The organization team for the next EURAM Conferencewith the topic „Culturally sensitive research in organizations“ is looking forward to receving your submission. The conference takes place at the Business School of Trinity College in Dublin from 10th-12th June 2020.
Short description:
This standing track is dedicated to exploring the complex role of cultures in organizations with qualitative methods. It welcomes papers dealing with cross-cultural encounters in work settings, international transfer and recontextualization of management tools, languages and cultures in organizations, the interplay of cultures and power relations in diverse organizations, etc.
It also addresses methodological questions: How to get access to international settings? How to compare equivalent situations across countries? What language should be used? How to deal with translation issues? What strategies allow academics to produce meaningful intercultural research?
Long description:
However global our world has become workers and organizations are still embedded in different cultures. Societal cultures still infuse people’s mind and management practices. This cultural embeddedness is critical to most organizational situations and work interactions.
1) Multinational companies have been the first focus of cross-cultural management research. Their worldwide operations bring together employees, socialized in different societal cultures, and their interactions have been at the inception of intercultural management studies. However, research on
MNC and expatriates has not covered all the implications of cultural diversity yet. Field studies are still required to examine the role of boundary spanners and multicultural individuals in constructing synergy across MNC entities. What kind of new local cultures are negotiated? Furthermore, large MNC are not the only companies faced with international activities: SMEs, born global start-ups or
NGOs are also concerned with making the most of intercultural interactions. Their innovative international HR practices should be examined.
2) Cultural aspects also concern different organizational contexts: domestic companies employing migrant labor force but also international transfer of management practices. Cultural issues in organizations are not limited to interpersonal encounters. The circulation of management methods and their recontextualization also require some cultural awareness. These complex processes have to be investigated to understand how to get the expected benefits from transfers.
3) Cultural and language are closely linked. Cultures–defined as meaning systems–are expressed through languages. Translation and cultural interpretations are at play in any international work settings and their impact is still much ignored. Additional field research on languages in multicultural
organizations is needed.
4) Finally, conducting research across cultures raise a number of specific questions: how to get access to international settings? How to compare equivalent situations across countries? What language should be used? How to deal with translation issues? What strategies allow academics to produce meaningful intercultural research? Understanding cultural and social dimensions of international organizations requires qualitative inquiries: ethnographic studies, thick descriptions, longitudinal field studies, and innovative methods. Papers which uncover backstage processes, and share field experience and research tricks are particularly welcomed. Self-reflective methodological papers which uncover the tricks of researchers in intercultural management and the actual practices done behind the scenes are welcome. In a nutshell, this standing track is dedicated to exploring the complex role of cultures in organizations with qualitative methods and address any research question dealing with the too often ignored cultural aspects of organizations.
Best wishes,
On behalf of the Conference Programme Committee (CPC) and the Local Organising Committee (LOC)
Andrew Burke
EURAM 2020 Conference Chair
Trinity Business School
Trinity College Dublin
For more information contact:
Sylvie CHEVRIER – sylvie.chevrier@u-pem.fr
