'Koreans are the Israelis of the East': a postcolonial reading of cultural similarities in cross-cultural management. Issue 6 (2nd November 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lyan, Irina
• Is Part Of: Culture and organization. Volume 27:Issue 6(2021)
• Page Start: 507
• Page End: 525
• Publication Date: 2021-11-02
• Subjects: Cultural similarity -- critical cross-cultural management studies -- postcolonial theory -- mimicry -- othering -- content analysis; Culture -- Periodicals; Organizational sociology -- Periodicals; 302.305
• DOI: 10.1080/14759551.2021.1955254
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1475-9551

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to problematize cross-cultural management (CCM) discourse that naturalizes and depoliticizes similarities as a power-neutral or even power-neutralizing mechanism for creating a positive sense of familiarity, closeness, trust, and intimacy between partners. Employing a postcolonial perspective, the paper deals with the ambiguity and partiality embedded in similarity through Homi Bhabha's theoretical concept of mimicry – when similarities conceal and therefore tacitly reproduce and reinforce cultural differences, thus enhancing power asymmetries. Through the systematic content analysis of 151 accounts of similarity in Israel-Korean business alliances – asking who is similar to whom (direction), to what extent (degree), and under what circumstances (context) – this paper reveals similarities construction as a sophisticated othering. Rather than being an effective tool for distance management, similarities-as-mimicry, imposed or desired, determine the hierarchical relations between the compared parties through symbolic projection of being or becoming similar from a superior model to its imitation.