The Ian's pizza tribe: Reconceptualizing cross-cultural research in the digital age

This special issue reconceptualizes the meaning of cross-cultural research and challenges researchers to broaden their scope to include a variety of cultures, including virtual ethnicities. This introductory article provides commentary on the thirteen articles that follow in this special issue on cross-cultural research in business. Many of the articles follow the traditional cross-national approach. However, several take a broader view, recognizing that different cultures can take shape both outside and within national boundaries. This conclusion is particularly true in this age when digital technologies change the way humans interact and broaden human networks around which cultures form. Such cultures are virtual ethnicities built around fictive kin.

► Reconceptualizes the meaning of cross-cultural research. ► Challenges researchers to broaden their scope to include virtual ethnicities. ► Recognizes that different cultures exist both outside and within national borders. ► Digital technologies change the way in which culture forms and exists. ► Culture includes virtual ethnicities built around fictive kin.