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DOI: 10.1177/1094428105283297

2006; 9; 55Organizational Research Methods Kim Soin and Tobias Scheytt

Making the Case for Narrative Methods in Cross-Cultural Organizational Research

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10.1177/1094428105283297Organizational Research MethodsSoin, Scheytt / Narrative Methods in Cross-Cultural Research

Making the Case for NarrativeMethods in Cross-CulturalOrganizational ResearchKim SoinKing’s College London

Tobias ScheyttUniversity of Innsbruck

The prevailing literature on cross-cultural research in management studies has tended to concep-tualize the meaning and the impactof culture on organizations by using distinct categories. Thisarticle argues that given the embedded nature of organizations, a narrative methodology offersan alternative and complementary approach to developing our understanding in cross-culturalresearch. Using examples of story-driven investigations into cultural differences, it explains thepotential of this approach. It therefore seeks to offer a contribution to the variety of methods fororganizational research on cross-cultural issues.

Keywords: cross-cultural research; narrative methodology; interpretivism; organizationalculture; management control

S tories are the fabric of our lives. If we explain our actions to others or to ourselves, we tellstories. Stories help us to make sense of what we are, where we come from, and what wewant to be. When we try to understand complex and meaningful historical developments andevents, stories can augment and enhance more neutral and objective descriptions, as StevenSpielberg’s project of oral history has shown. And, when we aimto interpret what happens incultures different from our own, we mostly obtain information via stories, or other types of narratives, that are presented to us in different ways, for example, through movies, novels,newspapers, or comedy.

In the same way, the rich tapestry of organizational realities is captured by stories, whichare generated within and around organizations. And, in telling, listening, and relating to sto-ries in actions or decisions, individuals aim to understand and interpret practices in the orga-nization of which they are part (Boyce, 1997; Czarniawska, 1998, 2004, Gabriel, 2000). Sto-

ries can also be a powerful tool for management that can be used todesign, change, or refocusthe organization’s culture (Czarniawska-Joerges & Monthoux, 1994; Denning, 2004). How-

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Authors’Note: We would liketo thank Richard Laughlinand threeanonymous reviewers and the editor,HermanAguinis,for their helpfulcommentson earlier drafts of thearticle.Pleaseaddresscorrespondence to Dr. KimSoin,Department of Management, King’s College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London,SE1 9NH, United Kingdom; e-mail: [email protected].


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ever, even if some archetypical similarities of stories can be identified (Martin, Feldman,Hatch, & Sitkin, 1983), stories vary between organizations, as all organizations are unique,having their own gestalt. Organizations vary according to their specific history, origin, struc-ture, size, location, and society’s economic stage of development. However, it is not only theexternal factors but also the internal ones that make an organization unique. From a cognitiveperspective, it is the ways of sensemaking (Weick, 1995) that are enacted in a focal organiza-tion and particularly the means by which individuals ascribe meanings to specific events andcircumstances in and around the organization that give rise to the uniqueness of organiza-tions. In addition, stories play an important role in, and are also a significant outcome of,these processes of sensemaking (Gabriel, 2000). Against this backdrop, it seems surprisingthat stories, like other types of narratives, are only randomly employed in business manage-ment research and particularly in cross-cultural studies of organizational life. This articletherefore argues for the utility of a narrative research methodology and, in particular, the useof stories for the cross-cultural study of organizations. We argue that stories can be under-stood as the result of ongoing accomplishments to make sense (Weick, 1995) of what is hap-pening in social entities such as groups, institutions, or even nations. Thewayin which actorsorder their experiences in these processes is, however, coined by culture (Czarniawska,2004). Hence, stories provide an eminent medium to explore the construction of social life(Bruner, 1991).

In an era of globalization, this culturally sensitive perspective in organizational analysisremains very important in cross-cultural organizational research. Although it is commonsense that theculture of nations or greater regions influences organizations, research that dif-ferentiates between universals and cultural specificities remains a central topic of organiza-tion studies (Aguinis & Henle, 2003). Onefieldof organizational practice that is of particularinterest for cross-cultural research is the field of management control. This field has seem-ingly undergone a comprehensive process of internationalization and globalization. How-ever, this shift has lednotonly to a process of thestandardizationof management control sys-

tems but also to a greater awareness of the tension between (conceptual) universality and(cultural) differentiation and diversity in the design of management control systems(Hopwood, 1999). The balanced scorecard system(Kaplan & Norton, 1997) is a good exam-ple here. Developed just a decade ago, this system for management control is now used indiverse types of organizations acrossthe world. Therefore, a standardizing effect on practicesof management control could be supposed. And these systems for management control seemto be value-neutral systems of “calculative practices” (Miller, 1994) and hence independentof the cultural background in which they are implemented. However, over the past few years,researchers in the field of management control have increasingly identified obstacles thataccrue from the cultural background in which such systems such as the balanced scorecardare implemented. Hence, they have turned their attention to understanding the relationbetween national culture and the design of management control systems and focused on

cross-cultural issues, respectively(Harrison& McKinnon,1999). As Hopwood (1999) put it,

It seems likely, that encroaching global practices do stimulate an awareness of and some degreeof reflection upon thespecificity of theprevailing local practices. In this area there arealso otherreasons for furthering our understanding of the differences between the local and the global andthe interrelationship between them. Being intimately related to other practices of corporate andorganizational governance management accounting systems may vary in relationship to their

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positioning in a wider configuration of organizational and social-economic arrangements. Dif-ferent cultural configurations may attach different explicit emphasis to economic factors andmay engage in different forms of economic management and thereby invest differentially informs of economic calculation. (p. 377)

In thecase of management control systems, it is thevery basic notionof control that differsacross cultures. Thus, the exploration of how local management control practices areinformed by cultural aspects can be understood as a valuable source for cross-culturalresearch. And as control practices depend on processes of sensemaking, stories about suchpractices can provide insights into factors that surround, inflate, and vary the seemingly neu-tral and objective nature of control systems. In the following, we choose, therefore, the fieldof management control for our considerations of the utility of a narrative approach to cross-cultural management research. We propose that a narrative methodology, as a crucial part of interpretive, ethnographic research, can be a valuable and unique resource for theorizing aboutthe interplaybetween national cultures and theways in which organizational life is constructedand particularly how management control is enacted in organizations (Czarniawska, 1998;Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992; Denzin, 1997; Rosen, 2000; Van Maanen, 1983).

The article is structured as follows. First, we explain the diverse concepts of (organiza-tional) culture that are used in culture-related management research andhighlight the respec-tive epistemological positions to which thedifferent approaches are linked. Second, we pointout the respective methodological positions in cross-cultural research and contrast dominantapproaches to cross-cultural management research that mainly focus on cultural dimensions(e.g., Hofstede, 1980, 2001) with alternative methodological choices. We will depict theessential characteristicsandfeatures of using narrative methodologies and the role this meth-odology can play in our attempts to understand cross-cultural issues in organizations. Third,to substantiate the potential of narrative methodologies, we provide examples of studiestaken from the field of cross-cultural management control research, which, based on a narra-tive methodology, use stories as a means to interpret management control practice. In theconcluding section, we discuss the potential advantages of such approaches as augmenta-tions and extensions to other methodological frameworks of cross-cultural research andprovide some suggestions for future research.

Cultures and Organizations

Given the plethora of literature on culture-related management and organization research,it is clear that culture is an important feature of organizational life and is therefore a centralissue for all management and organizational research. Furthermore, it is widely acknowl-edgedamong organizational researchersthatculture plays an important role in organizations,and the volume of contributions made to this field in the past 30 years demonstrates that the

discussions are not merely another example of a “management fashion” (Kieser, 1997) butare crystallized into (a) new paradigm(s) for organization research.

However, most leading researchers in this field state that there are various approaches thatconceptualize the relationship between culture and organization. Culture-related researchcan therefore be depicted as diverse, disparate, and controversial. This is often stated byresearchers who are concerned with organizational culture (Alvesson, 2002; Ashkanasy,Wilderom, & Peterson, 2000; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992; Eisenberg& Riley, 2001; Jeffcutt,

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1994; Martin, 1992, 2002; Martin & Frost, 1996; Parker, 2000; Smircich, 1983a, 1983b;Smircich & Calas, 1987) but also in most contributions to cross-cultural managementresearch (Aguinis & Henle, 2003; Boyacigiller et al., 1996; Early & Singh, 2000).

We do not aim to fully explain the complex field of research on the relationship betweenculture and organizations in all its detail and different approaches, nor do we feel that we areable to settle what Martin and Frost (1996) called the “organizational culture war games.”However, in the following, we aim to sketch the structure of the field by outlining one basicdistinction that paradigmatically divides the approaches of culture-related research into twomain groups. Since its first appearance, culture-related research in management and organi-zation studies seems to be split into several distinct pockets that stand—in terms of theirepistemological background and the methods for empirical research employed—in directopposition to each other. More than two decades ago, in her seminal contribution to the dis-cussion on organizational culture, Smircich (1983b) distinguished between five differentways of linking culture and organization. The two perspectives that Smircich called “cross-cultural or comparative management” and “corporate culture” form the main paradigm of a“culture as a variable.” The approaches labeled as “organizational cognition,” “organiza-tional symbolism,” and “unconscious processes and organizations” form the second mainparadigm, namely, the basic conception of “culture as a root metaphor.”

Cross-cultural or comparative management research—as part of the “culture as a variableapproach”—is, according to Smircich (1983b), attached to the underlying assumption that“culture is an instrument serving human biological and physical needs” (p. 342) and hence toa functionalist understanding of culture. Organizations are, respectively, instruments for task accomplishment. Hence, culture is from this perspective an independent variable, an envi-ronmental factor that leads to variations in management systems or leadership styles. How-ever, it is the quest for causal explanations between the national culture and identifiable prac-tices and systems within organizations that is the focus of this research. As Smircich put it,the “culture as a variable” approach is based “on the conception of organizations as organ-

isms, existing within an environment that presents imperatives for behaviour. . . . Underlyingthe interests in comparative management and corporate culture is the search for predictablemeans fororganizational control andimproved means fororganization management” (p.347).

The“culture as a root metaphor”approach is in some ways thedirectopposite: “Character-ized very broadly, the research agenda stemming from this perspective is to explore the phe-nomenon as subjective experience and to investigate the patterns that make organized actionpossible” (Smircich, 1983a, p. 348). Hence, this approach is based on assumptions that arefundamentally opposed to the variable approach:

The mode of thought that underlies culture as a root metaphor gives the social world much lessconcrete status. The socialworld is notassumed to have an objective, independent existence thatimposes itself on human beings. Instead, the social or organizational world exists only as a pat-

tern of symbolic relationships and meanings sustained through the continued processes of human interaction. Social action is considered possible because of consensually determinedmeanings for experience that, to an external observer, may have the appearance of an independ-ent rule-like existence. (Smircich, 1983a, p. 353)

We argue that the main distinction between the “culture as a variable” approach and “cul-ture as a root metaphor” approach drawn by Smircich (1983b) is still significant in culture-





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related research on organizations and management. Admittedly, as Martin and Frost (1996)described, the field is structured by manifold idiosyncratic approaches that are disparate,even if they stem from similar research traditions. Nevertheless, the two main paradigms of the variable approach and the root-metaphor approach are still being interpreted as forming“families” of approaches in culture-related research (see, e.g., Alvesson, 2002; Meek, 1988;Parker, 2000). Furthermore, the two paradigmsare, in these attempts to “map the field,” iden-tified as distinct in relation to their epistemological, ontological, and methodological posi-tion. Hence, in the words of Burrell and Morgan (1979), the “culture as a variable” approachis seen as part of the functionalist paradigm, which is based on a realist ontology and positiv-ist epistemology, whereas most research in the “culture as root metaphor” approach is identi-fied as part of the interpretive paradigm that is based on a nominalist ontology andantipositivist epistemology. Methodologically, this leads to nomothetic versus ideographicresearch.

However, we argue that the understanding that certain research issues (such as cross-cultural management research) are closely linked to certain paradigms, with clearly definedontological assumptions, epistemologies, and methodologies, is somewhat inexact. Today, itis widelyacknowledged, forexample, in cross-cultural management research that culture hasa degreeof complexity that exceeds thenotionof an independent variable influencing organi-zations in an unambiguous and objectively describable way. Hence, when analyzing cross-cultural issues in management, the complexity of organizational life requires a view of theorganization that is different from that of a machine-like system.

Corresponding to recent discussions in cross-cultural and international managementresearch, we argue therefore for a paradigmatic position that combines insights from theinterpretive branch of organization studies and issues of cross-cultural managementresearch. Most recently, drawing on a broad range of the current literature on cross-culturalmanagement, organizational behavior, and cross-cultural psychology, Aguinis and Henle(2003) provided a definition of culture that can also be taken as the basis underlying such an

approach to cross-cultural management research. In their view, culture is defined as a set of commonalities sharedby a group that limits thebehavioral choices of itsmembers. Culture istherefore determined by common experiences; sets the stage for behavior (but does notinclude or consist of behavior); is a stable system that, however, can change; and is a latent,multidimensional, and multilayered construct. What makes this definition so useful is that itholds for national as well as organizational culture. However, national and organizationalcultures demonstrate differences in the way in which culture is formed. As Hofstede andPeterson (2000) recently stated, national cultures are shaped by values; organizational cul-tures are, however, shapedby practices. Although in general we agree with thecriticisms thatnational cultures are not only formed by values (McSweeney, 2002), we argue thatHofstede’s distinction about thewayin which culture at different levels is informed is signifi-cant for epistemological and methodological considerations. If organizational culture is

informed by practices, then any attempt to identify how national culture affects organizationshas to focus on the interrelation and mutual influence of actual practices and the culturewithin a focal organization. Hence, it is not the direct link between values at a national leveland the “espoused” values (Schein, 1985) that are part of the explicit or explicated organiza-tional culture that leads to comprehensive insights into the influences of national culture onorganizations. Rather, if it is to identify the influence national cultures have on organizations,





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or if we want to speak of an American or a Japanese company, the way in which nationalcultures are engraved in real organizational practices becomes the core focus of interest.

To conceptualize the complex relationship between national culture and organization life,it is useful to relate to the notion of sensemaking in organizations (Weick, 1995). The com-monalities shared by a group that limits the behavioral choices of its members (the definitionof culture provided by Aguinis & Henle, 2003) consists of the patterns by which members of an organization make sense of the events and incidents in the organization. If the rhetoric of anational culture is being held as in general relevant, then it could be argued that national cul-ture influences sensemaking in organizations. However, it is clear that organizational cul-tures are coined by inner fragmentation and that therefore the patterns of sensemaking mightdifferwithinorganizations. As in allcultures,organizational cultures consist of a complex setof subcultures that are formedby different, andsometimescontrasting, ideologies andunder-lying assumptions (Martin, 1992, 2002; Smircich & Calas, 1987). However, we follow Mar-tinandMeyerson(1988), whopresented a picture of ambiguityat this point: (Organizational)culture is a web in which individuals share several, but not all, cultural issues. And one of these concerns can be, in specific settings, that national culture binds individuals together indifferent ways.

The sociocognitive perspective that underlies the notion of sensemaking has two advan-tages for the conceptualization of (organizational) culture. First, it allows us to link the twobasic features of culture, namely, that culture is something that is shared among a group andhelps members of that group to ascribe meanings to, andhence to interpret, specific incidentsthat they experience. Hence, theprocessesof sensemaking andmeaning ascription areunder-stood as a core part of organizational life. As Smircich (1983b) put it,

In a particular situation theset of meanings that evolves givesa group itsown ethos or distinctivecharacter, which is expressed in patterns of belief (ideology), activity (norms and rituals), lan-guage and other symbolic forms through which organization members both create and sustaintheir view of the world and image of themselves in the world. The development of a worldviewwith itsshared understanding of group identity, purpose, anddirection areproductsof theuniquehistory, personal interactions, and environmental circumstances of the group. (p. 56)

However, even if the history, patterns of interaction, and environmental circumstances of thegroup areunique, it canbe argued that there arecommonfeatures among group members thatintervene into the processes of sensemaking. Weick (1995, p. 188) therefore proposed to addto the notion of shared meanings the aspect that members of a group have “shared experi-ences,” something that is in his view easier to observe and analyze as experiences are moreexplicit and communicable.

The second reason why a perspective of culture as an enacted means of sensemaking isuseful is the notion that culture is related to aspects of knowledge. In this respect, Sackmann(1991) proposed the notion of a “cultural knowledge in organization” and described cultureas the outcome of cognitive processes:

These mechanisms include the standards and rules for perceiving, interpreting, believing andacting that are typically used in a given cultural setting. Within this perspective artefacts andbehavioural manifestations are considered as expressions of culture. These expressions arelocated at the visible surface level while their attached meanings are below the visible level.Theirunderstandingrequires an inquiry intotheunderlying processesof sense-making. (p. 33)





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Hence, it is this specific, local, and also “emotionally imbued” (Sackmann, 1991, p. 41) cul-tural knowledge that forms a major source for theanalysis of the intricatepattern of organiza-tional culture. The “knowledgeability” (Giddens, 1984, p. xxiii) of local actors—in that theyknow how to make sense of incidentsandartifacts—is thereforea primary source for in-depthanalyses when analyzing the way in which national cultures might influence organizationallife.

To sum it up, this sociocognitive definition of organizational culture as a means of sensemaking enacted in local organizations has theadvantagethat it is compatible with socialanthropological approaches to organizational culture (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992) andsimultaneously provides thepotential to take account of aspects of national culture in organi-zational analysis. This is because it focuses on local actors as knowledgeable, “culture expe-rienced” experts in relation to issues such as how they enact (national) cultural backgroundsin local organizational settings.This notionof culture, hence, situates theapproach describedabove as an alternative to the main distinction between the variable and the root-metaphorapproaches and therefore corresponds to the call for hybrid approaches to international andcross-cultural management (Earley & Singh, 2000).

Methodological Issues Associated With the Conceptualizationof Culture in Cross-Cultural Research

One factor that influences the enacted patterns of sensemaking in organizations is theplace where an organization is rooted and/or located. It is widely acknowledged in organiza-tion theory that national cultures affect the culture of organizations. The statement that “thecourse of history has fashioned many variations in national social characteristics and viewsof the meaning of life, and in national styles and philosophies of organization and manage-ment” (Morgan, 1986, p. 114) demonstrates this common insight. Nevertheless, despite thevery basic consensus, the empirical studies undertaken on how national differences mightaffect specific organizational cultures are far from unitary in their methodological basis. Oneof themajor concerns of research on organizational culture hasbeen thequest fora methodol-ogy through which adequate representations of culturally influenced behavior can beachieved—a matter that has long been dealt with by not only organizations theorists but alsocultural anthropologists and psychologists (Tayeb, 2001). These methodological concernsparticularly hold for research on cross-cultural issues in organization research. The fact thatthe interplaybetween culture andorganizations varies—in both its extent andmanner—from(national/regional) culture to culture and that research stylesandmethods might be contextu-ally bound to the cultural background in which they are achieved adds to the complexity of culture as a research genre.

In general, we argue that the landscape of methodology in cross-cultural research isshaped in a similar way to the paradigmatic structure in culture-related organization research

described above. This argument is based on the understanding that there are different notionsof culture that relate to thedifferent research paradigms, which canbe classified as positivist-functionalist and interpretivist (Williamson, 2001). In cross-cultural organization research,the emphasis has tended to focus on objective validity (for an overview related to manage-ment studies, see Usunier, 1998, p. 32 ff.; for research on management control, see Harrison& McKinnon, 1999). However, according to the belief that organizational culture isenmeshed in practice, alternative methodological approaches that are related to interpretive





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and mainly ethnographical framesof reference are proposed in the broad field of research onorganizational culture (see, e.g., Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992; Denzin, 1997; Jönsson &Macintosh, 1997; Rosen, 2000; Symon & Cassell, 1998; Van Maanen, 1983, 1988). Hence,although there is an array of interpretive studies on organizational culture, in cross-culturalresearch on organizations, there are only a few examplesof research that employinterpretive,and particularly ethnographic, methods. Given the origins of ethnography, this is surprising,as ethnography is part of the organizational research methods borrowed from the field of anthropology, a field in which, from its inception, research crossing cultural boundaries wasa main theoretical concern.

In contrast, most studies in cross-cultural organizational research refer to the work of Hofstede (1980, 2001) on “culture’s consequences” (see also Hofstede, 1991; Hofstede,Neuijen, Ohayv, & Sanders, 1990). In sum, Hofstede’s work, and that of others who haveadopted, refined, or critically transformed his framework(Hampden-Turner& Trompenaars,1994; Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987; Schwartz & Sagiv, 1995; Tayeb, 1988;Triandis, 1995; Trompenaars, 1993; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997), focuses onsplitting the complexity of national culture into several observable and measurable valuesthat can then be identified in terms of the extent and way in which they influence organiza-tional cultures. Hence, the main interest focuses on the identification of differences innational cultures (not the cultures themselves; Hofstede, 2002) and the operationalization of these relative measures (and not absolute measures; Hofstede, 2001, p. 73) for cross-culturalmanagement issues (Smith, 2002; Williamson, 2002). The extensive adoption of Hofstede’sframework has taken place in comparative studies on attitudes, values, and norms of manag-ers and employees in different national cultures in many diverse fields, such as cross-culturalpsychology (see, e.g., Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987; Schwartz & Sagiv, 1995),international management (see, e.g., Hickson & Pugh, 1995), and management control (foran overview, see Harrison & McKinnon, 1999, p. 486 ff.).

Despite the level of influence Hofstede’s findings exert in cross-cultural organizational

research, it hasspawned almostas much critique.This critique is broadly related to theunder-lying assumptions and design of the framework, for example, for being ethnocentric in theselection of methods and dimensions (Adler, 1983; Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991; ChineseCulture Connection, 1987); for treating all dimensions the same way across cultures,although they might have differing levels of importance (Lachman, Nedd, & Hinings, 1994;Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997); for fixing culture over time or disrespecting itsevolutionary character (Triandis, 1995); or, more generally, for being methodologically,epistemologically, and ontologically narrow (McSweeney, 2002; Redding, 1994; Roberts &Boyacigiller, 1984; Tayeb, 2001; Williamson, 2002).

In addition, within the field of organization research, there are criticisms towardHofstede’s model. Czarniawska-Joerges’s (1992) critique, for example, focuses on the prob-lems of relating the “dimensionalized” culture to the domain of organizational research.

From the perspective of social anthropology, she argued that organizations are cultural con-texts for social action that are too complex to describe by using distinct categories and mea-surements but can be interpreted only by focusing on organizational practice, that is, mean-ings and artifacts typical (or unique) to complex organizations (p. 186). A more recentanalysis by McSweeney (2002) similarly critiques, evaluates, and challenges Hofstede’sresearch methodology.





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Within the field of management control, Hofstede’s model and results have also beenemployed (e.g., Hofstede, 1986)—with similar criticisms about the methodological issues(see, e.g., Ahrens, 1996; Bhimani, 1999). Ahrens (1996), for example, argued that oneimportantobstacle in employing Hofstede’s categories in studies on managementcontrol liesin the conceptualization of culture as “collective programming of the mind.” Basing empiri-cal work on questionnaire data is, to some extent, a contradiction in itself because one couldargue that the use of a questionnaire as a method of collecting data is a form of preprogramming. Along with Ahrens (1996) and Bhimani (1999), Harrison and McKinnon(1999) call for more useof ethnographic methods that draw on participant observation, inter-views, narratives, and historical accounts. In addition, Bhimani (1999) argued that onlymethodological pluralism can guarantee an insightful analysis of cross-cultural issues inmanagement control research.

Despite the conflicts about the methodological foundations of Hofstede’s approach, thereis a consensus that the “dimensionalization” research paradigm is just one approach forthinking about the implications of culture for organizations, namely, what has been termedthe “culture as a variable” approach (Smircich, 1983b). However, this aspect of the discus-sion on organizational culture does not realize the full potential of methodological variety.Thequestion is not simplywhether a dimensionalization approach shouldbe applied but alsowhat other approaches enableus to delve into the complexity of cross-cultural issues in man-agement and organizational research. We therefore argue that the second broad strand of research defined by Smircich (1983b), namely, thediscussion on “culture as basic metaphor,”contains useful concepts, ideas, and related methodologies that can open up the potential of paradigmatic diversity for cross-cultural management and organization research (see alsoTayeb, 2001, p. 101 f.).

Clearly, interpretive approaches in organization studies do not attempt to standardize orobjectify the material but seek to reveal a rich understanding of how practices that are cultur-ally influenced are constituted and perceived in the life-world of individuals. From the

interpretivist perspective, conceptualizing the relation between national culture and organi-zations has always been seen as a complex and challenging task for theorists. Many notions,which play an important role in organization theory and practice (such as management, con-trol, leadership, hierarchy, or organizing) are seen as being influenced by culture; hence, cul-ture is an implicit source of meaning(s) to which individuals relate when experiencing,understanding, and enacting (organizational) life. This has to be taken into account whenexploring how actors make sense of processes in organizations (Weick, 1995), particularlywhen conducting research on these issues with respect to the cross-cultural dimension. Con-sequently, attempts to understand the embedded nature of organizational practices have todelve into the interpretations actors ascribe to these notions and the different waysorganizational practices are enacted in their cultural context.

Ethnographical approaches (for an overview, see Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992; Denzin,

1997; Gummesson, 2000; Jönsson & Macintosh, 1997; Symon & Cassell, 1998; VanMaanen, 1983) can be interpreted as providing alternative methodological means of access-ing the embedded nature of organizational practices. The use of narratives (Czarniawska,1998) is one aspect of this methodology that can be used in conjunction with otherethnographic methods. In other social science disciplines, for example, history, anthropol-ogy, psychology, and sociology, theuseof narratives has long been seen as a method that pro-vides an alternative means to access the meaning people ascribe to specific situations and





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incidents. This approach has led to a differentiated body of literature on the methodologicalaspects of narrative research (see, e.g., Clandinin & Connelly, 1999; Denzin, 1997; Lieblich,Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998; Polkinghorne, 1988).

Narrative and ethnographical approaches have been applied in areas such as internationalhuman resource management (see, e.g., Peltonen, 1998), the wider field of organizationalresearch (see, e.g., Boje, 1991, 1995, 2001; Boyce, 1995; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1996;Czarniawska, 1997; Gabriel, 1995; Patriotta, 2003; Van Maanen, 1988) as well as in the fieldof management accounting and control research. However, researchers who use narrativescome from differentphilosophical positions. Forexample, thework of Boyce (1995, 1997) isrelated to social cognitivism, Czarniawska’s work (Czarniawska, 1997, 1998, 2004) com-bines cognitivism with theories of drama and acting. For Gabriel (1995, 2000, 2004), whorefers to postmodern andpoststructuralist concepts, stories area prominent type of narrativesand are an important part of the construction of the life-world of individuals. Boje’s work (1991, 1995, 2001) also takes a postmodern view but sees the whole organization as consist-ing of webs of stories, rather than takingstories as expressive forms of organizational or indi-vidual life. The work of Van Maanen (1988) is clearly related to ethnography, as is the work of other researchers that is related to an interpretive framework (e.g., Patriotta, 2003). Inmanagementcontrol research, the interpretive and ethnographic research views are predomi-nant in relation to narrative research (Ahrens, 1996, 1997, 1999; Ahrens & Chapman, 2000;Kostera, 2002; Llewellyn, 1999; Scheytt, Soin, & Metz, 2003).

At this point, it is important to distinguish between narratives and stories. From the inter-pretive perspective of narrative-related research, stories told by actors—who can be inter-preted as local experts—do not merely present facts or information. Rather, they provideinsights into the emotional and symbolic ascriptions and hence into the meanings that actorsascribe to events in relation to their cultural background. The relevance of stories is that theyecho the voice, thinking, and perceptions of people in organizations and hence are a valuablebasis to explore the patterns of sensemaking within organizations, as Weick (1995) has also

highlighted. The work of Boyce (1995), for example, clearly exemplifies how the processesof storytelling correspond to the processes of sensemaking in organizations. Furthermore, asVan Maanen, Manning, and Miller (cited in Czarniawska, 1998) pointed out, the potential of a narrative research setting is that it can be directed toward contextual factors that mightotherwise be neglected:

Narrative stories and tales, it is said, connect the person and the personal to social events, pro-cesses and organizations. Qualitative research using narrative methods enables researchers toplace themselves at the interface between persons, stories and organizations, and to place theperson in emotional and organisational context.

In stories, there has to be some kind of a plot that links the diverse, more rational aspects of

organizations with the feelings, events, and emotions of organizational members. However,not all narratives do so, and this forms the basis of the difference between narratives and sto-ries, in that stories are a specific type of narrative. Czarniawska (2004, p. 17) defined narra-tives as a “spoken or written text giving an account of an event/action or series of events/ actions, chronologically connected” (p. 19 ff.), whereas stories need to be emplotted in thatthey are more complicated, imbued by emotions, descriptions of tensions, and/or moral con-clusions. Accordingly, Gabriel (2000) argued that “not all narratives are stories; in particular





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factual or descriptive accounts of events that aspire at objectivity rather than emotional effectmust not be treated as stories” (p. 5). For example, a formal description of how an organiza-tion works, guidelines for behavior, a chronicle of events, or an annual report do not consti-tute a story. Hence,stories are interesting as a particular form of narratives, in which the tracesof diverse cultural influences can be identified.

There are numerous ways to collect a variety of stories in organizations, both from differ-ent sources and in different contexts. For example, researchers can be told stories by mem-bers of an organization in both formal (e.g., a meeting) and informal situations (e.g., at aChristmas party, over coffee, or in the staff canteen). A story can also be written in a report.Furthermore, a researcher can directly ask a chosen group or person to “tell me a story” ortake a collected story and transfer it into a different cultural setting for interpretation by athird party. Furthermore, as Czarniawska (2004) highlighted, the analysis of the stories candraw on a number of techniques for interpretation such as ethnomethodology, discourse analy-sis, conversation analysis, semiotic analysis, dramaturgical and narrative analysis, anddeconstruction.

We distinguish three main reasons that render the use of stories enlightening for cross-cultural research. The first reason is that stories do not merely present facts or information.Rather, they are told by local actors who can, however, be identified as local experts for theinterpretation of their own culture in cross-cultural research settings. They therefore provideinsights into the emotional and symbolic ascriptions and hence into the meanings that actorsascribe to events in relation to their cultural background. Gabriel (2000, p. 135) stated that“stories are emotionally and symbolically charged narratives; they do not present informa-tion or facts about ‘events’, but they enrich, enhance and infuse facts with meaning.” But,how is this done in telling a story? In telling stories, a narrator always creates a “plot” (White,1981), a way to bring single events or a sequence of actions experienced by the narrator into a“meaningful whole” (Czarniawska, 1998, p. 2). However, it is notonly the“diachronicity” of stories (Bruner, 1991, p. 5), the sequential order of events, that is created or constructed by

the plot. Stories are dynamic, for example, tragic or comic, and reflexive, namely, “self-deconstructing, flowing, emerging and networking, not at all static” (Boje, 2001, p. 1).Hence, by saying, for example, “and then . . . ,” the narrator links single events in a temporalbut also a logical sense. Thus, a story “transforms events into historical facts by demonstrat-ing their ability to function as elements of completed stories” (White, 1987, p. 251). How-ever, the way in which events are formed into a story depends on the very background of thenarrator, namely, thecultural aspects of hisor her life: “When peoplepunctuate their own liv-ing into stories, they impose a formal coherence on what is otherwise a flowing soup”(Weick, 1995, p. 128).

Although a story provides an account that might be—in thefirst instance—consistent onlyin the narrator’s view, it is exactly the constructive act of creating a plot that infuses the storywith expressions of the narrator’s feelings, values, norms, and beliefs. Lieblich et al. (1998,

p. 7) stated that such research provides one of the “clearest channels for learning about theinner world” of the narrators, their lives, and their experienced reality. Therefore, a story canprovide different data than can be gathered on the basis of nomothetic methodologies.Gabriel (1998) stated that

in telling a story, therequirements of accuracyandveracityare relaxed in theinterestof makingapoint. Poetic license is the prerogative of storytelling. At the same time, by shrouding a point in





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symbolic terms, stories are able to evade censors, both internal and external, and express viewsand feelings which may be unacceptable in straight talk. (p. 136)

A second reason for the use of stories is their ability to reveal hidden aspects of culture,

namely, theother side of rules, norms,andvalues that might be particularlyvaluable in cross-cultural research. Van Maanen (1988) argued that the value of storytelling is “its presumablyout of the ordinary or unique character. Impressionist tales are not about what usually hap-pens but about what rarely happens” (p. 102). This makes stories appealing as a basis for ana-lyzing culture as they influence the way(s) of sensemaking in organizations. Not only are theusual, literallynormal patternsof behaviorembracedbut also how rare, unusual, or even devi-anthuman behavior is formedandwhat thereasons for this behaviorare in diverse socialenti-ties, such as organizations. As Bruner (1991) and White (1981) explained, narratives are ameans by which human beingsconstruct realitiesandhence their own identity; however, cul-ture is, from this perspective, constituted not only by rules but also by ways of breaking theserules in the course of individual actions, the reactions that can be expected by this violation,and the following events that form the consequences (on the issue of breach as point of refer-ence in culture-related research, see also Trompenaars, 1993). Therefore, for Bruner (1991),human behavior as described in stories is shaped not only by the “prescription for canonicalbehavior in a culturally defined situation” but also by breach: “For to be worth telling, a talemust be about how an implicit canonical script has been breached, violated, or deviated fromin a manner to do violence to the ‘legitimacy’ of the canonical script” (p. 11).

Stories are therefore a suitable wayof understanding how people interpret, obey, andactu-ally do break the rules. This empirical richness,which is essential for cross-cultural research,cannot be achieved by nomothetic approaches. Owing to their methodological nature, theseapproaches ask respondents for their interpretation of rules and perhaps how the respondentsapply these rules, but they cannot ask for contextual situations and backgrounds in whichbreaking the rules might be imperative in the eyes of the respondents. Thus, by using storiesas an empirical reference, cross-cultural research on organizations can take account of theother side of culture, namely, the reasons why and when culture finds its end as a system thatregulates social relations. One of the central weaknesses of Hofstede’s and similar models isthat they cannot take account of the importance or real meaning respondents ascribe in realsituations to culture in its different dimensions. According to interpretivist approaches, withthe use of stories, more “space” is provided for the respondent to shape the relation of valuesand actions in his or her story. Hence, it can be observed how much attention is paid to differ-ent values or dimensions. This methodological strength also helps to bridge the gap betweenthe average tendencies of research, focusing on national-level culture in its impact on organi-zations and the mere description of organizational cultures as generic and self-evident enti-ties in which no analytical link to national culture can be depicted. Furthermore, it provides abasis for analyses, which accepts the fact that national cultures are nota holistic entitybut are

differentiated into subcultures with different, or even contradicting, sets of norms, values,and beliefs.The third advantage of using stories is that the method acknowledges the fact that culture

needs to be understood in itscontext by those whohaveaccess to local practices, lived experi-ences, and shared meanings in that context. When cross-cultural research is directed towardtaking account of how (national) culture intervenes in processes of sensemaking, an empha-sis has to be placed on the local actors who actually carry out these processes. In contrast to





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nomothetic approaches, idiographic approaches (Tsoukas, 1989) enable us to identify con-textual specifics, and particularly the role of local actors, that would otherwise be method-ologically neglected. According to Williamson (2002, p. 1392), idiographic research is morefeasible than a nomothetic methodology for research into the context-specific factors as itallows the researcher to investigate the complex and dynamic interrelationships of cultures,institutions, history, and processes of social adaptation. That is to say, to fully understandorganizational practices, it is useful to interpret them as “experiential concepts”(Czarniawska-Joerges, 1990). In this sense, stories allow us to explore the meanings of con-cepts by studying how people “who are considered to be socially competent” (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1990, p. 8) use them in real situations. Hence,using stories to analyze organizationalpractices enables consideration of contextual factors, such as national cultures. With respectto analyzing the practices of the use of power in organizations, Czarniawska-Joerges (1990)argued that “if one isolates [in organizational analysis] the concept of power from the worldof everyday life, it becomes empty, in the sense that we do not knowwhat facts it relates to, orhow it relates to them” (p. 7). The use of stories thus emphasizes the processes of interpreta-tion and understanding carried out by local actors in a social context (Schuetz, 1927).Similarly, drawing on Bruner (1990), Jönsson and Macintosh (1997) highlight that

the narrative mode constructs stories that give credible accounts of the world of actors’ experi-ence and how they maintain their roles and identities. These stories illustrate how human actorsgive meaning to their experience. So interpretive research provides reports about howactors feeland think and establish what is canonical in a given society—what is expected of a member. (p.381)

There are, of course, limitations to using stories as a database. Researchers run the risk of overlooking alternative sources of data that might reveal other organizational issues. How-ever, our argument is that stories should not be the sole source of data in empirical researchbut—as our later discussion of Ahrens’s (1996, 1997, 1999) and Scheytt et al.’s (2003) work illustrates—used in conjunction with other ethnographical methods. In summary, therefore,the use of stories responds to Williamson’s (2002), as well as Hofstede’s, call for alternativemethodologies as a supplement to ourunderstanding. With this addition,valuableandimpor-tant insights can be gathered not only about differences in cultures (not about cultures them-selves) but also about the validity of cultural dimensions and the extent to which the dimen-sions play a role in the context of situations. Narrative approaches, such as the use of stories,can therefore also augment other methodologies used for culture-related research in twoways. First, they provide a basis forexamining andexplaining thecultural factors that shape aspecific situation. Second, they provide a basis for examining how the sharedunderstandingsthat are revealed through the analysis of stories play out in real situations.

For the researcher, using stories as an empirical basis necessitates being aware of one’s

own theoretical and conceptual assumptions. Researchers bring assumptions and biases tothe research process because the nature of research itself can be interpreted as a process of sensemaking and storytelling. Reflexivity as part of the methodology (see Alvesson &Skoldberg, 2000; Van Maanen, 1988) is therefore particularly important in cross-culturalresearch, given the researcher’s own cultural context. The methodological framework has toensure awareness of the fact that the processes of interpretation and sensemaking uninten-tionally change the material by reconfiguring meanings, making (new) sense of the inter-





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pretedmaterial, “fixing ‘significations’to the‘results’,” andfinally “act[ing]as authors of thenarratives that we call ‘theories’” (Calas & Smircich, 1999).

It is therefore important to clarify that such an understanding does not concentrate on thededuction of positive analytical knowledge. The understanding of this approach is thereforethat all results are provisional and the object of a necessarily ongoing process of interpreta-tion and reinterpretation(s), along the inevitable hermeneutic circle.

The next section provides some examples of the use of stories in cross-cultural research todemonstrate the contribution of a narrative approach.

The Use of Stories in Cross-Cultural Research

The examples presented here are drawn from the field of management control becausecontrol is one of the most pervasive—and literally universal—management practices. Fur-thermore, thesituations in which control is exerted specificallyexplicate the influence of val-ues and beliefs, feelings, and emotions on the decisions and actions of local and culturallybound actors. In addition, increasing attention has been paid in the past two decades to thetransferability of management control practices. This has happened for two reasons: First,increasing globalization implies that many firms have to establish international operations.The key question that emerges is whether they “can . . . transport their domestic MCS [man-agement control systems] overseas, or whether they need to redesign the MCS according tothe cultural imperativesof the overseas nations” (Harrison & McKinnon, 1999, p. 483). Sec-ond, although there is some recognition of the significance of culture in relation to manage-ment control systems design, this is still very limited with cross-cultural research. Andalthough these arguments are not unique to this field—indeed, the same could be said for thefield of management research more generally—the ubiquitous nature of control, its signifi-cance to management accounting theory and practice, and the fact that it is of contemporaryrelevance given that we live in a cost-driven global society all render it a particularlyinteresting andusefulconstruct to explore in thecontext of the issuesaddressedin this article.

To investigate control in organizations, one has to consider the ambiguous characteristicsof the way control exists as a central means to direct a company and to coordinate the actionsand behavior that are enacted by the organization’s members. Although from a functionalistparadigm, control is usually held as being neutral and objective, the use of control is poten-tially linked to the way power, and sometimes discretion, is exerted (see also Boland &Schultze, 1996). Management accounting intensifies this ambiguous nature of control in thatit rationalizes andstandardizes the control practices. By concentrating on specific (financial)aspects, it hides other aspects of organizational life (Miller, 1994; Munro, 1999). Owing tothis ambiguous nature, control practices are arguably the most concealed yet highly signifi-cant type of processes in organizations and arecontext specific and influenced by thecultural

background. Hence, the use of stories, which leaves the widest possible space for the respon-dent in reasoning about the background, the meaning, and the implication of control, is pre-sented here as being a suitable methodological means of theorizing about the practice of con-trol in organizations. Consequently, narrative methodologies, and particularly the use of stories, mayplay an important role in cross-cultural research on management accounting andcontrol practices. In thefollowing, we present three examplesof how such methodologieswereemployed in exploring the cross-cultural formation of control practices in organizations.





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The first example is the analysis of management accounting and control practices in Ger-many and the United Kingdom undertaken by Ahrens (1996, 1997, 1999; Ahrens & Chap-man, 2000). In his ethnographically inspired research, Ahrens investigated the everydaypractices of management accountants and focused, among other things, on different styles of accountability and the ways in which accounting practices and accountability were interre-lated in the respective organizations. The empirical basis for the research consisted of docu-ment analysis, interviews, and participant observation of formal and informal meetings in aset of German and British breweries. The brewery industry was selected because the eco-nomic situation (stagnating markets, simple technology, stable industry structure) is similarin both countries.

Although not exclusively based on the use of narrative methodologies, Ahrens’s work hasto be highlighted here with respect to his use of stories as a specific source of data for innova-tive cross-cultural research. This is best explained with the leaking roof example in Ahrens(1996). During the ethnographic research phase in one British company, Ahrens observed alack of funds for maintenance, particularly for the upkeep of buildings, that led to dilapida-tion and finally to a leaking roof on a warehouse where canned beer and filled kegs werestored. Although the maintenance manager of this company expressed concerns about thestate of the buildings, a budget for repair had not been granted through the period of 3 years.The functioning of the production lines, which were perfectly maintained, and furthermorethe overall profit orientation in times of market and cost pressure were more central to theperceived accountability of managers than the perceived need to repair the roof; althoughhygienic, health and quality matters were clearly at risk.

What makes this significant for this context is the next step in Ahrens’s empirical researchframework.He took these examplesas a specific style of accountability and transferred it intoanother culture by telling the stories to managers in the companies in the other country andasked for their judgment and experience of accountability. Ahrens (1996) commented thatthis “brings out contradictory sentiments and logic-in-use in the two countries” (p. 148).

Hence, clear differences of the culturally embedded nature of accountability could berevealed. With respect to the leaking roof, the British style of accountability was beyond theunderstanding of the German managers. The latter expressed a clear and unambiguous opin-ion that they would make sure that the roof would be repaired without any delay. Ahrens con-cluded with respect to the different Anglo-German styles of accountability that the Britishview seemed to be that financial performance objectives and strategic ambitions are muchmore important than the repair of a leaking roof, whereas the Germans put more emphasis onthe integrity of operational processesandexpressed indifference toward any information thatdoes not represent operational economies of the organization:

It appears that theBritish seniormanagement accountant and his finance director primarily holdthemselves accountable to managing their organization such that it generates revenues now and

in the future. The processes of accountability are such that in the pursuit of this goal “drasticaction” is perfectly acceptable. The German manager and the senior management accountantboth seem to hold themselves accountable to a concept of management which puts operationalintegrity and economy before reported earnings. For them the failure to repair the roof isinconceivable. (p. 152)





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Thestrengths of using stories in this setting areobvious.Thestory is thecontainer in whichthe rationale of an everyday management practice (in this case, British management accoun-tants andmanagers) is brought into a context that is coinedby thesame professional expertisebut is culturally different. By activating the professional expertise of people from anotherregion, cross-cultural differences are explored from a perspective that is different to thedimensionalization approaches discussed earlier. In this case, it is not the researcher who isimposing his interpretation and assessments onto the material; rather, it is the professionalswho, by their estimation of practices in other countries, exemplify the cultural differences.This cross-cultural empirical research might therefore disclose a direct view, not on theexplicit aspects that can be categorized or measured, but on the implicit understandings of professional actors in everyday situations very familiar to them.

Another example for the utilization of this approach to cross-cultural management is theresearch by Kostera (2002). She focused on how a culturally specific understanding of con-cepts proliferates from one cultural region to another. In this case, it is the way in which theconcept of control, as it is understood by the Western part of the world and transported bymedia and (Anglo-Saxon) textbooks, forms the notion of control in postcommunist Poland.Kostera collected accounts from Polish management students, asking them (during the firstencounter) to write short stories or poems about thenotion of control, without giving any fur-ther explanation of the aim of this exercise. The aim of research was “to explore the currentassociations of ‘control’among the Polish future management theorists and practitioners” (p.116). The following content analysis focused on the lived experience of students who weretoo young to be eyewitnesses to the totalitarian (Stalinist) phase of Poland and therefore hadnot experienced the communist system as adults. Hence, the responses were taken as anexpression of how control as social praxis is understood and judged in postcommunistPoland. The hypothesis was that differences in terms of thepolitical system(compared to theWestern world) would vanish but might continue in terms of the cultural setting. In general,the accounts consisted mainly of definitions—often combined with a personal account or

story—of kontrola , a Polish word that depicts only one aspect of the English word control ,namely, the social process of inspection or examination of one (group of) person(s) byanother one. The other aspects of the English word control , namely, supervision, directing,(self-)restraint, technical control or check of devices, regulation, andso forth,were notused.

Although theresults cannotbe describedhere in detail, it is important to highlight themaininsights that Kostera (2002) extracted from her empirical data. Usually, the sentimentexpressed was that control is an awkward and threatening procedure whose legitimation andmeaning is scrutinized by the narrators. Positive connotations of control were not discussed.And although control has a negative image, it is seen as necessary or inescapable, while theways in which it is constituted as socialpractice are seen as fraudulent anddeceptive. Kosteraconcluded that two skirmishing forces can be identified. First, the former experience in thetotalitarian phase of communism led to a fundamental mistrust toward all processes in which

an official or a superior acts toward another person or a subordinate. This also led to rigors inpersonal relationships when it came to situations that were perceived as situations of control.On theother hand, the importof Western (management)knowledgeandculture in thepast 15years led to a rather uncritical borrowing of management practices, in the sense of “this is theway it has to be.” Kostera concluded that





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the inhabitants of the ex-Eastern bloc have lost their innocence—the totalitarian system hastaught them to be careful with words, with meanings and not to take things at face value. On theother hand, it has also encouraged people to do the opposite, to read without thinking and acceptwithout reflection. . . . The clash of the tendencies: to believe and to doubt, is . . . a paradox of the

contemporary Polish society. (p. 124)

Thevalueof using stories in this case is that theanalytical view goes farbeyond thecharac-teristics that can be made explicit with measure-oriented methods (e.g., surveys). The intri-cate pattern of effects that contradict the idea of simply transferring (management) knowl-edge from oneculture to another—as it is supposed, forexample, from theglobal perspectiveof management control textbooks—needs to be understood when it comes to analyzingissues of cross-cultural management. Specifically, the use of stories can depict the dynamicand transformational aspects of evolving societies and cultures, aspects for which thedimensionalization approaches have problems accounting.

Employing a similar methodological framework to Kostera (2002), Scheytt et al. (2003)explored notions of control across four different (West) European countries: Austria, France,

Germany, and the United Kingdom. The main aim of the research was to generate an under-standing about control as a social (and organizational) practice and to provide insights intothe differences in understanding and sensemaking of control in the different regions. 1 Sev-enty-six stories were collected from students at the beginning of their first managementaccounting and control course. The students were asked to write a short story about their per-sonal experience of control. Using qualitative content analysis, the results were interpretedagainst the backdrop of structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) and related to the relational,processual, situational, and reflexive aspects of control.

Scheytt et al.’s (2003) research provides insights into the livedexperience of control acrossdifferent cultures.The results demonstrate that—although thecountriesareallpart of Europeand therefore just a small part of the globalized economy—the rational as well as the emo-tional aspects of control show considerable differences in how control is constituted, per-ceived, and assessed. Overall, the stories describe control as a procedure or a set of actionswith clearly defined temporal, spatial, and social boundaries. Control, however, is not a neu-tral event: Thestories suggest that control mobilizes feelings and judgments by thecontrollerand the controlled. Furthermore, the results suggest that despite its shifting conceptualnature, control as an everydayexperience hasmany interrelatedsocial, political, cultural, andmoral connotations that have to be considered when transferring control structures, stan-dards, or systems from one region to another. One main difference is, for example, howeveryday control situations are understood. In theGerman, Austrian, andFrench samples, allstories are told from the perspective of the controlled. Control situations are typically seen asan examinationor check,where themode of subordination is clear. Control is seen as a neces-sary thoughunpleasant procedure, imposed on thecontrolled to regulate socialprocessesand

exerted “through something.” The controlled person perceives himself or herself as the vic-tim of a power structure (French) or formal process (German) over which they have no influ-ence, and control is typically “something that happens to me.” In the French examples, con-trol is mainly perceived as threatening the individual integrity of the controlled, whereas theGerman stories express concerns about how correctly the accepted control rules are appliedor whether the controller acts arbitrarily. In the Austrian examples, the controlled personsometimesreflects on thepossibility of turning thesituation into an intellectual challenge for





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the controller and the controlled, in which escaping the situation without being punished orharassed is the goal for the controlled person. Control is typically depicted as a game that isplayed. This is particularly interesting as Germany and Austria share the same language andare regularly seen as being rooted in the same culture. In contrast to the three other samples,all the U.K. stories are told from the perspective of the controller. Despite that, some of theU.K. narrators acknowledge the fact that they themselves are being controlled. However, ingeneral, control is seen as an opportunity for personal development, where control is“something that I do” and is mainly an explicit practice of control “over something.”

The results of Scheytt et al.’s (2003) research indicate an answer to an intensively dis-cussed issue in management accounting andcontrol theory. That is, theongoing debateaboutwhether the processes of internationalization and globalization also lead to a standardizationof management practices and whether a transfer of management accounting and control sys-temsfrom one region to another is possible. The use of stories as an empirical basis led in thiscase to a clear image of how the cultural factors actually shape the notions of control. By pro-viding the respondents with a framework in which they could depict the full picture of theirexperience, the degree of the interrelation between culture and control was analyzed. Theresults show that the notion of control on whose basis local actors make sense of a particularsituation is closely related to contextual factors, of which the most significant is national orregional culture. However, the fact that this notion is so deeply embedded in, and laden with,ascriptions cannot be ignored when implementing a management control system in adifferent region than that of its origin.

Concluding Remarks

This article has sought to advance our understanding and evaluate the application of analternative methodological approach to cross-cultural research in the field of social sciences,organization theory, andmanagement research.Drawing on a discussion of different concep-tualizations of culture-related research, and by discussing examples of story-driven investi-gations into cultural differences, the article has highlighted the potential of a narrativeapproach to cross-cultural research. Furthermore, drawing on the distinction betweenidiographic and nomothetic approaches, the article responds to calls for multiple methods(Bhimani,1999; Hofstede, 2002; Hopwood, 1999; Scheytt et al., 2003; Williamson, 2002) incross-cultural research. As Williamson (2002) commented, “It is not yet time to abandoneither functionalist research into national culture or the great advances it has made inunbundling the black box of culture. We still need multiple methods from several paradigmsfor researching national culture” (p. 1392).

Narrative methods are useful in a multimethodological framework for exploring the rela-tion between organizational practices and culture in cross-cultural settings. By confrontinglocal actors’ accounts of implicit factors from different countries, rich descriptions of (man-agement control) cultures can be realized for cross-cultural analyses. Hence, although narra-tive methodologies take the opposite stance to positivist, quantitative-orientated approaches,they canbe seen as complementary rather than merelydifferentor alternative. They allowthecross-cultural researcher to take account of the specifics of the context in which local actorsmake sense of incidents they experience. Thus, they acknowledge that in (organizational)practice, the seemingly articulated point of view is tied together with and often largely sub-merged in action. And, more significantly for cross-cultural research, these approaches focus





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on differences of meanings, rather than seeking to assemble identities, in terms of a commoncultural knowledge in the form of a certain set of culturally specified variables.

A further strength of narrative approaches is that narratives (e.g., stories) address culturein alternative ways: As stated earlier, by expressing not only canonicity, but also breach(Bruner,1991), they permitidentification of rules as well as how acts of breachingandviolat-ing the rules are interpreted by the social context. Hence, narrative accounts may provideexamples of attempts to change or overcome the system. They therefore provide clearerinsights into the hidden influences of a culture (rather than, e.g., a questionnaire, which canask for only an explanation of rules). In addition, narrative accounts are useful in cross-cul-tural research for the interpretation of interactive situations as opposed to neutral, objective,and/or reified matters. Consequently, from a cross-cultural perspective, the use of narrativemethodologies is important for issues such as leadership, managerial control, humanresource management and development, and organizational change.

Glanz (1993) highlighted the power of storytelling, suggesting that stories told by incum-bent employees to new recruits can transport more content than formal training in organiza-tions. On a methodological level, this suggests that stories can convey extensive and sizeableaspects of organizational life and are therefore particularly useful for cross-cultural research.Hence, although this approach can be used on its own, its potential strength lies in how it canact as a first step in exploring, identifying, andconceptualizing the tracesof culture in thepat-terns of sensemaking enacted in organizations. Future research could therefore combine thisapproach with others in cross-cultural research andcanbe particularlyuseful for interculturalresearch teams, which also have to face the rich fabric of diverse cultural backgrounds thatcan be augmented by a plurality of methods.

Note

1. With respect to Hickson and Pugh’s (1995) classification of consistent management cultures, the Anglos

(United Kingdom), the Latins (France), the Northern Europeans (Germany), and the East-Central Europeans(Austria) were represented.

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