Towards a multiparadigmatic approach in critical cross-cultural management research: Possibilities from transnational migration studies

Abstract

To address calls for multiparadigmatic approaches to critical cross-cultural management (CCM) research, this paper engages with ontological, epistemological, and methodological possibilities from transnational migration studies (TMS). Guided by a mobility lens and adding to existing critical approaches within CCM scholarship that have critiqued Western epistemologies and static cultural models for representation, this paper aims to expand critically-oriented paradigms for research related to ‘people on the move’ and migration experiences. As the ontological premise of TMS, the mobility lens focuses on movement, including experiences of inequality, dispossession, and displacement, and its implications for the formation of social groups that defy categorization and reification through references to national borders. By expanding upon three key concepts from TMS, transnational social fields, scalar notions of being and belonging, and historical conjunctures, the paper contributes to ongoing conversations in critical CCM about ethics and representation beyond methodological nationalism , rethinking the unit of analysis through encounters , and extending the ‘field’ in fieldwork . Building on these potential contributions, the paper engages in three epistemic reflections on ‘ethics on the move’ , representation and surveillance , and interdisciplinarity as emergent considerations for future critical qualitative research on people, mobility, culture, and global work in the broader field of management and organization studies (MOS).