Management studies, like education studies, has tended to follow the social and behavioural sciences rather than to lead them. It is true that various streams of critical management and organization studies have developed, but these have largely drawn on developments in sociology or politics or even literary studies. Perhaps compounding the lack of innovation in applied areas such as management, has been the lack of cross-over, and cross-fertilization with other applied areas. For example, in a globalized world, where much of the work of international managers will be in the so-called ‘developing’ countries (which, by the way, take up some 80 per cent of the world's landmass), and within the world as a whole we can talk about living in a largely post-colonial world where North–South geopolitical dynamics have tended to dominate, management studies has very little connection with development studies. If this cross-over does take place, it is within the domain of a rather uncritical modernization theory.

The acceptance of a developing–developed world paradigm is strongly evident within both international management studies, and, regrettably, cross-cultural management. Centre stage to the critical debate should be what promised to be a rising star, auguring major contributions to critical knowledge in the area of international management studies: cross-cultural management.