Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2011
Publication Title
Journal of International Business Studies
First Page
629
Last Page
653
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2011.10
Abstract
The complexity of global organizations highlights the importance of members’ ability to span diverse boundaries that may be defined by organization structures, national borders, and/or a variety of cultures associated with organization, nation-based societal and work cultures, industries, and/or professions. Based on ethnographic research in a Japan–US binational firm, the paper describes and analyzes the boundary role performance of the firm's Japanese members. It contributes toward theory on boundary spanning by introducing a “cultural identity negotiation” conceptual framework. We show boundary spanning as a process shaped through the interplay of the contextual issues that make a boundary problematic; an individual's multiple repertoires of cultural knowledge; and the individual boundary spanner's “negotiation”, through interaction with others, of his/her cultural identities – the sense of “who I am” as a cultural being that is fundamental to an individual's self-concept. At the same time, we make transparent the epistemological and methodological foundations of an interpretive ethnographic approach, demonstrating its value for understanding complex organizational processes. Research findings have practical implications for the selection and training of an organization's employees, particularly of persons who may be considered “bicultural”.
Rights
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in the Journal of International Business Studies. The definitive publisher-authenticated version
Noriko Yagi and Jill Kleinberg. "Boundary Work: An Interpretive Ethnographic Perspective on Negotiating and Leveraging Cross-cultural Identity" Journal of International Business Studies 42.5 (2011): 629-653.
is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v42/n5/full/jibs201110a.html
Recommended Citation
Yagi, Noriko and Kleinberg, Jill, "Boundary work: An interpretive ethnographic perspective on negotiating and leveraging cross-cultural identity" (2011). Scholarship and Professional Work - Business. 107.
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cob_papers/107
