A culture theory commentary on Meyer and Peng’s theoretical probe into Central and Eastern Europe

Meyer and Peng’s Decade Award article and Retrospective integrate economic and sociological theories of transaction costs, firm resources, and institutions and apply them to firms in Central and Eastern Europe in ways that can inform and be informed by culture theory. Culture theorizing in IB typically uses dimensions of values and norms to analyze the IB implications of the underlying logics that characterize patterns of thought, action and interaction of countries and other large societies. Transaction cost theorizing helps explain the social forces that link cultural group boundaries with country boundaries. Firm resource theory can be informed by the toolbox metaphor to understand cultural patterns in the resources that firms in a particular locale have most readily available. Neo-institutional theory, particularly its political science thread, cautions IB scholars to represent governmental arrangements and policies as arising from cultural norms and values rather than as independent variables that spring de nova from government leaders. Integrative analyses, like the Decade Award article and Retrospective, point out links and complementarities among diverse theories, but need to take care lest superficial similarities in how terms like institution and culture are used in different theories mask fundamental conceptual differences.