ABSTRACT
The designation ‘new business landscapes’ presents us with a geographical metaphor to designate recent developments. This is singularly appropriate for cross-cultural management, as much of the discipline has to do, implicitly at least, with borders and with boundary work but, as recent studies have shown, boundaries are complicated things. Likewise, the combination of border-spanning technologies with the new moves towards protectionism on the part of various governments, as the post-9/11 security consciousness and politicians’ responses to local demands for greater employment lead to an unresolvable tension. At the same time as politicians announce plans to develop ‘local Internets’ as a form of social control as much as in response to leaked revelations about international spying activities. Bozkurt, for instance, considers how the role of the cross-cultural manager has changed from a narrow, expatriation-focused one to a more complex and multilayered role, and to do this, views them through the lens of ‘corporate actors’ possessing ‘intellectual, social and psychological capital’.
