Culture in Context: New Theorizing for Today’s Complex Cultural Organizations

As multinational companies (MNCs) race for the future while racing for the world motivated by the promise of scale economies in globalizing industries, they are doing so increasingly in the form of wholly integrated global firm structures in the wake of cross-border mergers, acquisitions, joint-ventures and alliances (Brannen and Peterson, 2009; Shimizu et al., 2004; Stahl and Mendenhall, 2005). In fact, today’s economy is more globalized than it has ever been and, at least on the surface of it, the world looks more culturally integrated today than ever before as fast-paced, quick-to-market industries spread global trends like wild fire from East to West or West to East and back again. But, this is just a superficial impression. Just because schoolgirls throughout the world from California to Moscow are wearing Sanrio fashions and buying Gwen Stefani Harajuku Lovers perfume does not mean they know anything about what the life of one of those Japanese schoolgirls who rebelliously lets her hair down (figuratively, of course—more likely she puts it up in all sorts of creative, outrageous innovations) on the Harajuku overpass, joining her friends on Sundays, rain or shine. Likewise, just because corporate leaders of large MNCs have been managing across cultures for their entire careers and in many cases are managing across cultures daily right within the diverse cultural makeup of their own home organizations, does not mean that they have a sophisticated or even functionally agile understanding of how culture impacts the day-to-day enactment of their corporate strategy in their subsidiaries in Bangalore or Kunshan.