^ Academy ol Maaagem»nt Review1999, Vol. 24. No. 1781-796.

VIEWS FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE:INTEGRATING EMIC AND ETIC INSIGHTS

ABOUT CULTURE AND lUSTICE JUDGMENT

MICHAEL W. MORRISStanford University

KWOK LEUNGChinese University of Hong Kong

DANIEL AMESUniversity of California at Berkeley

BRIAN LICKELUniversity of California at Santa Barbara

We analyze forms ol synergy between emic and etic approaches to research on cultureand cognition. Drawing on the justice judgment literature, we describe dynamicsthrough which the two approaches stimulate each other's progress. Moreover, wedelineate ways in which integrative emic/etic Irameworks overcome limitations ofnarrower frameworks in modeling culture and cognition. Finally, we identify advan-tages of integrative frameworks in guiding responses to the diverse justice sensitiv-ities in international organiiKations.

In the study of cognition in organizations, andin social science more broadly, there are twolong-standing approaches to understanding therole of culture: (1) the inside perspective of eth-nographers, who strive to describe a particularculture in its own terms, and (2) the outside per-spective of comparativist researchers, who at-tempt to describe differences across cultures interms of a general, external standard. Pike (1967)designates these approaches the emic and eticperspectives, respectively, by analogy to twoapproaches to language: phonemic analysis ofthe units of meaning, which reveals the uniquestructure of a particular language, and phoneticanalysis of units of sound, which affords com-parisons among languages. The emic and eticperspectives are often seen as being atodds—as incommensurable paradigms. In thisarticle we argue that these two approaches toculture are complementary. Drawing on the jus-tice judgment literature, we delineate forms ofsynergy between the two research perspectivesthat go beyond those identified previously (e.g.,Berry, 1990; Brett, Tinsley, lanssens, Barsness, &Lytle, 1997). We first analyze ways in which emicand etic research programs have stimulatedeach other's progress. Then we analyze advan-

tages of frameworks integrating emic and eticaccounts—both as middle-range theories of cul-ture and cognition and as applied guides toresponding to diverse justice concerns in inter-national organizations.

EMIC AND ETIC PERSPECTIVES

The emic and etic perspectives have equallylong pedigrees in social science. The emic orinside perspective follows in the tradition ofpsychological studies of folk beliefs (Wundt,1888) and in cultural anthropologists' striving tounderstand culture from "the native's point ofview" (Malinowski, 1922). The etic or outside per-spective follows in the tradition of behavioristpsychology (Skinner, 1938) and anthropologicalapproaches that link cultural practices to exter-nal, antecedent factors, such as economic orecological conditions, that may not be salient tocultural insiders (Harris, 1979).

The divide between these two approachespersists in contemporary scholarship on culture:in anthropology, between interpretivists (Geertz,1976, 1983) and comparativists (Munroe & Mun-roe, 1991), and in psychology, between culturalpsychologists (Shweder, 1991) and cross-cultural

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782 Academy oi Management Review October

psychologists (Smith & Bond, 1998). In the liter-ature on international differences in organiza-tions, the divide is manifest in the contrast be-tween classic studies based on fieldwork in asingle culture (Rohlen, 1974), as opposed to sur-veys across many {Hofstede, 1980). Likewise, inthe large body of literature on organizationalculture, there is a divide between researchersemploying ethnographic methods (Gregory,1983; Van Maanen, 1988) and those who favorcomparative survey research (Schneider, 1990).

The conceptual assumptions with which Pike(1967) defined the emic and etic dichotomy aresummarized in Table 1. Emic accounts describethoughts and actions primarily in terms of theactors' self-understanding—terms that are oftenculturally and historically bound. For example,emic studies of justice perceptions in NorthAmerican organizations today might center onsuch constructs as "age-ism" and nondiscrlmi-nation, whereas studies of Japanese workplacesmight be couched in qualitatively different con-structs, such as amae and gimu (see Kashima &Callan, 1998). In contrast, etic models describephenomena in constructs that apply across cul-tures. For example, a country's level on the cul-tural dimension of individualism-collectivismmight be linked to the prevalence with whichmanagers reason about justice in terms of theequity rule (i.e., rewards received should be pro-portional to contributions).

Along with differing constructs, emic and eticresearchers tend to have differing assumptionsabout culture. Emic researchers tend to assumethat a culture is best understood as an intercon-nected whole or system, whereas etic research-ers are more likely to isolate particular compo-nents of culture and state hypotheses abouttheir distinct antecedents and consequences. Al-though, of course, the emic/etic contrast is, inpractice, a continuum, this dichotomy hasplayed a central role in the metatheory debatesin many social science disciplines (see Head-land, Pike, & Harris, 1990).'

' Some scholars have used the terms emic and etic inways that depart irom Pike's definitions (see Headland et al..1990). A narrower usage refers to the contrast between cul-ture-specific versus culture-general constructs. This missesthe essence of the distinction, because culture-specific con-structs do not necessarily resonate with cultural insiders'self-understandings, A broader usage refers to the underly-ing interests of understanding versus control (Habermas,

Etic and emic approaches traditionally havebeen associated with differing research meth-ods. As Table 1 summarizes, methods in emicresearch are more likely to involve sustained,wide-ranging observation of a single culturalgroup. In classical fieldwork, for example, anethnographer immerses him or herself in a set-ting, developing relationships with informantsand taking on social roles (e.g., Geertz, 1983;Kondo, 1990). Yet, emic description also can bepursued in more structured programs of inter-view and observation (e.g., Goodenough, 1970).

Methods in etic research are more likely toinvolve brief, structured observations of severalcultural groups. A key feature of etic methods isthat observations are made in a parallel manneracross differing settings. For instance, matchedsamples of employees in many different coun-tries may be surveyed to uncover dimensions ofcross-national variation in values and attitudes(e.g., Hofstede, 1980), or they may be assigned toexperimental conditions in order to test the mod-erating influence of cultural setting on the rela-tion among other variables (e.g., Earley, 1989). Insum, although the two perspectives are definedin terms of theory, rather than method, the per-spectives lend themselves to differing sets ofmethods.^

Given the differences between emic and eticapproaches to culture, it is not surprising thatresearchers taking each perspective have ques-tioned the utility of integrating insights from theother tradition. A common tendency is to dismissinsights from the other perspective based onperceived conceptual or methodological weak-nesses (see reviews of this tendency in particu-lar research areas by Harris, 1979, and Martin &Frost, 1998). On one side, emic accounts basedon ethnographic observation are often dis-counted on the basis of inconsistency across

1971). Although there may be a correlation in some researchareas between the emic versus etic perspective and orien-tations toward control (e.g., in studies of "organizationalculture"; Martin & Frost, 1996), there is no necessary link andno strong correlation in the literature on national culture—our focus.

^The association between perspectives and methods isnot absolute. Sometimes, in emic investigations of indige-nous constructs, data are collected with survey methods andanalyzed with quantitative techniques (Farh, Earley, & Lin,1997; Yang, 1986). Likewise, ethnographic observation andqualitative data are sometimes used to support argumentsfrom an etic perspective (Nelsen & Barley, 1997: Sutton, 1994).

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TABLE 1Assumptions of Emic and Etic Perspectives and Associated Methods

Features Emic/Inside View Etic/Outside View

Defining assumptions andgoals

Typical features of methodsassociated with this view

Examples of typical studytypes

Behavior described as seen from theperspective of cultural insiders, inconstructs drawn from their self-understandings

Describe the cultural system as aworking whole

Observations recorded in a richqualitative form that avoids impositionof the researchers' constructs

Long-standing, wide-ranging observationof one setting or a few settings

Ethnographic fieldwork; participantobservation along with interviews

Content analysis of texts providing awindow into indigenous thinkingabout justice

Behavior described from a vantage external tothe culture, in constructs that apply equallywell to other cultures

Describe the ways in which cultural variablesfit into general causal models of aparticular behavior

Focus on external, measurable features thatcan be assessed by parallel procedures atdifferent cultural sites

Brief, narrow observation of more than onesetting, often a large number of settings

Multisetting survey; cross-sectionalcomparison of responses to instrumentsmeasuring justice perceptions and relatedvariables

Comparative experiment treating culture as aquasi experimental manipulation to assesswhether the impact of particular factorsvaries across cultures

reports (Kloos, 1988) and for inheriting miscon-ceptions from cultural insiders (Marano, 1982).On the other side, etic accounts based on surveydata are often dismissed because researchersremained at a distance from respondents, poten-tially insensitive to how respondents were af-fected by their questions (Geertz, 1983).

Yet, not all arguments against integration arestaked on critiques of either approach. Separat-ism has been defended as a means to protectless well-institutionalized traditions from beingassimilated by mainstream traditions. Writingabout organizational culture, Martin argues that"pressures toward assimilation would under-mine a perspective's inherently oppositionalstance . . . threatening its conceptual and politi-cal integrity" (1992; 187). In sum, both partisanand protective agendas have led scholars to ad-vocate keeping emic and etic insights about aphenomenon somewhat separate.

However, not all previous scholars hold thatemic and etic approaches should be kept apart.Some have suggested that researchers shouldselect between approaches, depending on thestage of a research program. For example, it hasbeen argued that an emic approach serves bestin exploratory research, whereas an etic ap-

proach serves best in testing hypotheses (e.g.,Greenfield, 1996).

In a more explicit selectionist proposal. Berry(1990) endorses a three-stage sequence. In thefirst stage, initial exploratory research relies on"imposed-etic" constructs—theoretical conceptsand measurement methods that are simply ex-ported from the researcher's home culture, In thesecond stage, emic insights about the other cul-ture are used to interpret initial findings, withan eye to possible limitations of the originalconstructs, such as details that are unfamiliar ormeaningless outside of the home culture. Onthis basis, then, the constructs in the model arefiltered to eliminate details that cannot be mea-sured with equivalence across cultural settings.The factors that survive this filter—"derived-etic" constructs—are culture-general dimen-sions of persons, such as value orientations, orof their environments, such as economic or eco-logical factors. In the third and final stage, theresearcher tests an explanation constructedsolely of derived etic constructs.

Brett and colleagues (1997; Lytle, Brett, Bars-ness, Tinsley, & Janssens. 1995) describe anotherproposal based on a three-stage sequence.These scholars differ from Berry in sharply dis-

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