Hanna Gajewska-De Mattos

Doing Business in Developing and Transitional Countries: An Empirical Example of the Dominant Logic and Its Alternative

This article challenges the dominant logic of the approach to the study of development and of transitional countries by examining the structure of oppositions by which global economic rationality is contrasted with traditional local rationality. The elements of these distinctions are delineated and analyzed using the example of the Germanic/Slavonic contrasts in the discourse on development. Drawing on material from the Wielkopolska district of Poland, the article provides a detailed analysis of the mentality of people in this region as they perceive themselves and others. We conclude that detailed two-country contrasts are an important complement to the standard approaches to understanding cultural differences in international business research and that social anthropological ideas about classification, structural opposition, and definition of the self and the other are fertile sources of insight for understanding such two-country contrasts.

Multiple language use in international mergers and acquisitions

This paper emphasises the importance of language issues in international business by drawing from the literature of social anthropology and sociolinguistics. Language is discussed from a perspective of its use in international mergers and acquisitions and other forms of international business. The paper examines the real linguistic issues faced by international business practitioners in the many different ways in which they organise their activities.

Cross-cultural competence in the context of NGOs: bridging the gap between ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’

Abstract International human resource management research in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is scarce and it predominantly focuses on the recruitment and retention of volunteers. The context of NGOs is different from conventional for-profit international business settings with different kinds of challenges, especially in terms of providing appropriate training on managing multi-cultural teams and working with local project partners and communities. The literature also tends to focus on expatriate perspective and not on a host country perspective. We address this gap by examining how project managers and hosts experience cross-cultural issues on overseas assignments. We study volunteer project managers leading international and local youth volunteers during the Raleigh International programme in Malaysia. We use a qualitative methodology and data collected at 3 case locations via participant observation during 120 days contact with the respondents as well as interviews and surveys. We propose the CPACE (Curiosity, Passion, Adaptability, Communication and Empathy) framework describing competences needed in cross-cultural encounters and based on respondents’ actions as well as their words and it is relevant to a NGO context. The framework is intended to lay the foundation for future research and in particular to demonstrate the need for cross-cultural competence to be more grounded in particular contexts.