Crossing the bridge from sameness to narrative understanding: a proposed model for interpreting cross-cultural comparisons

Abstract

This paper proposes a model for understanding culture based on combining cultural narrative and voice narrative. In attempting to achieve this purpose, I draw on insights from the domain of interpretive studies and hermeneutics. I highlight my use of the two types of narratives, not only as a method of inquiry, but also as a concept of social ontology. This is where both types of narratives are argued to inter-animate each other, hence giving way to changes in tradition and the formation of identities. I distinguish my work from that of cross-cultural models by relying on the relationship between the two types of narratives, rather than on a singular treatment of cultural narrative of the nation where only cultural narrative is used as the basis for the identification of people's value orientations. Implications of the model as constituting an ontological condition useful for understanding cross-cultural management are presented.