultural values and practices in seven of their nine cultural measurement dimensions, which increased some of the academic concerns over the different researches methods and results. Some of the academic contents are: what values measurement dimensions better apply to comparative studies, the validity of results that point to changes in managerial values and practices, the differences in results encountered between different levels of analysis, and consequently, the effectiveness of the research methodology and instruments used in each research (Taras, Steel, & Kirkman, 2010; Tung & Verbeke, 2010). Beside these recent debates, Leung, Bhagat, Buchan, Erez, & Gibson (2005) review shows us that the culture variable in cross-cultural researches still needs improvements. The authors also pointed out that the concerns of IB comparative researches interest is on the managerial and organizational practices in international operations. If, on one hand, these debates and reviews alerts us about the risks of cross-culture research methods, on another hand, they offer us an opportunity to contribute with new theoretical and empirical proposes to IB cross-country comparative researches.

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Throughout two years reviewing academic research about managerial values and its influence over IB subjects to understand how Brazilian managers’ day-by-day practices could influence their organizations international operations, we found that local contextual values and the international business environment could both interfere in managerial practices (Chu & Wood, 2008; Machado-da-Silva & Oliveira, 2001; Ralston, Gustafson, Cheung, & Terpstra, 1993). It also helped understand that these practices are closely related to the organizations strategy processes (Balbinot, Bulgacov, & Bulgacov, 2009; Jarzabkwoski, 2010; Whittington, 2001) and that these practices are related to the degree of manager and/or organization’s internationalization (Papadopoulos & Martín Martín, 2010; Sullivan, 1994). All these reviews, debates and concerns brought us the following question: why IB research use cultural values in cross-country comparison and why not uses practices comparison methods?

Approximating the strategy as practice and crossvergence frameworks, GLOBE and Brazilian cultural characteristics findings, this paper do not aims to answer the question above but to propose a reflection about it by using a strategic practices perspective instead of managerial values and beliefs in cross-country comparison. The strategic practice perspective is proposed here to contribute to: a) the identification of differences, similarities and changes that are performance oriented; b) the reduction of ambiguities, subjectivities or oversimplification of complex constructs like culture and values; c) the simplification of data collection solutions avoiding misinterpretation in interviews and in data collection or analysis.

To do so, this study briefly reviews the academic literature concerning managerial values and practices as well as its divergence, convergence and crossvergence debates in IB studies. At the same time it tries to explain why GLOBE, Brazilian cultural characteristics and crossvergence findings could contribute to the paper propose. In the sequence it covers the conceptual proposals of strategy as practice and tries to explain why the strategic practices perspective could contribute to the actual IB comparative studies debate.

2. WHY WE CAME TO THIS PROPOSAL?We decided study theoretical and empirical works about the stems of managerial practices in

different countries trying to understand how local or global managerial practices could influence on Brazilian companies international activities and strategies. During two years reviewing books and international journals about cross-culture, convergence, divergence and crossvergence debates in international business (IB) academy, it was possible to observe that the research methods and findings are still looking for academic congruence and the issues about it broaden the academic debate of comparative studies in international business (IB) (Brewer & Venaik, 2010; Leung, et al., 2005; Taras, et al., 2010; Tung & Verbeke, 2010).

Beyond measuring the differences and movements in societal or individual values, the theoretical and empirical conclusions found about the influence of cultural values in managers’ decisions, behaviors, actions and interactions allow us acknowledge a strong relationship between individual or managerial values and their daily practices (Hofstede, 1991; Kanungo, 2006; Ralston, et al., 1993; Reynaud, et al., 2007). According to Gahan and Abeysekera (2009) the practical impact of cultural characteristics on managerial practices can unfold in two ways. First, cultural characteristics influence managerial behavior, which is something that happens naturally. In this way, the behavior reflects values from the local culture. The second effect is influence on managers’ perceptions of the world around them in the organization. This includes perceptions of both internal and external organizational environments. As Inglehart and Baker (2000), Ralston (2008) and Sarala and Vaara (2010) studied, these ways of influence of values over manager’s practices can be seen as movements that occurs throughout different countries and economies, and it is identified as a convergent – when different societal groups improve their economies and industries and adopt similar knowledge,

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technology and ideologies in their lives in comparison with other well developed groups (Ralston, et al., 1993; Webber, 1969); divergent – when local values resist to international business ideologies (Butt, Jaeger, & Kim, 2010; Ralston, et al., 1993); or even a crossvergent movement, understood as a unique mixture of local cultural values and global business ideologies (Ralston, 2008).

Leung et al. (2005, p. 358) great review pointed out five macro cultural concerns in IB researches: a) Whether standard business practices will emerge; b) How will business practices change over time; c) New concepts for understanding cultural differences in business practices; d) When to adopt standard business practices; e) Causal inferences about the effects of culture on standard business practices. What these five groups tell us is that at the end of the cultural understanding there are a predominant interest in the managerial practices of individual or organizations operating internationally, trying to capture similarities or important difference that could influence in the international operations performance of managers and organizations (Leung, et al., 2005).

Even at first sight there is some level of agreement about the relation between values and practices, currently, the international academy debates about values’ convergence, divergence and its relations with IB activities seems to be far from a consensus. GLOBE comparative studies found a negative correlation between managerial cultural values and practices in seven of their nine cultural measurement dimensions and Hofstede dimentions and research methods are being criticized (Javidan, House, Dorfman, Hanges, & Luque, 2006). Leung et al. (2005, p. 375) alert that “Culture is such a fuzzy concept that we need to probe it with all the tools we have at our disposal, and we look forward to the bloom of multi-method approaches for moving the field of international business research forward by leaps and bounds”. Recent debate proposed by Taras et al. (2010) have raised doubts as to whether the instruments can capture what the manager considers to be valuable in their life (i.e. Should company employees be invited to participate more in managerial decisions?; Would you like your superior to consult with your team before making decisions?) or in their work routine (i.e. Are you consulted by your superior before they make decisions?).

Our concerns about values and practices relations has increased as we compared the international studies with some important Brazilian scholars’ works about Brazilian cultural characteristics and their influence over Brazilian managers’ values and practices (Chu & Wood, 2008; Hilal, 2006; Hofstede, et al., 2010; Machado-da-Silva & Oliveira, 2001; Machado-da-Silva & Shimonishi, 2003; Motta, 1997). The predominant use of case studies, the importance given to the context and the local values historical stems could augment the differences pointed out by international academy. Despite all these concerns and debates on one hand, we also found some good initiatives to reduce academic divergences with different propositions of research perspectives and theoretical frameworks (Brewer & Venaik, 2010; Butt, et al., 2010; Dow & Feremcikova, 2010; Maseland & Hoorn, 2010; Sarala & Vaara, 2010). In such a way, we decided join the cross-country debates and contribute to it by approximating the framework of strategy as practice and proposing study the managerial values from the perspective of strategic practices. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is a reflection about the question that entitles this paper: why IB research use cultural values in cross-country comparison and why not focus on practices comparison methods (summarily: Why cross-culture and not cross-practice)?

Joining strategy as practice framework to this debate we believe we could contribute to direct IB comparative studies to a more daily, contextual, practical, and strategic activities of managers and companies (Leung, et al., 2005). In other words, we could try to focus on the practices that are actually related to the international operations objectives or performance (Carr & Pudelko, 2006; Jarzabkwoski, 2010; Tallman, 1991, 1992), avoiding epistemological conflicts between a quantitative research design and a qualitative, subjective and dynamic subject as culture and cultural aspects of a group (Eisenhardt, 1989; Merriam, 2009; C. Welch, Piekkari, Plakoyiannaki, & Paavilainen-

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Mäntymäki, 2011). The perspective presented here also intends to present a more contextualized level of analysis from an individual and societal level to an organizational and managerial level. Following, this paper presents the internationalization and cross-culture frameworks as the starting point to the relation between managerial values and practices.

3. WHY GLOBE, BRAZILIAN CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS, AND CROSSVERGENCE FINDINGS COULD CONTRIBUTE TO THIS PURPOSE?

Below there is a brief review of the concepts and theories used in this issue and the answers to the subtitle question.

3.1. The organization’s international business and operationsIn this study internationalization is understood as a strategic process, that is, actions that seek

to create, maintain, or develop aggregated value through international market location or productive process (Ariño, 2004). This way of view suggests that internationalization occurs due to a decision to diversify operations by entering the international arena (Hitt, Tihanyi, Miller, & Connelly, 2006). Besides describing the internationalization of an organization’s activities as its involvement in operations outside the geographical boundaries of its country of origin, Welch and Luostarinen (1988) classic proposal also explains that internationalization does not only occurs outward but also from abroad to within the country of origin (inward) – such as in international subcontracting or acquisition of material from foreign suppliers. “An important reason for adopting a broader concept of internationalization is that both sides of the process, i.e. both inward and outward, have become more closely linked in the dynamics of international trade.” (L. S. Welch & Luostarinen, 1988, p. 36). Seen as an incremental process, internationalization depends upon the knowledge that managers have about the international market and the level of resource commitment the organization places behind international activities and it could be accelerated or delayed depending upon managers’ commitment to the international market (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977).

Entrepreneurship studies contribute to understand the role of managers in internationalization activities (Andersson, 2000). They advocate that managers’ with mindsets, dispositions, or committed to international business positively influence the multinational’s international activities (Yeniyurt, Cavusgil, & Hult, 2005) or even the internationalization of small to medium enterprises – the so called international new ventures or born globals (Oviatt & McDougall, 1994). Analysis of internationalization at the individual level reinforces the importance of managers having international experience, both for the initiation of international operation or to increase its success, especially for SMEs and international new ventures (Barkema & Drogendijik, 2007; Jones & Coviello, 2005; Oviatt & McDougall, 1994). A manager’s international experience can originate in previous employment at a multinational company, working at a company in a foreign country – as an expatriate (Balbinot, et al., 2009), living abroad, in international travel for work assignments or training, or even frequent contact with foreign people or organizations (Butt, et al., 2010).

Johanson and Vahlne (1977, 2006) consider that the manager’s international commitment depends on a subjective construct of distance that diminishes with additional knowledge acquired during the incremental international experience and with the networks of international contacts that are constructed. Consequently, a lowered distance could reduces the time and costs for acquisition of new knowledge (Coviello, 2006; Johanson & Vahlne, 2006, 2009). Welch and Luostarinen (1993) remind us that organizations may acquire intangible assets, in the form of production knowledge (technologies and techniques) and management practices (Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005; Kogut, 2002) to improve international commitment. Leung et al. (2005) relate the differences between practices across countries to the values concepts of convergence, divergence and Ralston (2008) relate it to the concept of crossvergence, as it will be shortly presented below.

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Briefly, IB interest in managerial values studies are focused in managerial and organizational causes and consequences of practices related to international operations (Leung, et al., 2005). Because of that, we would like to contribute to it by approximating the strategic practices view to the values debates presented below.

3.2. Managerial ValuesThe discussion of managerial values and practices in this study has begun with Hofstede’s

(1991) research into possible differences between cultural aspects of organizational groups from different parts of the world and the relationship that exists between their national cultural values and their organizational cultures. According to Hofstede (1991) values are the basis for a construction of a group’s culture, and vary according to the context to which the group is exposed. They reflect the group’s preference for certain ideals as compared to others. Also in early 1990’s, Shalom Schwartz focused on behavioral relationships, investigated the psychological structure of personal values and produced a definition that supersedes Hofstede’s dichotomous and dimensional relationship analysis. Schwartz (1994) criticized Hofstede’s results, arguing that the dimensions proposed by the Dutch author were neither designed nor sufficiently tested to be considered relevant. His findings were grouped into four categories that fit into two dichotomous and orthogonal dimensions.

Using Hofstede and Schwartz as a starting point, a group of American researchers called GLOBE (House, 1998), identified groups of countries with similar cultural characteristics and individual values, enhancing the international academic debate about cultural values. House and his colleagues’ proposal is a pluricultural research based in data collected from 160 scholars in 62 different countries. According to them the basis for a group’s cultural characteristics comes from shared beliefs, values, reasoning, identity, and interpretations. Coming from a more psychological and behavioral academic tradition, GLOBE chose to assume that values both shape and are shaped by behavior, policies and practices. The group defined a research design which they believe could better identify managerial practices, primarily because the object of this academic group’s analysis are leaders involved in international business. In addition, GLOBE believes that an objective question, phrased in the present tense, and directed at the individual elicits a more accurate response about what happens day-to-day in the organization and better represents true managerial values (i.e. Are you consulted by your superior before they make decisions?) (House, Javidan, & Dorfman, 2001). In all, GLOBE’s approach reinforces the purpose of this paper. In all, GLOBE’s approach seemed more appropriate for our proposal. Their study identified that seven of the nine dimensions studied show negative correlations between practices and values that were questioned (Javidan, House, et al., 2006), what could represent important differences between managers’ social construction of values (i.e. what is believed is the right thing to do) and their practical routines (i.e. what is really needed to be done). In all, we believe that GLOBE research design and findings collaborate to reinforce our proposition of concentrate research efforts on the managerial or organizational practices.

Leung et al. (2005) and Tung and Verbeke (2010) conclude that culture is a complex construct and the local context is been more and more important in its research. Because of that, we reviewed the Brazilian academia studies and found a rich research and debate history concerning cultural characteristics and values that began in the 1930’s with historical studies and were actually used by management research in quantitative and qualitative studies on Brazilian management values, eventually involving discussions on the internationalization of Brazilian companies (Chu & Wood, 2008; Machado-da-Silva & Oliveira, 2001). Chu and Wood (2008) and Machado-da-Silva and Oliveira (2001) both developed significant theoretical reviews concerning Brazilian cultural characteristics and their impact on organizational management starting from the “social and economic opening” of the Brazilian market at the beginnings of the 1990’s (Chu & Wood, 2008, p. 975). The authors identified six and seven cultural characteristics, respectively, which had been used in national

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studies to measure and understand Brazilian managers’ values, behaviors and decisions. Like Hofstede, Schwartz and GLOBE, Brazilian respectful authors including Barbosa, Caldas, Da Matta and Motta (Chu & Wood, 2008) identified cultural characteristics that bear resemblance to the analytical dimensions proposed by international academics. Therefore, in order to enrich the review of values studied in this issue, the Brazilian characteristics extracted from Chu and Wood (2008) and Machado da Silva and Oliveira (2001) will be presented here:

a) Inequality of Power and Hierarchy – the hierarchical relationships of colonial Brazil were so deeply imbedded that they continue to affect current relationships. Many Brazilians who are in socially superior positions within the hierarchy believe that they possess special rights that exempt them from common laws. This reveals the strength of the hierarchy in personal relationships, the importance of individual status and of authority (Chu & Wood, 2008, Machado da Silva & Oliveira, 2001). This cultural characteristic is in concept very similar to the Power Distance dimension proposed by international academy.

b) ‘Jeitinho’ (i.e. a way) – which refers to having smart, creative, flexible or even, unofficial ways of accomplishing difficult tasks, most often outside of official procedures, channels, and especially through the use of favors and relationships. It is a behavioral characteristic deeply and historically related to authoritarian and paternalistic relationships and social, political and economic repression. In action it seeks to balance the daily needs of individuals with the demands and restrictions imparted by laws and rules. Jeitinho consists of actions, decisions, behavior and/or creative angles adopted in social interactions that aim to accomplish objectives in spite of opposing legal circumstances (Barbosa, 1992; Chu & Wood, 2008; Hilal, 2006; Machado-da-Silva & Oliveira, 2001). These cultural characteristics emanate from power-based relationships.

(c) Personal Relationships – emphasizes relationships and acquaintances, giving light to the importance attributed to individuals and personal interests to the detriment of group or community interests. There is a high degree of trust placed on family and friend networks when solving problems or obtaining privileges, which leads to favoritism, nepotism, and paternalism in relationships (Chu & Wood, 2008; Machado da Silva & Oliveira, 2001). This cultural characteristic as conceived is similar to the Individualism/Collectivism dimension (Hofstede, 1991) or Humane orientation (House, et al., 2001) shown in international academe.

(d) Formalism – the degree of discrepancy between formal rules and norms and what really happens, or in essence, how effectively rules and norms condition behavior. This can result in behaviors that seek to reduce risk and increase the level of control over human actions and behaviors. It results in the creation of a large number of rules, norms and procedures that provoke discrepancies between what is written and what actually occurs (Chu & Wood, 2008; Machado da Silva & Oliveira, 2001). Brazilian formalism is also a characteristic related to power distance in relationships.

(e) Protectionism – a cultural characteristic resulting from affective and intense interpersonal relationships, with traces of paternalism and authoritarianism. These relationships surface from an individual external locus of control, where decisions are made by external actors who are often a superior, the government or a foreigner (Machado da Silva & Oliveira, 2001). This characteristic is also derived from power distance and hierarchical relationships.

(f) Uncertainty Avoidance – the term coined by Hofstede (1991) was adopted in order to describe the historical desire of Brazilians for avoiding social and interpersonal conflicts caused by the intense emotional and affective nature of relationships. These intense relationships are also the origin of other three previous Brazilian dimensions: Personal relationships, Protectionism, and Power Distance. Brazilians constantly seek peace and order in order to avoid conflict in these relationships (Machado da Silva & Oliveira, 2001).

(g) Short-term Orientation – deriving from the Portuguese colonization, which was explorative and exploitative. This characteristic is also a consequence of the strategy adopted by the first

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Portuguese managers in Brazil and passed on to the large landowners, bourgeois merchants and industrialists. Their primary objective was to exploit the natural resources and agricultural production with the least amount of investment in the shortest possible time (Machado-da-Silva & Oliveira, 2001). The concept for this characteristic was defined as being based in Hofstede’s Short-term/Long-term Orientation (Hofstede, 1991).

(h) Flexibility – the capacity for people to be adaptive and creative in adjusting to adverse situations and innovative under challenging circumstances. The economic and market history stimulated this flexibility in management practices and techniques (Chu & Wood, 2008). This characteristic shows Brazilians’ interest in achieving results and objectives as being similar to the Masculinity of Masculinity/Femininity (Hofstede, 1991) or to Performance Orientation (House et al., 2001).

(i) Receptiveness to what is Foreign – “has its roots in the desire for miscegenation, for the new and exotic, that marked the colonization of the country” (Chu & Wood, 2008, p. 973). In other words, the Brazilian way of accepting racial and social mixtures, easy assimilation of foreign practices and customs, as well as a hospitality for and, admiration, valorization and imitation of what is foreign, sometimes to the detriment of what is local (Chu & Wood, 2008; Machado da Silva & Oliveira, 2001). This is another Brazilian cultural characteristic that stems from Portuguese colonization and bears few similarities to the international cultural dimensions.

The table 1 present a brief comparison between the international values dimensions with Brazilian characteristics findings, through this overview is possible to acknowledge some unique cultural characteristics (e.g. Jeitinho) that could help scholars to understand practices inside the Brazilian context in a more specific and practical way if compared with the results presented based on more standardized and abstract measurement and evaluation as done by Javidan et al. (2006) as a example. The context is a important interference variable in researches involving such a complex construct as culture (C. Welch, et al., 2011) and it is increasing present in recent IB comparative studies (Leung, 2008). The context characterization may help researches to understand different social construction of values or practices (Merriam, 2009), understand the different consequences to international operations or performance, perceive which practices are context-free and which are context-specific (Cuervo-Cazurra, Maloney, & Manrakhan, 2007; Dikova & Witteloostuijn, 2007; Ramamurti & Singh, 2009).

3.3. Divergence, Convergence, and Crossvergence of ValuesIn addition to studies on cultural characteristics and comparative differences, it is important to

include in this discussion the results presented by the World Values Survey Association (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005) a worldwide group led by American political scientist Robert Inglehart. They verified that a country’s economic growth holds a probabilistic relationship of migration of traditional cultural values and norms (i.e. valuing traditional religions, hierarchies, families, and searching for physical and economic security) towards values that were more rational, materialistic, self-expressive and offering of a greater quality of life (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). Inglehart’s initial studies indentified dimensions of values and characteristics which define in which direction society is moving (e.g. convergent or divergent). In this way, divergence is the term used to refer the maintenance of cultural distances or differences in a country, society or organization when comparing to others, even when they are under the influence of internationalized environments (Jaeger, 1986). Convergence is the opposite, different social groups come to present similar or convergent values. The similarities are related to the current international environment, which includes a considerable increase in emerging economies participation in the global financial and commercial flux (Ariño, 2004; Hofstede, 1991; Ramamurti & Singh, 2009). Large multinational, transnational, and global corporations promote the globalization of financial markets and the regionalization of consumer and labor markets. This is

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sustained by the increases in communications technology which allows more agility in the flow of information and thus facilitates international transportation, lowering overall costs of business (Buckley & Casson, 1998, 2009; Porter, 1998). From a market based view, the opening of emerging economies’ markets (like Brazil) accelerated the convergence of consumers’ needs and demands for products and services designed with international level of technology and performance. Consequently the managers are challenged to develop a global mindset in order to follow this change in consumer behavior and to develop sustainable advantages to their business (Yeniyurt, et al., 2005).

Inglehart & Baker (2000) perceived that, within these movements, a global uniformity in values should be considered a partial illusion, because the cultural heritage of each society delimits different rhythms and ways of adapting to such industrial and economic evolution. Ralston et al . (1993) verified that some managerial values are influenced by both industrial and economic development, as well as the business environment. They believe that some of the values change to fit into this new international environmental context, but some others still represents the cultural roots that historically construct the characteristics of the managers. Because of that mixture found by Inglehart, Ralston and their colleagues, a third analytical perspective for differences and similarities in values was borrowed from the anthropological theory of acculturation and named crossvergence. This theory proposes that “When two cultures meet, a blending may result in some new cross-bred form of values” (Ralston, et al., 1993, p. 4). According to Ralston (2008) there are three societal drivers known as economic, political, and technological that influences on behaviors or values of a group.

Crossvergence proposition of the unique mixture of local and global values and practices could help researches understand internationalization as Johanson and Vahlne (1977) incremental process based on knowledge, experience, decisions and commitment. According to the Uppsala school, as the more international knowledge and experience the organization and its managers acquire the smaller will be their perceived distance to the international markets, and more internalized the practices that will promote their international activities. Moreover, it is believed that the crossvergence proposition may give better theoretical basis to the results of more contextualized research on global management practices.

After presenting the theoretical foundations of this issue, concisely related in the table 01, we would like to propose a new perspective of study of managerial values and practices differences and similarities in international business studies.

[INSERT TABLE 1 HERE]

4. WHY THE STRATEGIC PRACTICES PERSPECTIVE COULD CONTRIBUTE TO THE ACTUAL IB COMPARATIVE STUDIES DEBATE?

Heeding Whittington’s (2007: 1582-1583) call for studying strategic practices under a “sociological eye”; Dunning’s suggestion for fomenting interdisciplinary dialogue for studying International Business (Cheng, Henisz, Roth, & Swaminathan, 2009; Dunning, 2002); Jones and Coviello (2005, p. 285) conclusion that “[…] research specific to international entrepreneurship may require an element of paradigmatic shift and a fresh research lens in order to understand how international firms develop competitive advantage through entrepreneurial behaviour, and how entrepreneurial firms can operate internationally.” And following the Leung et al. (2005) already cited conclusion that culture in IB may be studied from different ways as possible to better understand its influence on IB activities, we intend to propose a different way to understand the values, actions, and interactions that define the starting points, processes and consequences of international participation, more specifically, the interpersonal relationships and managerial aspects that play a part in international business.

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Orlikowski (2010) explains that practices can be defined as a perspective of analysis for organizational actions, interactions, relationships and social activities. This perspective proposes that the practices shape organizational reality through meanings and significances continuously constructed in social relationships. Reciprocally and consequently, the practices are also shaped by this assumed reality and enacted (Weick, 1979) in the interactions that give continuity to this cycle. The interaction of different managerial values is reflected in the organizational managerial practices and accordingly in its strategic process (Balbinot, et al., 2009). For Jarzabkowski (2005) strategic practices can be understood as a set of organizational activities that were shaped by cultural values over time, in a quest for organizational competitive advantages (Jarzabkwoski, 2010). Whittington (2001) reinforces this viewpoint by explaining that practices are people’s micro-activities as personified by the culture and organizational and environmental routines. In other words, strategic practices are adopted by an organization in order to survive or compete in a specific market and create, maintain or enhance competitive advantages. They originate in the groups’ cultural roots and in its relationship with the given market. If the relationship between the organization, market and society changes, the practices also pass through a reconfiguration and reconstruction by new social relationships within groups and between them.

Porter (1998) argues that this competitive inciting environment promotes a race for operational efficiency and effectiveness through investments in training, consulting, and research and development. This allows the creation and diffusion of new technologies and improved production and organizational management techniques. These techniques are rapidly shared with subsidiaries and partners, as well as learned by competitors. The internationalization, or specifically the multinationalization, of an organization also promotes the internationalization of corporate governance, knowledge, and practices adopted by the organization and its local partners (Boxenbaum & Battilana, 2005; Karlsen, Silseth, Benito, & Welch, 2003).

The decisions, actions, activities and practices are not considered strategic for a individual; they are defined collectively as strategic due to the construction of their significance in the organization’s people routines, interactions and relationships within its environment and context (Jarzabkwoski, 2004). Strategic agents or practitioners (i.e. managers, leaders, prominent sales personnel, and subcontractors) are those responsible for organizational results. In order to produce positive results these agents continuously negotiate their decisions and actions with other organizational actors (human beings or not), such as other employees, strategic meetings, and manufacturing procedures (Jarzabkwoski, 2005). These interactions are framed by the cultural characteristics of the group, according to Whittington (2001). Changes in context or in the business environment also alter the social relationships of strategic agents. We found that situations such as the implantation of computerized management systems, new generations of leaders (Egri, Hallinger, & Ralston, 2005); fusions, or acquisitions (Sarala & Vaara, 2010), improved technology, economic changes (Inglehart & Baker, 2000), international contacts (Jaeger, Avrichir, Butt, M., & Hafsi, 2010), and international operations (Carr & Pudelko, 2006) produce a reconfiguration and reconstruction of strategic practices.

On a more practical and objective way, Jarzabkwoski (2005) separates the strategic practices in three specific groups: administrative practices, the discursive and episodic. According to her administrative practices are organized, coordinate strategies and seek to rationalize the actions and interactions through artifacts and tools such as action plans, reporting, control, management systems, indicators and targets. Discursive practices provide linguistics, cognitive and symbolic resources to the interactions that involve strategy, as the formal treatments on hierarchical relationships, the discourse in the routine negotiations between pairs, departments or directors in a meeting. And the episodic practices create opportunities or contexts to interactions among practitioners in the formation or conduct of strategy, as examples of these practices there are formal internal meetings, metings with

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customers, trainings, trade shows and events (Jarzabkwoski, 2005). All these three categories of practices present more objective and practical constructs to managerial practices and they seems to be closer to the international routines and operations if compared to the complex constructions of managerial values proposed by cross-culture researchers. Moreover, both are products of cultural and socially constructed interactions among managers, the business environment, and context.

Strategic practices are result oriented, in other words they exist to allow the organization to reach a particular strategic objective (Jarzabkwoski, 2005) thus if the researcher focus on study the strategic practices directly and indirectly involved with international operations the organization, it would be simpler to relate it to organizations international performance. The researcher would be responsible to identify and describe the practices that interfere in the activities of the international organization in a specific context and the subjects been studied (managers or organizations) would be able to provide more objective and practical content of actions, decisions, activities and interactions related to international performance or other research goals chosen by IB researcher. Comparative analysis of the practices identified within the same case study may help researchers to determine whether these practices are related only to the international operations or interfere with other strategic objectives and how (Eisenhardt, 1989; C. Welch, et al., 2011). What is proposed here is to adopt strategic practices as the primary unit of analysis of international activities of the organization, as well as actions, decisions and interactions of managers driving the internationalization strategy.

These strategic practices could be identified and studied concurrently in different countries or consecutively starting from a reference country. In the case of a concurrent study, the researchers will explore the field (i.e. cases) without a set of referential practices to relate to the research goals. Therefore, they should be concerned with clearly defining the research field boundaries, the object in IB, and the criteria to relate it to the practices identified in detail. These criteria will allow cross-cases and cross-country comparison and will enable researches identify similar practices and, especially, different practices related similarly to the same goal of research. As an ilustrative example, scholars could simultaneously study the practices that develop strategic long-term relationships to international supply of automotive components or sub-products in Latin America and Asia. The second option would be to study the practices perceived in one or a group of referential organizations, once identified the strategic practices related to the research goal in the reference cases, it is possible to extend the study to other cases and countries to see if the referential strategic practices could be found in other countries or other contexts. Scholars could try to understand how a set of practices were adopted by host-country or expatriated practitioners, how it is embedded in organization, and how they interfere in the research object.

Based on the theoretical relations presented here and the propositions of some methodological procedures we believe that it is possible to answer the question in the subtitle of this section 4 and justify the presupposition of this paper, therefore, we believe that the perspective of strategic practices could:

a) Identify comparative differences, similarities and changes that are performance oriented.b) Reduce ambiguities and subjectivities of using complex constructs like culture and

values.c) Simplify the construction of data collection solutions also avoiding misinterpretation in

interviews and in data collection and analysis.Strategic practices are organizational or individual leveled (Langley, 2007), and because of

that, they may be contextualized at the firm, the industry level or surrounding the international environment needed to attend the research objectives and questions, just as a good qualitative research is recommended to be (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010; C. Welch, et al., 2011). The researcher focused on contextual practices would be able to identify common practices for a particular social group, industries, cluster, or a supply chain; identify if specific international activity practices exist, identify

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how deep they are embedded in organizational and international relationships; scrutinize the origins and social construction of these practices; understand the value these practices have for the individual and for the organization; and study possible relationships the practices have with international activities (Jarzabkwoski, 2005, 2010; Jarzabkwoski, Balogun, & Seidl, 2007). Starting with these qualitative definitions, the researcher is able to formulate new qualitative research tools for collecting data focused in contextual strategic practices; select and investigate particular or representative cases in order to identify the existence of similar practices; relate the practices identified with the international performance of the organizations studied; compare the findings within the cases or in a cross-country sample of cases (Eisenhardt, 1989; Langley, 2007; Merriam, 2009).

It is believed that the objective use and the generalization power of quantitative methods (Creswell, 2007) may have fascinated cross-cultural researchers in IB academy, however we state again the question: how study a so subjective phenomenon with so objective design and quantitative analysis? The strategic practices research, on another hand, is predominantly qualitative, with case studies and comparative studies with or without participant observation and mixed design to data collection. Practices studies may require some detailed analysis of the subjects, their activities, and the context in which they occur (Jarzabkwoski, et al., 2007). In consequence of both methods strengths, it is believed that a mixed analytical methodology (qualitative and quantitative) could be able to overcome the limitations of both current research designs. Approximating the research design of each academy tradition we would like to purpose a method of study strategic practices in comparative IB research as follows:

a) Following Eisenhardt (1989) purpose of theory analysis and Yin (2011) case studies methods, the researcher would start selecting the cross-country sample of cases and defining the method to collect data and analyze the results.

b) Researches could start from less theoretical framework and find the cases practical social constructions without previous references or could use GLOBE dimensions of measurement of managerial practices, to guide the data collection to identify and characterize the strategic practices related directly or indirectly to the cases.

c) Once the researcher join as much practices as he believe will sufficiently answer his/her research objectives and questions, he/she will be able to relate these strategic practices with the organization’s international involvement.

d) Finally, the researcher will be able to compare the practices across the different countries cases as much as needed to answer his/her study objectives and questions.

5. CONCLUSIONS AND FINAL CONSIDERATIONSHeeding the call from international academic comunity for new interdisciplinary proposals

and perspectives for the study of international business, managerial values and strategic practices, this work has presented a brief theoretical review on these themes and proposed a new perspective for studying managerial values of managers in organizations that are active internationally.

The proposal of scrutinizing managerial values from a perspective of strategic practices is justified by the fact that historically scholars have studied cultural, social and organizational values by looking at artifacts, symbols, actions, decisions and practices of individuals and managers (Leung, et al., 2005). Furthermore, strategic practices are also constructed in the social relationships of organizational actors as do the managerial values, however the former occurs in search for results. The practices adjust to changes in relationships between actors, context and the environment. Through them it is possible to share significance with actors in social interactions and construct strategic processes, such as an organization’s internationalization. Thus if the researcher could identify the practices of his/her interest in organizations of different countries, then it would allow him/her identify similarities and differences between the same processes in different organizations.

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The strategic practice perspective contributes to the debate presented by Leung et al. (2005) about the growth of cross-culture research to a less 'fuzzy' path of analysis and to GLOBE efforts in order to identify global and local practices of leaders. It also contributes with Taras et al. (2010) and Tung and Verbeke (2010) concerns about comparative studies on divergence, convergence, proposing a more objective way of comparing managerial practices in organizations’ international operations and enriching the debate about managerial and organizational activities as well as the performance in international business. It reinforces the framework of crossvergence analysis, because this proposition considers that strategic practices may be driven by the international business ideologies and local cultural values. In other words, the strategic practices are legitimated in by international business environment and the contextualized organizational strategies. The strategic practices perspective is different from other models that measure managerial values because it allows the scrutiny of more specific similarities and differences in an organization’s international activities and in the comparison between groups from different kinds of organizations, industries, clusters or supply chains.

We believe that it is possible to adopt the strategic practices as main unit of analyze in comparative researches because it could offer at least three advantages to IB comparison research (identification of differences, similarities, and changes that are performance oriented; reduction of ambiguities and subjectivities present in complex constructs like culture and values; simplification of data collection solutions avoiding misinterpretation in interviews, data collection, and analysis). This perspective proposal is limited by the absence of empirical studies thus it could evoke a whole new agenda to comparative international business research.

It is important to register that the intent of this article was not to try to answer its title-question, but rather to propose a reflection on this question from an alternative perspective to comparative research in IB. We could say that the central idea of an answer for this question could be: studying internationalization from similarities or differences observed in managerial practices adopted by different industries could be more practical and performance oriented, independent of neither the country nor the cultural environment in which they are. We believe that studying the strategic practices in mixed qualitative and quantitative manners to compare similarities, differences, and their relationship with the performance of international activities could contribute to obtain more contextualized and realistic results, consequently, contribute to academic debates on comparative performance of the firm and its managers.

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Table 1 – A comparison of the dimensions used to measure managerial values and practices.

Author Hofstede1 Inglehart2 Schwartz3 Globe4 Ralston5 Carac. Culturais Brasileiras6

Objective

To analyze the differences in the culture of various countries and its effect on organizational culture.

To identify and analyze changes in comparateive cultural values between countries.

To identify and analyze how individual cultural values differ from group values.

To identify and analyze values and practices of global leaders.

To identify comparative changes in cultural values and analyze what kind of change occurred.

To characterize Brazilian cultural traits that influence organizational management.

Level of analysis

Societal e Organizational

Societal e Individual Individual Societal e Individual Societal Societal

Primary research design

Survey Survey Survey Survey Survey Case studies

Proposed cultural dimensions

Uncertainty avoidence

Survival values vs. Self-expression values

Conservative vs. Open to change

Uncertainty avoidance

Intolerance of ambiguity

Uncertainty avoidance

Long-term orientation Future orientationShort-term orientation

Power distance Power distance

Confucianism Formalism*

MachiavellianismProtecionismJeitinho*

IntegrationInequality in power and hierarchy

Masculinity/Femininity

Traditional orientation vs. Rational secular orientation in relationships of authority.

Self-enhancement vs. Self-transcendence

Gender equality*Locus of control

Receptiveness to what is foreign (xenophilic)*

Assertiveness

Achievement orientation

Dogma Flexibility

Humane orientation Human Heart Personalism (affective relationships)

Collectivism Collectivism Moral discipline

* These cultural dimensions concepts have little in common with other authors’ concepts.1 Hofstede (1991); 2 Inglehart & Baker (2000); 3 Scwhartz (1994a); 4 House et al. (2001); 5 Ralston (1993); 6 Chu & Wood (2008), Machado-da-Silva & Oliveira (2001).

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