(To be published as the Editorial in IJCCM 12(2) August 2012)
It appears that the nature of scholarship has been
shaped over the last decade or two by the now extensive use of academic journal
lists. Willmott (2011: 428) argues their effect is to ‘..stifle diversity
and constrict scholarly innovation’ . He goes on to say that a ‘…monoculture
is fostered in which a preoccupation with shoehorning research into a form
prized by elite, US-oriented journals overrides a concern to maintain and
enrich the diversity of topics, the range of methods and the plurality of
perspectives engaged in business and management research’. Adler and Harzing
(2009: 80), who Willmott quotes, also suggest that the use of such lists
‘..dramatically skews scholarship as it implicitly encourages conservative
research that asks familiar questions using accepted methodologies rather than
research addressing new, often controversial questions that are investigated
using innovative methodologies.’
Yet it would be wrong to blame academia’s
increasing reliance on rank-ordering and such metrics that cast out some and venerate
others per se. This must surely be an
effect rather than the cause. The nature of scholarship is part of culture.
What is regarded as legitimate scholarship and scientific knowledge has evolved
over the centuries into what we behold today. Along with this has been the
evolution of ranking and rating of journals. Yet this tendency, Willmott
argues, has turned into a form of control, in his case in point, for university
managers to better and more effectively, and time-effectively, control academic
performance through a vicarious use of journal rankings rather than looking at
the quality of individual scholarly work: the journal rank becomes the measure
rather than the ‘quality’ of the work – which of course has always been
difficult to assess and measure. Yet control has always been a factor in
cultural generation. This is the point of, for example, Said’s (1978) work on
Orientalism, right through to Jack and Westwood’s (2009) excellent synthesis of
Postcolonial Theory in international and cross-cultural management studies.
Empires of various sorts have always dominated internationally the means of
cultural production. Similarly, dominant groups in countries have always
heavily influenced the legitimacy of cultural values and institutions. The work
on whiteness studies in the United States has shown how the cultural privileges
of whiteness has rendered ‘American’ culture invisible (McDermott and Sansom,
2005). Perhaps this is so much so even in cross-cultural management research
where American culture is assumed, and this can be used in comparison with
other countries.
In 2001 when International Journal of Cross
Cultural Management (IJCCM) was first published, it was with the intention of
challenging paradigms and soliciting contributions from around the world that
did not just reflect western logics and scholarship. In some ways we may have
been naïve when we said:
‘Power relations may be an important component of
any cross-cultural interaction. This should be more recognized in the decisions
made about what is and what is not good international scholarship. We do not
claim to have all the answers. Many scholars working in non-western cultures
and educated in the ‘western’ tradition may seek to emulate western approaches,
and denigrate ‘indigenous’ knowledge. Our search for contributions that reflect
culturally diverse concepts of scholarship is therefore an active process…’
(Jackson and Aycan, 2001: 5-6).
Particularly the expectation that ‘indigenous’
scholarship would miraculously manifest itself and turn up on our doorstep may
have shown our naivety. It is only when one starts to look beyond the embryonic
attempts of international and cross-cultural management studies to look at
‘indigenousness’ and indigenous knowledge to the wider social sciences that one
is thrust again into the stark reality of global power dynamics where, for
example Wiessner (1999) sees indigenousness as a function of marginalization.
Indigenous people are seen as part of a globalized world through their
exclusion from it. Rather than indigenousness simply being related to localness
as for example Tsui (2004) contends, indigenousness is inexorable linked to the
global, from which it is marginalized. Work on indigenousness in international
and cross-cultural management studies unfortunately does not yet recognize this
power relatedness to colonization and globalization. Nor did we in 2001.
Porsager (2004: 108) remarks that ‘Any research is
indissolubly related to power and control, and indigenous scholars take these
issues seriously nowadays, making indigenous research part of the
decolonization process, which implies an assignment to indigenous peoples of
the right to self-determination, not only from a political or economical point
of view, but also with respect to research …... For indigenous peoples, this
means being able to make decisions about the research agenda and methodologies
for themselves without any outside influence.’ It is not so much that the new
obsession with ranking and rating journals dictates research agendas and the
nature of scholarship. This is simply part of an evolving and dominant academic
culture that excludes non-dominant forms of knowledge, as is our acceptance of
the scientific journal article as the appropriate means of scholarly
dissemination.
I am not sure to what extent publishing the results
of research on and about indigenous forms of knowledge actually furthers the
interests of indigenous (that is marginalized) groups. It certainly may further
the career aspirations of western (and possibly non-western) scholars. We
should be mindful that reporting research findings in western scientific
journals serves only one set of very narrow interests. In the general scheme of
things, the extent to which journal editors and their contributors make a real
difference to knowledge production has to be questioned. Fortunately it is much
easier to extend the range and nature of influence of academic journals where
electronic forms of worldwide communication are becoming more accessible, where
the form of control is more financial and technical (witness the recent sale of
Facebook) rather than cultural: the means rather than the message (or perhaps
some scholars may disagree with this separation).
Hence eleven years later we are reasserting our
mission to be different, and to not try to emulate the ‘big boys’ of management
scholarly publication. Our slightly revised published aims are ‘…..to be the first choice for scholarship that
develops critical advances in knowledge, which challenges orthodoxy in
international and cross-cultural research, which critically reviews current
knowledge taking it to the next level, which presents new and exciting
approaches, alternative paradigms, alternative cultural perspectives, and
challenges the hegemony of Western management knowledge’. Yet I am not sure
we can do this by ourselves. The debate has to be taken to a wider academic
public and not debated simply within the confines of our journal. We only have
limited space within the journal but we need to make best use of this, while
also giving voice to those least likely to be heard in the ‘top’ journals. We
need to do this both within and outside the printed pages of our journal. Hence
we are developing and extending our social networking and media capability to
be more inclusive of those voices. We want to know how we can develop
alternative forms of knowledge, yet also we want to hear from the
cross-cultural scholars and ‘indigenous’ scholars who do not submit their work
to us. We want to help those who have an idea, but not sure how to develop it.
We want to encourage a new generation of cross-cultural management scholars. We
have begun to identify some of these and have invited some of the most talented
and dynamic onto our editorial team. We have also maintained continuity with
more experienced colleagues who have worked so hard to set the tone and shape
the sub-discipline we now know as cross-cultural management studies. This
current journal issue, like most others, represents a mixture of more
established scholarship, ground-breaking work, and new developments.
Academia has changed over the years. New forms of
control have been introduced into our institutions, but merely to supplement or
replace those that were there before. Academics, as ever, ‘play the game’ and
learn to use this game to their career advantage. In Britain, as we approach
the culmination of our REF (Research Excellence Framework) process, the jobs
market becomes like the football transfer season, as universities eagerly try
to attract those who are most REF-able. Yet this should only be regarded as
part of the cultural context of academia. It certainly is not the cause of
changes to academia, it is the change. And part of this change is what scholars
produce and what they submit. Scholars are rewarded not for innovation but for
conformity. As I look back over the last eleven years at the submissions to
IJCCM, I see mainly conformity (albeit extremely well crafted, scientifically
excellent and contributing significantly to our dominant modes of scholarship)
rather than innovation, with some remarkable exceptions. Over the next few
months we will be listing the top ten of these on our website and Sage will
make them freely available for download. We will also be opening a blog and a
Facebook page, so we welcome suggestions, comments and contributions.
Cross-cultural management studies will change over
the next ten years. It has to. It also has to make a bigger contribution to the
wider social sciences, and integrate more into on-going debates within the
social and behavioural sciences. It needs to engage in new dynamics. China (as
India) and its international activity is really beginning to change the
geopolitical dynamics that influence knowledge production and transfer. This
has little affected debate within international and cross-cultural management
studies, yet has been the focus of scholarship in other social science
disciplines (Jackson, 2012). Similarly, as above, cross-cultural management
scholars have barely scratched the surface in studying indigenous knowledge.
This has to be better incorporated into what we study.
Cross-cultural management studies will also have to
become more useful. We have tended to focus on making MNEs manage more
effectively across countries, but have neglected vast areas of international
activity such as the development and aid industry which not only is worth some
100 billion US dollars, also has a tremendous influence on our perception of
the so called ‘developing countries’ that make up the majority of the Earth’s
landmass (e.g. babies with distended bellies, famine, war and natural and human
disasters generally). Our discipline has always challenged stereotyping, yet
has barely said a word about the types of stereotypes this engenders. The
development sector is grappling with major concerns of managing across cultural
boundaries, yet has largely eschewed cross-cultural management studies.
That our discipline is naturally conservative also
goes hand-in-hand with the tendency to conform, and scholars are sometimes
reluctant to confront the political nature of research and knowledge creation.
The aspects that cross-cultural management studies has tended to stay clear of
including power and geopolitics, tend to be political in nature. That our
discipline does not confront this in a way that contributes to our scientific
endeavour is missing a great opportunity to make real strides towards
developing a discipline that can make an impact on the wider social sciences,
and on the real world. I believe our journal is poised to make significant
contributions to this endeavour.
References
Adler, N. J. and Harzing, A-W.
(2009) ‘When Knowledge Wins: Transcending the Sense of and Nonsense of Academic
Rankings’, Academy of Management Learning and Education 8(1): 72–95., Organization, 18(4) 429–442
Jack, G. and Westwood, R. (2009) International and Cross-Cultural Management
Studies: A Postcolonial Reading, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jackson, T. (2012)
Postcolonialism and Organizational Knowledge in the Wake of China’s Presence in
Africa: Interrogating South-South relations, Organization. 19(2): 181-204.
Jackson, T. and Aycan, Z. (2001)
International Journal of Cross Cultural Management: towards the future, ) International Journal of Cross Cultural
Management, 1(1): 5-9
McDermott, M. & Samson, F. L.
(2005) White racial and ethnic identity in the United States, Annual Review of Sociology, 31:245–61
Porsanger, J. (2004) An Essay
about Indigenous Methodology, accessed at
http://munin.uit.no/munin/bitstream/handle/10037/906/article.pdf?sequence=1,
1/07/11.
Said, Edward (1978/1995)
Orientalism, London: Penguin
Tsui, A S (2004) Contributing to
Global Management Knowledge: A Case for High Quality Indigenous Research, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 21,
491–513.
Wiessner, S. (1999). “Rights and
Status of Indigenous Peoples: A Global and Comparative and International Legal
Analysis” Harvard Human Rights Journal,
Vol. 12, Spring.
Willmott, H. (2011) Journal list
fetishism and the perversion of scholarship: reactivity and the ABS list, Organization, 18(4), 429–442.
