Cross-Cultural Research Methods and Theory

Michele Gelfand & Lisa Leslie & Gary Shteynberg

Research in industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology is increasingly being conducted across cultural boundaries to test the generalizability of Western findings and to train managers to be more effective in multicultural contexts. Although cross-cultural research involves many of the same methods that are used in typical I/O research, many unique issues arise in the cross-cultural research process—from the level of theory to the sampling of people, constructs, and methods to the analysis and interpretation of data—each of which will be discussed here. Cross-cultural research is inherently multileveled, and the first step in any cross-cultural research project is to decide on the level of analysis that is inherent in the research question. By way of illustration, Figure 1 shows the levels of analysis that might be involved in studies of societal culture. Societal culture reflects variation across societies in values, norms, beliefs, and assumptions, among other elements (see Table 1 Figure ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.