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AIB-L has received a number of additional post requests in response to the Griffin & Pustay discussion that Nnamdi initiated. Since we have already received a response from Michael Pustay, one of the authors of the textbook concerned, we will not approve individual posts any longer, but instead send all further responses grouped together to prevent the overcrowding of the email boxes of our members. This email includes 5 comments we have received so far. If additional responses come in, we will issue another follow up later in the week. -------------- POST 1 Dear Tunga: Thank you for that expanded review of the situation. You are absolutely right that Griffin and Pustay's textbook is one of the best in IB, albeit their book is too expansive to be taught at undergraduate level. I wish that they consider putting out an edition for undergraduate level since quality books at that level is hard to come by. On the issue of cultural clusters, I tend to think that categorization is outdated, and quite honestly, so is the foundations of Ronen and Shenkar's article. There are much better categorizations (e.g., Hofstede; GLOBE; Schwartz; Trompenaars) out there which have a broader applicability in modern IB. Thanks for sharing again. Warm regards, Shah Learning is not compulsory, but have you learned anything today? Shah Jamali Ph.D., MBA., MA/International Relations Managing Partner Jamalis & Partners, LLC International Management Consultants E-mail: [log in to unmask] ---------------------------- POST 2 Dear Tunga and Others who are speaking to the underlying issue that implies (common) lack of understandingabout places and how they fit as countries, states, cities, etc. In my experience - teaching at the graduate level - it was, for example, all too common to find students writing about "Africa" as a country with seeming little if any comprehension that Africa is actually a continent comprised on many independent countries. It is particularly important in this era of globalization, and a growing international business community, that places and what they are are clear in peoples' minds and practice. Another (related) issue I've observed is for a particular university to open campuses in different places across the world and call the move to extend the global reach a globalization effort. There is a great difference between extending global presence and the deeper understanding of what a global presence/reach is really about. Kudos to the students who questioned what they read - this is a wonderful example of pushback and applied critical thinking. Jane Ross, PhD. [log in to unmask] ---------------------------- POST 3 First I should declare an interest in this as I did an Australian Adaptation of the Griffin and Pustay text in 2006. (I am no longer involved with adapting the Griffin and Pustay text, for reasons totally unrelated to this discussion). I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but 1. The Rohen and Shenkar(1885) review article quoted in Griffin and Pustay, reviews and synthesis 8 articles on county clusters. 2. These articles were published between 1966 and 1980. The empirical articles reviewed either used prior to 1971 data, or used data that was grouped prior to 1971 by the corporate structure of MNCs or location of local companies. 3. Qatar became independent of the UK in 1971 4. The UAE came into existence as a federation of absolute monarchies in 1971 5. The key reason that Abu Dhabi, and Dubai are listed separately was because the empirical articles s used in the 1985 review by Rohen and Shenkar reported them separately 6. The key reason that Qatar is not included was because it was not researched in any or the 8 country cluster articles. So it is absolutely appropriate to report Abu Dhabi and Dubai separately, as that was how the data was collected for the clusters. It is absolutely appropriate to leave out Qatar, because data was not collected for the cluster in the Country clusters research quoted by Griffin and Pustay. It is perfectly valid to discuss a. the usefulness of clusters and b. if more recent cluster research When I did the Australian adaption of the Griffin and Pustay text in 2006, I decided that the chapter was in part providing an chronological description of how perceptions of culture had changed As such I chose to leave the reporting of Rohen and Shenkar. We added comments about Dubai/AbuDhabi etc in the instructors support material. Associate Professor Greg Fisher Discipline Leader, Management and Human Resources MBA Director Convenor Management in the Professions Research Group Flinders Business School Flinders University [log in to unmask] T +61 8 82013118 m. +61 423 22 33 79 ---------------------------- POST 4 Hi Linzi, Actually building on this discussion, I agree there is definitely a need for collaborative IB research around the globe. Dr. Bullough and I actually have a short article forthcoming on AIB-Insights special issue on the Middle East that makes the point of needing to revisit our western lens when investigating other cultures particularly in the Middle East, questioning whether studying them from western base lens is doing this justice and the need to break away from stereotypes that even we researchers may sometimes be guilty of without knowing. I look forward to being part of such collaborative truly global research to understand phenomenon using multiple geographic lenses. Dina Zaher [log in to unmask] ---------------------------- POST 5 Dear Nmandi (Tunga & others who have contributed to this issue): My name is Ricardo Flores, an assistant professor at UNSW (Sydney). I second Michael's suggestion of Professor Littrell recent work on cultural clusters and I'd like to add an interesting paper (that although not that new, it is still relevant given its different based data coming from the GLOBE project) : Gupta, V., Hanges, P. J., & Dorfman, P. 2002. Cultural clusters: Methodology and findings. Journal of World Business, 37: 11-15. Lastly, if people are interesting in going beyond cultural clustering and considering clustering or regional groupings more broadly, I'd like to suggest two papers I have worked on with some colleagues from Illinois & Minnesota (Ruth Aguilera, Paul Vaaler & Arash Mahdian). Flores, R., Aguilera, R., Vaaler, P., Mahdian, A. (2013) . How well do supra-national regional grouping schemes fit International Business research models?. Journal of International Business Studies (forthcoming) Aguilera, R., Flores, R., & Vaaler, P. 2007. Is it all a matter of grouping? Examining the regional effect in global strategy research. In S. Tallman (Ed.), A New Generation in International Strategic Management: 209-228. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Hoping to have contributed to this discussion, Ricardo [log in to unmask] ____ AIB-L is brought to you by the Academy of International Business. For information: http://aib.msu.edu/community/aib-l.asp To post message: [log in to unmask] For assistance: [log in to unmask] AIB-L is a moderated list.