Investigating otherness,not difference: Should saming and othering be the focus of the discipline? Implications for a contemporary cross-cultural management studies

Cross-cultural management (CCM) studies is the discipline that investigates and manages the interrelations between culture, and management or organizations. The notion of difference – as objectively definable and/or as experienced in interaction – is thus central to CCM studies. Increasingly so, difference is no longer thought of as an obstacle to be overcome, but as an opportunity for learning, growth, complementarities and synergy (e.g. Stahl et al., 2010). For instance, whereas early theories spoke of ‘culture shock,’ newer theories speak of the need and potential of ‘cross-cultural adjustment' and stress the need to not only consider difference ‘abroad’ but also ‘at home’ (Black and Mendenhall, 1991; Gullahorn and Gullahorn, 1963; Mahadevan, 2024; Maznevski, 2020). Furthermore, there is the question as to whether cultures, and the differences between them, are stable or fluid, or, in other words: ‘given to’ or ‘created by’ those in interaction (Mahadevan et al., 2011). Leaning towards the latter, the culture as negotiated meaning approach (Brannen and Salk, 2000; Primecz et al., 2011) implies that cross-cultural differences, for instance, as emerging during intercultural encounters, might be beneficial to all stakeholders involved, namely when an innovative, novel, ‘third’ culture is cooperatively developed, instead of one partly or fully adjusting one’s culture to the dominant one. The idea of culture as negotiated meaning is more constructive in how it approaches difference, namely by considering all parties involved, by assuming that the best solution is one where no one dominates and no one subjugates, and by envisaging a potential outcome that is beyond compromise. Even though some elements of the process can be compromise, or even separation and adjustment, the major implication is still the possibility of innovative, novel outcomes that enrich and satisfy all stakeholders involved and that can only emerge from what happens and evolves in and from the cultural ‘in-between’. It is therefore the cross-cultural researcher’s and manager’s task to contribute to such processes of mutual learning and development, and to aim at solutions which meet the needs of all stakeholders involved, also in the sense of a global corporate citizenship, a responsible management or wider sustainable developmental goals.

At the same time, the differences which are relevant to CCM studies today have multiplied, as the borders and boundaries between (national) cultures are no longer clear-cut. Due to migration and individual mobility many individuals are bi-and multicultural, or span cross-cultural boundaries on a daily basis (Maznevski, 2020). Globalization has increased cultural complexity (Philipps and Sackmann, 2002), and individual cultural identities are comprised of many factors, not all of which become salient in a given situation (Sackmann, 1997). Brannen (2020) thus finds people’s identities to be ‘n-cultural’ and argues that this understanding is the basis and required focus point of a contemporary CCM studies (also see Mahadevan, 2023). Furthermore, many individuals at work experience a cultural diversity that is mediated by information and communications technology (Mahadevan and Steinmann, 2023), for example when collaborating in work-from-home or work-from-anywhere settings. Many people have cross-cultural encounters at work without any physical movement, and scholars therefore investigate the cross-cultural management implications of virtual assignments (Cascio and Collings, 2022; Wicht and Holtbrügge, 2023) and virtual expatriation (Nguyen Ngoc and Andresen, 2022), and propose novel frames such as the idea of a virtual global mobility (Selmer et al., 2021).

Furthermore, people also identify and are identified as ‘same’ or ‘different’ based on categories, and one may observe that politics of identity seem to be on the rise in many contexts, and thus need to be managed responsibly (Mahadevan, 2023). For instance, some cultural identities – such as the ‘male, white, Western, heterosexual and able-bodied manager’ are thought of as being more preferable than others in management and organization (Zanoni et al., 2010), and CCM studies itself mainly works with concepts that have been critiqued for their Westocentric qualities (Prasad, 2009). Out of this follows the obligation to reflect upon power (Primecz et al., 2016), also in relation to knowledge (Mahadevan, 2011), and to critically identify which individuals and groups are presently disadvantaged (Romani et al., 2018a, Romani et al., 2018b, 2020). This then requires considering cultural differences as intersecting with diversity categories, such as gender (Utzeri et al., 2020; Mayer et al., 2018; Primecz and Karjalainen, 2019), race (Nunka Dikuba and Mahadevan, 2020), ethnicity (Mahadevan et al., 2020a), sexual orientation and gender identity (Rahman and Chehaitly, 2020), or religion (Hidegh and Primecz, 2020), and as necessarily involving multiple power-effects (Kakar and Mahadevan, 2020; Mahadevan et al., 2020b; Malik et al., 2021). From this perspective, CCM is no longer about managing (cross-cultural) differences but about tracing these processes by means of which a certain individual or group is perceived as ‘Other,’ to reflect upon the power-implications of this finding, and the need for working towards change and inclusion.

Otherness, as the proposed central concept of a contemporary CCM studies, refers to a process by which (cultural) differences are located and made manifest in a culturally-complex world, often to affirm the interests of some over others (Hall, 1997). It is linked to well-known phenomena such as the similarity-attraction phenomenon or in-group bias (Tajfel and Turner, 1986) and creates a preferable cultural identity of those who are the ‘Same’ and who represent the ‘We,’ and those who are ‘different’ and represent the often undesirable (cultural) ‘Other.’

What is outdated from this perspective, is the idea of clear-cut, objectively definable and mono-dimensional national or societal cultural borders, and the idea that the responsibility of CCM studies should end there, namely at adequately capturing and describing cross-cultural differences or the processes of how meaning is negotiated in intercultural interactions. The starting point is the realization that leaving out wider questions of responsibility fails to provide answers to pressing CCM questions. For example, intercultural training practice might easily affirm the power position of the white, male, Western manager (Szkudlarek, 2009), and, as an industry, the intercultural training business is implicated by power-inequalities of its own, such as its gendered nature and trainers’ precarious employment conditions (Mahadevan et al., 2020b). The intercultural training responsibility is thus about more, and different aspects, than simply providing participants with better concepts of how to compare and interact across national cultures. Or, in the words of Jackson (2023): how can cross-cultural management (studies) make sure that the discipline and its actors do more good than harm?

When taking this wider view on what the discipline is responsible for, Otherness emerges as a central disciplinary concept. It is situated against the background of the global rise in certain ideologies and practices such as nationalism, populism and xenophobia which disadvantage, marginalize or exclude certain individuals and groups (Mahadevan et al., 2023), and which also manifest on the level of management and organizations (Besic et al., 2023; Primecz et al., 2023). For example, qualified self-initiated expatriates from the non-West often have a higher likelihood of being perceived as unskilled – potentially undesirable – migrants at Western workplaces (e.g. Mahadevan and Kilian-Yasin, 2017; Nardon et al., 2021; Romani et al., 2019). Even ‘white’ migrants from a slightly less desirable country of origin might be othered in such ways, also because organizations are uncertain about how to include them and, consequently, do not dare to risk inclusion (Mahadevan and Zeh, 2015)

Otherness is thus less about – objective or subjective – differences but about which status and perception of ‘self’ should be affirmed, defended or created by means of the thus constructed Other. Otherness is therefore closely intertwined with the realities or perceptions of difference in management and organizations. Nonetheless, it adds a crucial layer, namely the responsibility to investigate and consider which interests, power games, systemic pressures, and individual agendas and room to maneuver, come together under which circumstances, and for whom and against whom, and to reflect, why this happens in these ways at a certain, and no other, place and point in time. We thus write Otherness with a capital letter to underscore that the purpose of the phenomenon is to create an absolute dichotomy between those who are thought of as ‘the Same’ and those who function as the – dichotomist, presumably homogeneous and irreconcilably different – mirror ‘Other’ enabling Saming.

Othering and Saming are processes that come in pairs, and they take place at the intersections of culture, diversity and identity, of structure and interpretation, and of historic and structural power, discourses, collective practices and individual agency (Mahadevan, 2017). Otherness may be ascribed to individuals based on certain diversity and identity categories (e.g. race, gender, ethnicity or a combination thereof), it may be triggered by crises on organizational or supra-organizational levels (e.g. the COVID-19 pandemic), it might be rooted in societal beliefs (e.g. public sentiments of ethnic homogeneity), or it can emerge from national policies (e.g. regarding refugees and migrants), this not being an exhaustive list. Whatever the root causes of Othering may be, their effects are similar: a certain group of people is made and/or becomes the (marginalized, disadvantaged, excluded) Other, and we consider this a harmful inequality scenario to be prevented and/or overcome by a responsible CCM studies and practice that ‘cares’.

The papers in this special issue describe how Othering is experienced by people, organizations and societies today. They exemplify its disciplinary relevance and what academia and practice in CCM can do to improve the situation of marginalized people and communities by providing advice how to avoid (harmful) Othering and alienation. They also reflect upon and highlight what is required to keep – equally harmful, yet seemingly omnipresent – incidents of Saming in check. Investigating and caring about the interrelated processes of Othering and Saming as a core responsibility of CCM studies seems particularly relevant in a ‘world in crisis.’ For instance, futurologists have subsequently claimed that the organizational and managerial environment is characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (the VUCA model, Bennett and Lemoine, 2014; Saleh and Watson, 2017), and by brittle systems, human anxieties, non-linear developments and problem incomprehensibility (the BANI model, see Cascio, 2020). Depending on what they believe in, managers, leaders and organizations then need to become more agile concerning risk and change (responding to VUCA) or become more considerate regarding human anxieties and employees’ emotional needs and to work towards the resilience and responsibility adaptability (responding to BANI).

What both models describe – in different ways and with different implications – is a managerial world and organizational environments that are not ‘clear-cut’, also in terms of which differences they might involve and how these differences should be managed. They differ in the sense that VUCA stops at the insight that CCM studies need to break up and diversify its concept of culture, and to also let go of ideas such as single cultures, cultural stability or fixed cultural demarcation lines. BANI, however, adds a moral or human obligation: it describes an environment in which there is a much higher likelihood of anxiety, fear and drawing demarcation lines by means of Othering and Saming – simply because the world, also the managerial task of dealing with it, seems to overwhelmingly difficult, and because every potential decision seems to be at least inadequate and sometimes even disastrous. As Cascio (2020) argues, this then not only results in a loss of systemic trust, but also in a personal passiveness and a general ‘giving up’ on a world that is perceived as incomprehensible and as comprised of overwhelming, non-linear problems, such as global warming and societal crises. Against this backdrop, the CCM task is then not to provide definite answers on what characterizes culture and on how cultures differ, but rather to take up the human responsibility of increasing people’s resilience against processes of Othering and categories of Otherness in a ‘world of crisis,’ by instilling trust, by acknowledging (but not acquiescing to) people’s, organizations’ and societies’ cultural identity anxieties and fears, and by offering an ‘entry point’ for moving beyond. We thus propose that a cross-cultural management studies that wishes to remain relevant under the aforementioned conditions, needs to take up Otherness as its central concept, focusing on:

1) Who is made and/or becomes the (marginalized, disadvantaged, excluded et cetera) Other

All articles in this special issue provide conceptual, methodological or empirical insights concerning Otherness; they identify present blind-spots in CCM studies and suggest ways of imagining otherwise and of moving beyond. We as editors find these papers highly insightful for providing advice on how to manage across cultures in the contemporary world, under the conditions of brittle systems, human anxiety, non-linear developments and problem incomprehensibility. Rather than trying to achieve stability and a general solution, these papers propose to make the phenomenon small, to start from a certain question or intersection, and to unravel the implications of Otherness from there on. Thus, all papers are in a way ‘phenomenon-based’ (Doh, 2015; Mahadevan and Moore, 2023), meaning that they put a shared contemporary experience or process (Otherness or Othering/being Othered), and their oftentimes obscured twin (Sameness or Saming/being Samed) centre-stage and, thus ask what the phenomenon stands for and which implications might follow.

The article by Chevrier (2024) introduces the Gestion & Société approach in the French tradition and, by doing so, sheds new light onto what Otherness originates from and how it manifests. From this perspective, Otherness is rooted in culturally-shared major fears, however, individuals and groups have agency to create new ideal ways of living together and thus move beyond the Otherness which they fear. The responsibility of cross-cultural management is therefore to focus less on the cultures which people ‘inherit’ and to engage more with what people create together, for example in cross-cultural encounters at work.

However, as the article by Mahadevan (2024) proposes, more conflict across groups of people is not necessarily a sign of more negative Otherness. Focussing on the Otherness emerging from migration and refugee movements, the article proposes that deeper conflict does not mean that integration has failed but rather is an indicator of a change towards a more open and plural postmigration society. From this perspective, integration in Germany emerges as more successful than is commonly believed. The integration challenge is thus not to overcome Otherness but rather to learn how to engage with conflict in deeper and more relevant ways. Contributing to such an engagement with conflict would then lie at the heart of a positive cross-cultural management scholarship.

Being characterized by similarly paradoxical dynamics, language is one of the sources from which Otherness emerges – but also the means by which it may be overcome. As the article by Wilmot et al. (2024) highlights, English language proficiency is closely intertwined with ideological constructions of the ideal global worker, namely those who are competent in the language. This then excludes alternative social identities and creates problematic in-group and out-group relations. However, it is also possible to resist Othering and to create more inclusive workplace environments, as the authors convincingly show.

One way of moving beyond Otherness is to narrow the focus and to trace the small, seemingly mundane mechanisms by means of which a certain group is made the Other. The article by Carrim et al. (2024) underscores the relevance of studying how Othering and Saming emerges from the everyday, namely from office gossip. The authors show how heteronormativity, race and religiosity intersect to make gay and lesbian individuals in South Africa ‘the Other.’ They suggest that the present cross-cultural adjustment focus in intercultural awareness training at work needs to be widened to include such intersections.

Another way of moving beyond Otherness is therefore to widen the focus of what cross-cultural management is about and what it should involve. The goal is to move beyond a limited understanding of culture and to include questions of global corporate citizenship and managerial ethnics. The article by Ascencio et al. (2024) provides a first framework into that direction. Based on a comprehensive analysis of corporate human rights violations that were reported between 2007 and 2017, they identify the ‘othering’ of workers, suppliers and communities in the Global South as one of the root causes for such corporate human rights violations across industries and geographies. Due to the global dominance of the Global North and of Western multinationals, also local companies in the Global South perpetuate these violations.

Consequently, the insights provided by the articles of this special issue reveal various dynamics of Othering (and Saming), and enrich our understanding of these phenomena in contemporary cross-cultural management. Seemingly innocent mechanisms and overtly blatant exclusion processes are equally relevant to investigate, and the analysis contributes to our current knowledge. The shift in focus of the discipline has already happened, and we propose that researchers should continue going the hard way to examine intercultural situations involving ‘Othering’ and ‘Saming’ and be bold enough to search for explanations which are not necessarily obvious, such as: What people create together instead of focusing on ‘inherited’ differences (Chevrier, 2024); accept more conflict for a positive cross-cultural management (Mahadevan, 2024); include alternative social identities, even at the price of problematic in-group and out-group relations (Wilmot et al., 2024); raise further awareness of intersectionality in intercultural awareness training at work (Carrim et al., 2024); and investigate the global landscape in terms of human right violations (Ascencio et al., 2024), just to name those research directions which were selected for this special issue. Certainly, others will follow on this path in order to increase and maintain the relevance of a contemporary cross-cultural management studies, with Otherness as its central focus.