The common threads of national cultures

• We address the important but largely ignored question of cultural universalism.
• By analysing the GLOBE culture study data, we show remarkable consistency across nations in cultural values.
• We discuss the implications of “sameness” versus “differences” in cultures.

Culture related research in international marketing focusses largely on cultural relativism, that is, on cultural differences between countries. It examines the implications of national culture differences and how to manage the differences while doing business across national borders. These discussions are either framed within the emic versus etic debate, or under the rubric of national culture dimensions. Our paper addresses the equally important but largely ignored question of cultural universalism, that is, how nations are culturally similar. Using the GLOBE national culture dimensions data, we find significant similarities among the GLOBE nations. Our paper contributes to the cultural relativism versus universalism debate, and extends marketing theory with a “universal culture” approach that we believe can enhance understanding and cooperation among international business managers. Overall, our findings have important implications for scholars and practitioners.

Chinese abstract国际市场营销方面有关文化的研究主要侧重于文化相对主义，也就是国家之间的文化差异。它考察了进行跨境贸易时的民族文化差异和文化管理差异。以上讨论集中在主位与客位，或国家文化维度的框架下。本文阐释了文化普遍主义中一个同样重要但在很大程度上被忽视的问题-民族文化的相似性。通过观察GLOBE国家文化维度的数据，我们发现GLOBE各成员国之间有显著相似之处。本文对文化相对主义与普遍主义之争做出了贡献，并将营销理论延伸至“普遍文化”的做法，加强跨国商业经理人之间的理解和合作。总体而言，本文的发现对于学者和从业者都具有重要意义。