Recent cross-cultural management research denaturalizes culture to emphasize its construction as an instrument of power plays, refuting the very possibility of vast national cultures. This webinar revisits the notion of culture and provides a definition that makes it possible to grasp both what is inherited and what is created through interactions. It draws upon an interpretive approach to culture which, although still overlooked in English-language research on CCM, has for several decades been developed in France (see D’Iribarne et al. 2020). The so-called Gestion & Société approach posits that societal cultures lie in shared major fears and ideal ways of living together to counteract them. This approach breaks new ground by emphasizing the inherited cultural references underlying the individuals’ sense-making and by acknowledging the individual agency of the stakeholders who use these references to create new intercultural arrangements in cross-cultural encounters at work. A language metaphor will be used to show how the inherited part of culture and the part that is created are articulated.

Registration is required and free: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUof-6gqT0jH9AyfKUa-J2_crxry4fbkQra