Research Challenges in Cross-cultural International Business Management: The Issue of Cultural Construct Equivalency

As business becomes more global in nature, management researchers are increasingly interested in conducting cross-cultural research. Although cross-cultural management research has provided us with an understanding of management practice in various cultures, the nature of the research presents researchers with numerous challenges. One such challenge is the issue of cultural construct equivalency. Cultural construct equivalency concerns the validity of measures across cultures. Oftentimes, construct equivalency is assumed to exist in the measures used. This paper presents initial research data from the EWORLD Project, an international entrepreneurship research project. The data are used to demonstrate the construct equivalency problem and to show that methods commonly employed by researchers do not necessarily solve the problem.