Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research in international management: inquiries in international marketing and environmental management

Abstract

The emerging complexities associated with international management and globalization demand the development of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research in the fields of social sciences and the constitution of a new kind of research culture in the academic institutions. This paper describes two research projects focused in cultural issues, both in the subject area of international management, developed by two Brazilian researchers in English universities. He developed a research in the area of international marketing, in a business school of a large university. She developed a research in the area of environmental management, in the department of international relations of another large university. As a result of fieldwork encounters with managers, in which the authors as disciplined researchers had their socio-cultural identities threatened, the authors of this paper reconstruct critical situations of major exclusion and minor resistance within their corresponding English institutions. The resulting representations bring to the forefront the ¿hidden¿ process of dialogical reflexivity which led to a particular type of critical, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural research. Drawing upon the sociology of Ervin Goffman (1961), the authors represent their educational settings in England as ¿total institutions¿. In the end the authors suggest guidelines for the development of international and cross-cultural research and education in Brazil.