“Culture as Boundaries”: A Framework of Approaching and Cultivating Intercultural Competence
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2025-07
Author(s)
Abstract
Scholars in organizational studies and international management, as well as institutional theorists, have long recognized the role of culture in established structures and interactive settings. The implications of cultural competence or sensitivity—particularly its assessment and efficacy— in workplace adaptation, employee performance, and management decision-making have also been extensively investigated. There, however, appears to be a latent misalignment in how subfields in management studies conceptualize culture. Whereas organizational scholars pay more attention to culture’s dynamism and various forms, researchers in international management are prone to focus on culture at the national level. Such a discrepancy forestalls an all-embracing definition of and a consistent approach towards intercultural competence, without which its targeted cultivation through management education is unattainable. Oriented to illuminate intercultural competence and its transfer better, this article proposes using the “culture as boundaries” framework to understand intercultural competence. Drawing from cultural sociology, I underscore how culture emerges and is reified and altered through interactions. In turn, to reflect this interactive nature of culture, intercultural competence should be understood as capabilities with a dynamic dimension—rather than a set of knowledge about specific cultures—to detect cultures as boundaries and navigate any cross-cultural settings. This framework on the one hand recognizes culture’s dual properties, namely as an enabling factor and a barrier. On the other hand, it moves beyond this binary conceptualization and provides a broader foundation to discern, compare, and appreciate culture, the key to how intercultural competence can be cultivated as a transferable skill.
Event Title
The 85th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management
Event Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Event Date
July 25-29, 2025