Interpreting and responding to strategic issues: The impact of national culture

Perceptions of environmental uncertainty and organizational control influence strategic behavior. As national culture influences these perceptions we expect to find cultural differences in interpretation and response to strategic issues. Given a case describing an issue concerning deregulation of the U.S. banking industry, managers completed questionnaires rating interpretations and responses to that issue. National culture was found to influence interpretation and responses. In particular, Latin European managers when compared with other managers were more likely to interpret the issue as a crisis and as a threat. Latin Europeans were also more likely to recommend proactive behavior. This study indicates that different cultures are likely to interpret and respond to the same strategic issue in different ways. These differences may help to explain and predict different responses of European countries to ‘1992’.