This paper highlights some of the major problems and obstacles which are faced by researchers in the field of cross-cultural study of organizations and manage ment. Specifically, the difficulties in the areas of conceptualization, operationaliz ation, data collection and interpretation. and the focus of study are discussed. Some of the studies which have attempted to tackle or overcome the difficulties associated with these areas are reviewed.

IntroductionThe last three decades or so have seen a lively debate among both academics and practitioners on the role of national culture in the shape and operation of business organizations. Some authors have emphasized the universality and similarities between organizations (e.g.

I t is proposed that cross-cultural studies of leadership style have failed to distinguish adequately between global characterizations of style and the specific behaviours which leaders need to use in a given culture if a particular style is to be attributed to them. A study is reported of perceptions of electronics plant supervisors in Britain, the USA, Japan and Hong Kong, derived from Misumi's PM leadership theory. The findings indicate that characterizations of P(Performance) and M(Maintenance) leader style have a similar factor structure in each culture. However, the specific behaviours associated with those styles differ markedly, in ways which are comprehensible within the cultural norms ofeach setting. The study illustrates how a series of emic correlations within each culture sample may be used to test the validity of etic models of leader style.

This article discusses some of the methodological and practical difficulties that cross cultural researchers experience in their studies, from the issues concerning understanding and studying other people's culture and separating its influence from that of the workplace culture, to the culture-specific nature of some supposedly universal managerial concepts such as HRM (human resource management) and the choice of appropriate research tools and paradigms. Building on the author's similar commentary on the subject a few years ago, the article draws a rather optimistic picture for the future while pointing out some avoidable methodological inadequacies still observed in many published reports of international comparative studies. The article also cites examples of recent studies which have made an effort to avoid these.

No abstract