Discussions of the “Ideal of Pure Reason” in the Transcendental Dialectic often focus on Kant's rejection of the three types of argument traditionally offered in support of the existence of God (the so-called “ontological,” “cosmological” and “physico-theological proofs”). Kant's critique of these arguments, however, is prefaced by two very dense preliminary sections, the purpose of which is evidently to illuminate the “grounds of proof of speculative reason for inferring the existence of a highest being” (A 584/B 612). I am referring here to Sections 2 and 3 in the Ideal (A 572/B 600-A 590/B 618). Kant's prefatory discussions in these two sections appear to be designed to accomplish two distinct things. First, in Section 2, Kant wants to demonstrate the rational necessity of the idea of the ens realissimum. This idea, as we shall see, is said to be philosophically necessitated by our need to represent the “necessary thoroughgoing determination of things” (A 578/B 606). Second, Kant wants to account for what he takes to be an inevitable confluence of the idea of the ens realissimum with that of a necessary being. Because Sections 2 and 3 seem to be offering two distinct accounts of the origin of the idea of God, some have suggested that Kant was simply confused or uncertain about the basis for the idea of rational theology.

Summary

This chapter explores the concept of language boundaries in international teams in multinational companies which use English as their shared working language. Drawing on research in the fields of intercultural communication theory and sociolinguistics, and on references in the management literature, the analysis demonstrates how language boundaries in teams both foster trust within parties and hinder trust between parties. Empirical data from interviews with international executives illustrate how English as a shared working language can create as well as break down language boundaries. The chapter identifies the implications these boundaries have on the formation and maintenance of trust through cooperation and relationship building. Findings show that it is an awareness of language practices and sociolinguistic competence rather than expert language knowledge that fosters the development of trust in multicultural, multilingual teams.

Introduction

Many management teams in multinational companies are not only multicultural, but also multilingual as they are composed of speakers of different mother tongues. The language factor has become omnipresent in international organizations, and globalization implies that they conduct their operations in multiple language environments and through multilingual teams (Feely and Harzing, 2003; Welch et al., 2001). Language differences are often considered to be an obstacle and the concept of the language barrier is therefore a familiar one in such organizations. Indeed, it is so well known that its implications are often overlooked. Language barriers are visible obstacles to communication and occur when individuals who do not speak and understand each other's languages have difficulties working together.

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) / In his youth, John Bunyan knew what it was to feel keenly the reproach of a woman. In Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), he describes how he was once shamed by an encounter with a local shopkeeper's wife: “But one day, as I was standing at a Neighbours Shop-window, and there cursing and swearing, and playing the Mad-man, after my wonted manner, there sate within the woman of the house, and heard me; who, though she was a very loose and ungodly Wretch, yet protested that I swore and cursed at that most fearful rate, that she was made to tremble to hear me; And told me further, That I was the ungodliest Fellow for swearing that she ever heard in all her life . . . At this reproof I was silenced, and put to secret shame; and that too, as I thought, before the God of Heaven: wherefore, while I stood there, and hanging down my head, I wished with all my heart that I might be a little childe again, that my Father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing . . .” (GA, p. 11-12).

The Pilgrim's Progress has played a critical role in the development of the English novel, and one need look no further than Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) to see how it provided both structural and thematic inspiration for the early novelists. Anyone teaching a course on the rise of the novel will make this connection, emphasising the many correspondences that exist between the two works and tracing the line that leads, for example, from Giant Despair in The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) to Island Despair in Robinson Crusoe. Nonetheless, the point always needs to be made that The Pilgrim's Progress is not a novel, and that its allegorical nature aligns it with an earlier tradition of prose fiction than Defoe's. As Ian Watt would say, it lacks 'formal realism': the patina of circumstantial and referential detail that distinguishes Defoe from his immediate literary predecessors, helping to establish what we now generally think of as the 'early novel'. Bunyan's landscape is not Defoe's real world where a protagonist can make his way from York to London, and ultimately to North Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, rather than from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City by way of the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Vanity Fair (even if Bunyan clearly drew on his knowledge of the Bedfordshire countryside and London to construct that landscape). To identify a lack of novelistic realism is not to denigrate The Pilgrim's Progress, which stands as one of the greatest works of English and indeed of world literature. Far more than a proto-novel, it has provided inspiration for generations of readers through the years in their own struggles against adversity and repressive authority.

Summary

The premise of much research on dyadic trust building within organizations has been framed around the relationship as it emerges in the work context. Such models, including the seminal Mayer et al. (1995) model of dyadic trust, have been applied to contexts outside North America without a careful understanding of the distribution of social practices and everyday situations in such contexts. This chapter examines culture-specific workways as a starting point for understanding subordinates' trust in their supervisors in collectivist cultures. Workways refer to the pattern of workplace beliefs, mental models and practices about what is true, good and efficient within the domain of work. Drawing from interviews with sixty organizational respondents from two countries, Turkey and China, we propose that the multiplexity of work relations needs to be taken into account as both personal and professional life domains are important for understanding supervisor–subordinate trust in collectivist cultures.

Introduction

Dyadic trust, and in particular, trust between supervisors and their subordinates has been well documented and studied (e.g. Lewicki et al., 2006). However, this body of work is limited largely to the North American context (e.g. from the meta-analysis of Dirks and Ferrin (2002)).

Bunyan might be thought the most improbable of authors. In a hierarchical age, when cultural patronage was in the hands of the court, the universities, the established church and London social elites, the literary prospects for a poorly educated provincial sectarian preacher might appear dim, and yet this same Bedfordshire tinker, 'of a low and inconsiderable generation' from one of the 'meanest, and most despised of all the families in the Land' (GA, p. 5), wrote nearly sixty works and, with The Pilgrim's Progress, became the century's bestselling writer. While, however, his success was exceptional, the fact of Bunyan's authorship was not quite as improbable as it might seem. His early literary career coincided with, and was shaped by, the unprecedented increase in press activity associated with the gathering momentum of the English Revolution. The political and religious tensions of the first half of the century were accompanied by, and articulated through, a proliferating press whose annual output rose from 625 titles in 1639 to 848 in 1640, over 2,000 in 1641 and over 3,666 in 1642, thereafter to continue at between one and two thousand annually until the Restoration. A unique record of this productivity is preserved in the remarkable collection of broadsides, tracts, pamphlets and books assembled by the bookseller George Thomason, who, between 1640 and 1661, amassed 22,000 publications. Never before had so many people turned to writing, never before had so many seen their thoughts into print and never before had what they printed generated such extensive interest and public debate.

Summary

This chapter argues that trust is an inherently context-bound concept. With reference to the results of the Cambridge Vertical Contracts Project (CVCP) which examined supplier relations in the UK and Germany, it is shown that the nature and quality of inter-organizational trust varies greatly over different cultural and institutional environments. As a consequence, it is suggested that an appropriate research methodology needs to either draw on a mixed method approach involving different techniques to collect and analyse data (as has been done in the CVCP), or – perhaps even more suitably – utilize repertory grids to research a social phenomenon as complex as trust in a comparative perspective. The potential of the repertory-grid method is illustrated with reference to an empirical project on collaborative relationships in two virtual organizations in Switzerland.

Introduction

Over the past two decades or so, trust has attracted much attention in the management literature. Many scholars have tried to come to grips with this phenomenon and discovered many aspects of it which seem worth thorough investigation. The relationships between trust and contracts, trust and innovation and trust and institutions are among the most developed sub-themes of trust research. Key publications have recently tried to summarize where we stand and to take stock of the major results in this research field (e.g. Bachmann and Zaheer, 2006; Bachmann and Zaheer, 2008; Kramer, 2006). As these publications show, significant progress has been made and some very important insights have been gained into how trust works in business relationships.

Summary

This chapter explores the interaction of trust and distrust with the associative cultural tiles of organizational and professional values, operating within individual auditors in accounting firms. Building on recent research into trust and culture in healthcare management, the authors consider the way in which this particular professional context (i.e. cultural sphere) affects trust, and at how trust and distrust can exist co-terminously in the same auditor. The chapter shows how an auditor's trust and distrust in their clients affects their professional judgments and decisions, and how sound auditing judgments may run counter to the accounting firm's needs. Findings include the revelation that less effective, highly trusting auditors tend to stay within the profession but more effective, less trusting auditors leave.

Introduction

Although there is an extensive literature in management studies examining organizational cultures and their influence on firm performance (e.g. Barney, 1986; Pheysey, 1993; Sackman, 1997), little is written in the accounting literature about the role of culture in accounting practice. To this end, a very recent synthesis in Behavioural Research in Accounting (Jenkins et al., 2008) of accounting-firm culture and governance concludes that there is a ‘paucity’ of research in all areas of accounting culture (2008: 49). Such a relative lack of interest in the accounting literature is in spite of the fact that accounting regulators themselves view sound organizational culture as critical to protecting the public good (PCAOB, 2004), because it helps prevent intentionally fraudulent misstatement.

Little Nell's journey out of London into the Midlands in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) might easily be read as a progress from the Slough of Despond into the Celestial City. Accompanied by her grandfather, Nelly Trent cheerfully engages on her pilgrimage, her path illuminated by the 'full glory of the sun' and decorated by scores of new-build churches, 'erected with a little superfluous wealth, to show the way to Heaven'. Forging her way through 'the haunts of commerce and great traffic' (symbols that, if granted capital letters, would be happy in the company of Bunyan's Talkative or Giant Despair), Nell arrives at Dickens's rendering of the Wicket Gate, a turnpike framed in a pastoral setting. From here, the narrator claims “the traveller might stop, and - looking back at old Saint Paul's looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above the cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and casting his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he traced it down to the furthest outposts of the invading army of bricks and mortar whose station lay for the present nearly at his feet - might feel at last that he was clear of London.”

In November 1817, Ladies' Monthly Museum informed its readers that 'the celebrated John Bunyan, author of the Pilgrim's Progress, at one period of his life, kept a public house in the neighbourhood of Turvey, in Bedfordshire, and, perhaps, in commemoration of the profession of his father, and his own in his youth, put up the sign of the Tinker of Turvey'. It comes as a surprise to discover that the reputation of John Bunyan (1628-88), Puritan minister and author of a religious classic, could encompass the innkeeper's trade in the nineteenth century, often regarded as the era of his greatest fame as a spiritual writer. The story of Bunyan the taverner provides a welcome reminder that nothing can be taken for granted about this established and canonical author of the English-speaking world. To explore the Bunyan tradition is to encounter centuries of accumulated legend, polemic and prejudice that began to spread even during his lifetime, for Bunyan was accused of being a witch, a highwayman, a Jesuit, a gypsy and a whoremaster. Some even said he had murdered the father of Agnes Beaumont, falsely charged with being his mistress. Several of these accusations are recorded in his spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding (1666), and were evidently well known to him. They bury the traditional picture of Bunyan the stern and puritanical minister as surely as the image of the tinker of Turvey serving ale obscures the religious allegorist of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678). Hence it is right that the works of this contentious figure are still widely read and taught. With this in mind, the present Companion has been designed to serve three major purposes for a broad constituency of readers.

Look at the title page of the first edition of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), and one word stands out, in the largest typeface: 'DREAM.' The full title, with the fullness characteristic of early-modern books, runs as follows, with line breaks marked: 'THE/Pilgrim's Progress/FROM/THIS WORLD,/TO/That which is to come:/Delivered under the Similitude of a/DREAM/Wherein is Discovered,/The manner of his setting out,/His Dangerous Journey; And safe/Arrival at the Desired Countrey'. Between rules there is a quotation from the Old Testament prophet Hosea, 'I have used Similitudes'; and then the author's name (P'sP, opposite p. xxxvi). So it is not strictly a dream, but the 'similitude' of a dream. The carefulness of the distinction, we might think, relates to Bunyan's need to be frank, even defensive, about the relationship between dreams and reality, not to mention the relationship between truth and fiction. However, when it comes to describing life as a passage 'From This World, To That which is to come', the criteria of truth, or of realism, that Bunyan is employing, need to be examined more closely. That there is a real world beyond this one is a more common view in the late seventeenth century than now, but how one got there, and what counted as reliable information about it, was more hotly disputed. Dreams, it appears, give us a privileged entry into a world that is hidden to ordinary perception. The way in which they are interpreted and explained has varied throughout history, of course, but the feeling that there is something special about dreams is equally widespread.

Introduction

The conclusion summarizes the key findings presented within each section of the book, identifying the emerging patterns and themes across the conceptual contributions and empirical studies. These are considered in relation to our two initial questions. First, is there a universally applicable model of trust and trust development [etic], or do people from varying cultures understand and enact trust differently [emic]? And second, how can Party A from Culture #1 develop a trust relationship with Party B from Culture #2? We then highlight the implications of these patterns and themes for practitioners, and point to directions for future research.

We began this book with three vignettes that we believe highlight both the complexity and ordinariness of cross-cultural trust building in today's globalized business world. In the first vignette, we considered an Iranian businesswoman who is negotiating on behalf of her firm with male representatives from a German alliance partner; we particularly focused on the cultural implications for trust both within her own firm and between her firm and the German alliance partner. In the second vignette, we charted the trust relationship between a Dutch and an Irish employee representative, both engineers, working in and representing employees in Holland and England respectively, for an Anglo-Dutch firm during a period of considerable change, which culminated in the firm being bought by an Indian company.

In the opening scene of The Pilgrim's Progress we are presented with the spectacle of a burdened man, wearing ragged clothing, and reading a book: 'I dreamed, and behold I saw a Man cloathed with Raggs, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own House, a Book in his hand, and a great burden upon his Back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and Read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled' (P'sP, p. 8). His family and friends cannot understand what is troubling the poor man, and he for his part withdraws from them, still anxiously reading his book. Then one day,we are told, 'when he was walking in the Fields . . . reading in his Book, and greatly distressed in his mind . . . he burst out . . . crying, What shall I do to be saved?' (P'sP, p. 9). The book that prompts this outburst is the Bible, to which a series of references is given in the margin, and indeed the very words are those of the trembling jailer to the Apostle Paul as recounted in Acts 16:30. This memorable scene establishes at the outset that Bible-reading will be a central theme in Bunyan's allegory, and, as we shall see, the pilgrim's developing ability to read and understand the Bible parallels in many ways the account Bunyan gives of his own experience in his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666). For Bunyan, the Bible was the only book that really mattered. 'Thou must give more credit to one syllable of the written Word of the Gospel', he says on one occasion, 'than thou must give to all the Saints and Angels in Heaven and Earth' (MW, II:191).

“One day I was very sad, I think sader [sic] then at any one time in my life; and this sadness was through a fresh sight of the greatness and vileness of my sins: And as I was then looking for nothing but Hell, and the everlasting damnation of my Soul, suddenly, as I thought, I saw the Lord Jesus look down from Heaven upon me, and saying, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. But I replyed, Lord, I am a great, a very great sinner; and he answered, My grace is sufficient for thee.” (P'sP, pp. 142-3) / This passage from Bunyan's most famous allegory commands our attention for two obvious reasons: first, because it gives us Hopeful's spiritual autobiography - a vivid account of his awakening into what Bunyan considers saving faith - and, secondly, because of its closeness to Bunyan's own conversion narrative, published twelve years before The Pilgrim's Progress appeared, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666). The same, yet not the same, Hopeful's story might seem little more than 'Grace Abounding in miniature'. It is useful to begin with Hopeful's conversion not only to spot connections between Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress, exemplary works of Bunyan's religious experience and imagination, but also because it illustrates 'in miniature' some key features of seventeenth-century spiritual autobiography: a form which, focusing on an individual's religious conversion, often excludes details of a straightforwardly biographical kind, concentrating more on the convert's 'inner world' than upon 'the ordinary historical course of a life'. What we notice about Hopeful's account, then, even from the short extract quoted above, is just how inward it is: the word 'I' dominates this narrative, and it is an 'I' contemplating its own sadness as 'a great, a very great sinner', before undergoing a remarkably direct communication with 'the Lord Jesus'.

Summary

This chapter examines cultural differences and institutional uncertainty as important factors in the development of trust as a basis for successful international business relationships. The authors focus their investigation on the potential that actors have in becoming aware, and creatively responding to, institutional contexts, cultural differences and the challenge of trust development. Empirically, the authors look at German–Ukrainian business relationships and draw on a qualitative analysis of twenty-one field interviews and personal observations from the time of the so-called ‘Orange Revolution’. They conclude that generally the trust dilemma in international business relationships can be overcome through reflexivity and creativity, and they give many practical examples of what this means.

Introduction

The typical dilemma faced in international business relationships is that trust is particularly important and, at the same time, particularly difficult to achieve when the partners come from different cultures (Kühlmann, 2005; Zaheer and Zaheer, 2006). The positive expectations and willingness to be vulnerable associated with trust (Rousseau et al., 1998) are required even more, but are harder to produce, in business relationships where different cultural backgrounds increase the unfamiliarity and uncertainty between the partners. Successful cross-cultural business relationships may be jeopardized because the process of familiarization that they need to go through to build trust already requires some basic familiarity and trust to ‘shift the boundaries of familiarity from within’ (Möllering, 2006: 96, emphasis in original; see also Luhmann, 1988), which is more easily said than done.