Towards interdisciplinarity in international business: national culture as an example

• Published in: Journal of international business studies Vol. 56; no. 5; pp. 559 - 566
• Main Author: Shenkar, Oded
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01.07.2025; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Absorption; Borrowing; Business and Management; Business Strategy/Leadership; Culture; Ecology; Economics; Editorial; Founders; Humanities; Interdisciplinary aspects; Interdisciplinary subjects; International Business; Knowledge; Management; Organization; Organization theory; Political science; Research methodology; Social sciences; Sociology; Stereotypes; Strategic management; Universalism
• ISSN: 0047-2506; 1478-6990
• DOI: 10.1057/s41267-024-00750-2

To illustrate the challenge, national culture is presented as a core IB construct that is studied in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences, as well as in multiple business areas, and has been the subject of cross-disciplinary efforts within and outside IB. Fast forward, a 2023 AACSB article stated that “we must design interdisciplinary programs”, while a year later the Academy of Management (AOM) sponsored a Journal of Management Studies conference and special issue on “Interdisciplinarity in Management Research”, and the Strategic Management Society (SMS) reminded in the preview to their annual conference that its founders defined strategy as “an interdisciplinary subject.” The ousting of organization theory from the AACSB core was another hurdle that, while hitting all business fields, was especially damaging to IB since it deprived a field bent on the global context of a relevant partner precisely at a time when environment-focused theories, such as resource dependence, institutional theory, and population ecology, proliferated. [...]the recent absorption of many IB groups into strategy departments biased IB research towards a singular disciplinary lens seeking universalism, where contextual variation, when considered, was often relegated to generic “externalities”.