PENSAMIENTO CRITICO

THE PAROCHIAL DINOSAUR:

ORGANIZATIONAL SCJENCE IN A

GLOBAL CONTEXT

NAKIYE A VDAN BOYACIGILLER

San Jose State Unlversity

NANCY J. ADLER

McGill University

Thia a rtlcle reviewa academic management from tbreo global porapectlvee:

contextua!. quanlltatlve. and qua lltatlve. Baaed on multlple

methoda ot aueument, academlc management la lound lo be

overly parochial. Cultural valuea of the Unlted Statea underUe and

bave fundamentally framed management reaearch, tbua lmbulng organlzaUonal

acienco with lmpllcit. and yet inappropriate, universal·

iam. Recommendations are made to develop a more globally relevant

organlzational sclence in whicb univeraal. reglocentrlc, lntercultural.

and culture-speclfic theorlea and reaearch are clearly demarca1ed.

Its [culture's) inOuence for organizalional behavíor ls lhat it operates

at such a deep level that people are not aware of its

influences. It results in unexamined patterns of thought that

seem so natural that mos! theorists of social behavlor foil to take

lhem into account. As a resull. many aspects of organlzational

lheodes produced in one culture rnay be inadequate in other

cultures. (Triandls, 1983: 1 39)

Global business has become a reality. Macro and micro economic sta·

tístics daily etch that reality into the decision patterns o( political and corporate

leaders. Y et the American academic management traclition appears

to have fallen behind. Does the creatlon and dissemination of management

knowledge now lag behind economic reality?

Many leaders of the Academy of Management hove sounded the international

clarion. As president. Richard Steers focused the 1987 National

Academy of Management's attenlion on the international climensions oí

management (Steers, 1987, 1989). In 1988, president Don Hellriegel pre-

Earlier versions oí this arlicle were presentad at the Westem Academy ol Management

meelings in San Francisco and Big Sky, Montana; the Organizational and Strategic Studies

Mini-Symposium al lhe Anderson School of Management ot UCLA; the Universlty of Cc:Jllfornla,

Berkeley Organizational Behovlor Doctoral Seminar; the World Congress of Sociology In

Madrid, july 1990; ond the Academy of International Business meetings In Toronto, November

1990.

262

Boyacigiller, N. y Adler, N. (abril,1991). The parochial dinosaur: organizational science in

a global context. The Academy of Management Review, 16 (2) pp. 262-290. (AR20613)

1991 Boyac1gLller and Adler 263

sentod lnternallonalization as one of the Academy's four main challenges.

Steven Kerr, 1990 president, presided over discussions to join an internotional

federatlon of academies of management. Similarly, Eastern Academy

of Management president Carolyn Dexter moved her region's biannual

meetings overseas, arguing that the Academy can no longar remain within

the conceptual or geographicaJ borders of the United States. The Westem

Academy o{ Management followed suit by convening its unlque 1990 meeting

in Jopan.

This article inves1igates the global context of management research,

educalion, and theory development in the United States from three perspectivas:

contextua!. quantilative, and quolitative. First, from a contextua} perspective,

it reviews chonges in the externa! environment tha1 potentiolly

impoct academic manogement, including inherent influences that hove

resultad from its being o post-World Wor II. American-basad profession.

Second, from a quanlitative perspectiva. it reviews the publication of internationol

articles in U. S. managemenl journols, olong with American scholars'

preparation to conducl such research. Third, and perhops most importan!,

it reviews o selectíon of manogement theories (rom a qualitative perspectiva.

Although mony differences exist between domestlc and global

manogement (including myriad issues involving scale, scope, and complexity),

given the limits of a single article, we focus on the cultural assumptions

that underlie and often frome monagement research as well as the

implicit universalism inherenl in much of organizational science.

Parochiolism ls bosed on lgnorance of others' ways. Ethnocentrism

judges [oreign ways as inferior to one's own. This article does nol criticize

American-moda organizalional science for beíng ethnocentric. It does not

suggest that the main problem ls that American theorists view American

theories as superior lo others' theories. Rother, based on the multiple observations

presentad, one of our prlmary conclusions ís that of parochialism.

Americana hove developed theories without being sufficiently aware of

non- U.S. conlexts, models, research, and values. Our goal, however, is

not lo extend mode-in-America orgonizational sdence beyond its current

geographical boundaries, but rather to strengthen it by suggesting fundamental

changas in how scholars can think about and create theories. The

purpose of this arlicle, therefore, is nol to casUga1e the field, its pioneers, or

its presentleaders; rather, by drawing attention to the forces promulgating

parochialism, it reconceptualizes the fleld's roots and thereby focilitates the

creation of a more relevan! futura. A1though the indictments in this article

are at times strong, they ore attempts to ovoid relegating the American

academic monagement tradilion to lhe curiosity of a mid-twentieth-century

fossil.

CONTEXTUAL PAROCHIALISM

Industrial Compe titlvenees: The View Since World Wm n

In critical reviews of the field, Lawrence (1987) and Pfeffer (1982) underscored

the importance of appreciating social context and its influence on

264 Academy ol Monagement Review April

theory development. They indicated that the questions organizational theorists

hove deemed most interesting to study hove been a function of managers'

concerns and , thus, a product of the time. Similarly, such scholars as

Kuhn (1962). Merton (1968), and Whitley (1984). among others, suggested

that the social system of scientists and the environment of scientilic activity

corwlroin knowledgc produclion (Graham & Gronhaug, 1989). According to

Me rton ( 1968: 539):

Social orgonization of intellectual activity is significantly related

lo the charocter of lhe knowledge which develops under its

auspices . ... lncreosingly. it has been assumed that the social

structure does not inOuence science merely by focusing the attention

of scienlists upon certain problems for research .. . [but

also in] the ways in which the cultural and social context enters

into the conceptual phrasing of scientlfic problems.

What is the sociocultural context of academic management? Most management

schools and academic managemenl journals are American. They,

a long with the Academy of Management. grew up as distinctly Ame rican

institutions in a particular geographical. culturaL and temporal contextthol

of post-World War 11 Uníted States. Although the Academy of Management

is over SO years old, two of the most prestigious management

journals, Administrative Science Quarterly and the Academy of Manageme.

nt ]ournal, were established in 1956 and 1958. respectively, as Whitley

(1988: 47) accurately described (based on Gordon & Howell, 1959; Pierson et

al., 1959; Smiddy & Naum. 1954; Whítley & England, 1977):

The encouragement of systematic research into managerial

problems and business behavior in the 19S0s was based on the

widespread belief in the United States at the time that scientific

knowledge could provide the foundation for ímproved managerial

declslon mak.íng and upgrade the quality of business education.

Thus, as William Ouchi presentad in his 1990 Western Academy of Management

keynote address, rnanagement knowledge began to be c:odified

during a particular period of American hislory. To understand the strengths

ond limitations of lhot k:nowledge base, it is incumbent to understand both

its particular historlcal context as well as Lhe currenl economíc situalion.

The United States emerged from World War ll as the only major, economically

developed nation with íts industrial sector unscathed. lmmediately

following World War II, the United States occounted for 75 percent of

the world 's GNP (Thurow, 1988). For the next two decades, U.S. multinational

corporations dominated world trade. During this period of the United

Slates' postwar economic dominance, American researchers focused on

American firms, American perspectives, and those questions most salient to

American managers, rather than systematically including either non-U.S.

sites or issues. In this context, it was easy for researchers-including non1991

BoyacigliJer and Adler 265

U. S. researchers (Servan-Schreiber, 1968)-to assume implicitly that Americon

thcories also dominoted. We could argue that the field was imprinled

wilh o U.S. orientation (Stinchcornbe,

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