Chapter 7: National Cultures and Response Strategies in Strategic Alliances: Cultural Universalism or Cultural Relativism?

Despite the popularity of international alliances and reports of their high failure rate, surprisingly only a limited number of studies focused on how national culture influences partners’ responses to adverse situations. To address this issue, we conduct a literature review of response strategy research and develop a research agenda to advance theorizing on the relationships between national cultural, situational factors, and response strategies in alliance arrangements. The results of the literature review indicate that studies produced evidence for associations between situational factors and response strategy preferences, implicitly assuming that the content and internal structure of response strategies is universal. However, other studies examining the cross-cultural validity of response strategies unraveled cross-cultural variations in response strategy preference. The literature thus provides (implicit) support for elements of both cultural universalism and cultural relativism. We conclude that more research is needed about (a) cross-cultural equivalence in content of (new) response strategies, (b) cross-cultural variations in the circumplex structure of response strategies, and (c) managers’ cross-cultural sensitivity in responding to adverse situations in alliance arrangements. Building on the findings, we also present some managerial implications on dealing with response strategies in international alliances.