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The Global Diffusion of Customer Service - A Critique of Cultural and Institutional Perspectives

Considerable academic attention is being given to the cross-national transfer and global diffusion of management knowledges and ‘best practices’, through multinationals and joint ventures for example. Variants of cultural and institutional theory have come to dominate this literature whereby emphasis is placed on the locally specific or ‘embedded’ nature of organizational practices. This specificity is portrayed as the key problem in diffusion processes, representing either a persistent barrier or, in more prescriptive accounts, something to be resolved through a managerial recognition of cross-cultural ‘sensitivities’. Such perspectives provide some insight yet seem conveniently to neglect findings from numerous localized studies which show that the introduction and effectiveness of management practices are more generally problematic, even within their ‘original’ national context. Focusing on the growing managerial practice of introducing customer oriented organizational cultures, this article argues that insufficient attention is given in studies of cross-national diffusion to generic obstacles (and facilitators) which transcend national or local boundaries. For example, many employees have little choice but to comply with new practices. At the same time, the provision of cultural competency training is not likely to overcome more fundamental conflicts and contradictions. In particular, the article calls for a greater recognition of the ‘system effects’ (Smith and Meiksins, 1995) of the capitalist employment relationship such as employee resistance to, and cooperation with, control. In addition and relatedly, attention is drawn to diffusion problems which arise from the assumptions and tensions inherent in management ideas and customer service in particular. This is not to deny the importance of national and, particularly, other contextual specificities in diffusion processes. Indeed, by focusing on cross-national culture clashes, cultural plurality within organizational and societal structures is often neglected in the literature. Rather the aim is to shift the balance in debates and, more generally, to point to the value of nondeterminist theoretical approaches which recognize the multiplicity, politicality and interpenetrative nature of social structures. The article draws on and seeks to combine insights from a range of secondary sources on the diffusion of management practices and is part of