Beyond Models of National Culture in Information Systems Research

This article challenges information systems researchers to go beyond models of national culture and proposes that IS researchers should adopt a more dynamic view of culture that sees culture as contested, temporal and emergent.

Abstract

Many IS scholars argue that global organizations need to understand cultural differences if they are to successfully deploy information technology. We agree that an understanding of cultural differences is important, but suggest that the concept of “national culture” that has tended to dominate the IS research literature is too simplistic. In this article, we challenge information systems researchers to go beyond models of national culture. We propose that IS researchers should adopt a more dynamic view of culture – one that sees culture as contested, temporal and emergent.