was the problem of the universality of culture. Some researchers, mainly from the school of F. Boas, and then R. Benedict and M. Mead, supported the position of particularism, which was in line with the assumptions of symbolic interactionism, which argued that cultures form an entirety in themselves (gestalt16) and cannot be generalised in research15. The line of the cultural universalists was developed by the functionalist schools, and later by the schools of structuralism seeking universals of culture. The most important representatives of structural functionalism were B. Malinowski, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and E.E. Evans-Pritchard16. Thus, in the social sciences, two opposing epistemological perspectives were formed before World War II: interpretivism, which postulated ←18 | 19→relativism and cultural particularism, and functional structuralism based on universalism and cultural realism. This opposition lingered on in the antinomy of the following decades, taking the form of structuralism (C. Levi-Strauss, T. Parsons17) versus post-structuralism (R. Barthes, J. Lacan, and M. Foucault18). As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, cultural anthropology was dominated by the paradigm of the interpretative-symbolic and post-structuralism perspective, reflected in the statement by C. Geertz that ‘man is an animal entangled in a web of meanings he wove himself’, and that the study of culture is ‘an interpretive science involving the search for meaning’19. Relativism and particularism in the cultural sense take precisely the form of post-structuralism, and later on, postmodernism, finding expression in the development of cultural studies. In the 1970s, S. Hall20 and R. Williams21 crystallised a critical neo-Marxist approach to cultural studies, based on the assumptions of radical structuralism. It utilises the intellectual base of the Frankfurt School, P. Bourdieu’s sociology, A. Gramsci and L. Althusser’s Neo-Marxism and radical feminism, thus developing a method of critical cultural studies which involves the ardent analysis of culture as a source of inequality, violence and the means of preservation of an unjust status quo22.
One of the key sources of development of the theory of culture was the increase in the importance of intercultural relationships that came with the development of communication technologies, as well as the ongoing process of globalisation. Many organisations, working on an international scale, were facing specific issues of intercultural management. The huge cultural challenges facing them in the second half of the twentieth century included decolonisation and globalisation. Therefore, even as far back as the 1930s, cross-cultural comparative studies were beginning to quickly develop for pragmatic purposes, namely ←19 | 20→to reduce communication problems and conflicts in social communication. G.P. Murdock was the pioneer of cross-cultural research, carrying out the first comparative statistical study of cultural behaviour23, while E.T. Hall was a key figure in the development of the pragmatic approach to cross-cultural studies, achieving his competencies while doing consulting work for the U.S. government24. The concepts of cultural dimensions and distances25 became the subject of further study, leading to the fundamental projects in cultural trends in management directed by G. Hofstede and other researchers, who took the cross-cultural perspective into account26.
Sensu stricto, the birth of the theory of organisational culture took place after World War II. E. Jacques used the term with reference primarily to analysis of atmosphere in the workplace (‘organisational climate’)27. In the 1950s and ’60s, research on culture in management was far and few between, and constituted a rather marginal problem. Mainstream research relates to the relationship between a culture and the changes in organisational development, leadership and human resources management28. For example, while analysing this organisational change, A. Bavelas also relates it to ‘culture-specific organisations’, distinguished by other rituals that affect the process of adaptation of new employees29. For two decades, the cultural issue in management has thus developed in two separate ways. On the one hand, it has tended towards a functionalist, narrow understanding of culture as an organisational climate30, and on the other, the comparative studies ←20 | 21→of cultures have developed31. Even at this stage, the epistemological afterthought on management emerges, which leads to the conclusion that there is a plurality and inconsistency in the theory of culture and organisation32.
The development of comparative cross-cultural studies, which most significantly relate to management issues, began at the start of the 1970s. In particular, there was a rapid increase in the number of publications after 1980, which was the year the first book on the results of comparative studies of cultures by G. Hofstede was published. These results were then widely deployed in management practise33. There are a number of cross-cultural comparative studies projects that investigate various aspects of organisations, from the connection of culture with efficiency, through leadership, to change management. Started by E.T. Hall, the pragmatic approach to cross-cultural management results in a number of methods improving competences and training programmes34. In addition to research papers, there is an increase in the number of business guides which take cross-cultural issues into account35. All comparative studies are based on functionalist assumptions and use standardised and representative survey methods. Even today, this is a very important trend in cultural studies, both in management and other social sciences. The most important researchers in this area are G. Hofstede, A. Trompenaars, Ch. Hampden-Turner, R. House, and R. Inglehart. Currently, the key issues for cross-cultural comparative studies are globalisation and multiculturalism.
The beginning of the 1980s also saw a significant increase in the role of the concept of organisational culture. This was likely due to many reasons related both to the logic of the development of cultural discourse in management ←21 | 22→itself, and to external factors. The rapid growth of interest in cross-cultural comparative studies drew the attention of many management researchers and practitioners to the growing role of cross-cultural communication. Globalisation and the opening up of many national economies which so far had autarchic tendencies contributed to a great interest in cultural issues faced by managers. G. Hofstede recognises the confrontation of the American and Japanese models of conducting business – with all their cross-cultural consequences – as one of the causes of the huge expansion of interest in the issue of organisational culture36. An important experience for American business came in the shock caused by the competitiveness of Japanese products on the US market. Even though the Japanese had radically different management models, which were based on collectivism as opposite to the American individualism, they achieved spectacular success in business. Thus, the American myth of management understood as one best way collapsed, and was gradually replaced with the awareness that an organisation is culturally conditioned. Another reason for the interest in organisational culture was the growing popularity of cultural studies
