From the old into the new

So far, the field of intercultural organizational development hasn’t received much attention in international business research but shall be the core focus of this dissertation. Triggered by the transfer of a sales practice to Spain and other countries, an organizational unit of a German automobile manufacturer develops a more and more ethnorelativistic attitude towards its international subsidiaries through processes of intercultural learning. The author, first, ethnographically studies the international practice transfer to Spain. A central observation are the resulting intercultural learning processes on the part of headquarter actors. In the following, the author focuses her attention on this ongoing development, supporting it even more by enacting an action research approach.
This dissertation contributes by introducing an urgently needed empirical example in the field of intercultural development. Additionally, it expands the field of international practice transfer by not only looking at changes at recipient unit level but by also investigating the transfer’s reverse impact on headquarter actors.