Onion To Ocean
...University,
SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden (tel.: +46 8 163063; fax: +46 8 674 74 40; e-mail:
tony.fang@fek.su.se). The author thanks Urapa Joy Watanachote (Thailand), Joost
Stel (Netherlands), George Kakhadze (Georgia), Satu Penttinen (Finland), and Gabriel
de Mello Pratellesi (Brazil) for personal communications about their respective
countries discussed in this paper. The author also thanks Dr. Anton Kriz and many
others, including the editor of ISMO and this issue’s guest editors, for their valuable
comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Int. Studies of Mgt. & Org., vol. 35, no. 4, Winter 2005–6, pp. 71–90.
© 2006 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 0020–8825 / 2006 $9.50 + 0.00.
TONY FANG
From “Onion” to “Ocean”
Paradox and Change in National Cultures
Abstract: Differing from the dominant bipolar paradigm of analyzing national
cultures, this paper champions a dialectical approach that sees each national culture
as having a life of its own full of dynamics and paradoxes. The paper calls for
shifting our mindset from the Cold War “onion” way of analyzing culture to a new
“ocean” way of understanding culture to capture the dynamics of national cultures
and international cross-cultural management in the age of globalization.
For decades, the field of international cross-cultural management has been
dominated by a functionalist bipolar or dimensional paradigm of analyzing
national cultures (e.g., Hofstede 1980, 1991, 2001; House et al. 2004; Trompenaars
1994). Two profound perspectives have prevailed in this paradigm. First,
national cultures are divided into individualist or collectivist, feminine or
masculine, and so forth. As Hofstede stated: “The vast majority of people in
our world live in societies in which the interest of the group prevails over the
interest of the individual. I will call these societies collectivist....
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