Mary Yoko Brannen

National culture, networks, and individual influence in a multinational management team

Individual influence is thought to shape team performance. However, empirical studies of its potential determinants in multicultural teams, including national culture, are lacking. A network study ...

Pursuing the Meaning of Meaning in the Commercial World: An International Review of Marketing and Consumer Research Founded on Semiotics

From product design and packaging to advertising and retailing, marketers are continually seeking to strategically facilitate meanings that contribute positively to brand images, purchase likelihood, satisfaction, and the like. For their part, consumers are continually acquiring, using, sharing experiences, and disposing in substantial accordance with the meanings they attribute to products, ads, purchase sites, and so forth. However, meaning was underprioritized in marketing and consumer research until the last two decades, partly because it is one of the most complex phenomena to theorize and investigate. As researchers focused more on meaning, hundreds of books and articles drew upon the doctrine of semiotics, which is the study of communication and meaning in terms of the nature and processes of signs (both verbal and non-verbal). The burgeoning scholarship, not surprisingly, was eclectic, fragmented, far-spread, and written in numerous languages, leaving many uncertainties about the contributions of semiotics. In this project, we collected and integrated relevant worldwide research, and we assessed what semiotics has provided for advancing knowledge on meaning in marketing and consumer behavior. We focused on the manner in which semiotics addresses and, in some instances, resolves important intellectual questions about meaning at each stage of an expanded version of McCrackens (1986) model of meaning movement in consumer society. We discuss at each stage the trends and variations in the use of semiotic paradigms, methodological approaches, levels of analyses, geographic origins of scholarship, emphases on different substantive topics, and future research needs. Overall, our review uncovers a profusion, maturation, and rising value of semiotic research on marketing and consumer behavior since the mid-1980s. We finish with a discussion of the continuing intellectual challenges in the area, and we draw some encompassing conclusions on the nature, merits, and future of semiotics in marketing and consumer research.

Corporate Languages and Strategic Agility

While all of us would easily recognize that language matters in the obvious case of different national languages, or in formal strategic communication to employees or stakeholders, the importance of a firms informal language as an enabler or constraint for growth and strategic agility has not been recognized. Using qualitative data from in-depth empirical comparative studies, this article develops a conceptual framework for diagnosing two types of strategic language traps and their origins commonly encountered by firms as they attempt to enter new business domains as well as in acquisition driven growth and alliances. It proposes solutions for companies to overcome their specific language trap and enable strategic agility.

Bicultural individuals and intercultural effectiveness

Biculturals – people who have internalised more than one cultural profile – are an under explored result of globalisation. This new and growing demographic presents some important challenges and opportunities for international management. Our study explores the idea that biculturalism fosters cultural general skills that can be useful in todays multinational organisations. Results indicate that biculturals have more pronounced skills related to intercultural effectiveness than monoculturals, including a higher level cognitive skill called cultural metacognition that directly influences intercultural effectiveness. We also explore the idea that those bicultural individuals who experience conflict in their cultural identity development have higher levels of these skills. We discuss implications of these findings for international management.

Biculturals as natural bridges for intercultural communication and collaboration

Biculturals - people who have deeply internalized more than one cultural profile - are a significant but underexplored result of globalization. This new demographic raises a number of questions for many fields that address intercultural collaboration and communication. Our research develops a theory about types of biculturals and explores the idea that these individuals possess high levels of intercultural skills and abilities that can contribute to myriad contexts.

Refining, reinforcing and reimagining universal and indigenous theory development in international management

This article addresses a long-established yet still contentious question in international management scholarship—Is it possible and desirable to create a universal theory of management and organization? Scholarship about the boundary conditions of endogenous theory and the need for indigenous theories of management as well as geopolitical changes in the world order have animated this debate. Five leading scholars discussed this topic at a symposium held at the 2009 Academy of Management meeting. This article presents an analysis of their viewpoints. Three key perspectives were identified in the debate: the refining perspective, the reinforcing perspective, and the reimagining perspective. Using excerpts from the symposium transcript, we outline, compare, and critically evaluate the characteristics and significance of each perspective to advancing theory development. The distinctive contribution of this article lies in its meta-theoretical debate about the relationship between theory, context, and power in the production of global management knowledge.