Intercultural differences in issue interpretation: Effects of emotions and framing

Franziska Neumann and Torsten Wulf

European Management Journal, 2022, vol. 40, issue 2, 182-193

Abstract: The interpretation of strategic issues as threats or opportunities influences strategic actions and firm performance. The extant research identifies cultural differences as an important driver of strategic issue interpretation. Specifically, research from a socio-cognitive perspective shows that differences in cognitive styles across cultures lead to differences in the interpretation of strategic issues by East Asian and Western managers. Based on cross-cultural research on emotions and decision-making, we argue that cultural affordances also lead to differences in emotional experiences and behavioral consequences across cultures which affect the strategic issue interpretation of managers from East Asian and Western cultures in different ways. We theorize that Chinese managers are similarly affected by fear and happiness in their strategic issue interpretation, while German managers are only affected by fear. For German managers, this effect is moderated by issue framing, which is not the case for Chinese managers. A vignette-based decision experiment involving 194 German and 174 Chinese executives offers support for our hypotheses. These findings have implications for cross-cultural research on strategic issue interpretation and for cross-cultural research on strategic decision-making in general.

Keywords: Strategic issue interpretation; Culture; Emotions; Issue framing; Socio-cognitive approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237321000839
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:40:y:2022:i:2:p:182-193

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2021.06.007

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().