Affiliations: Department of Management, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Tel.: +64 3 3588934; Fax: +64 3 3642020; E-mail: [email protected]
Note: [*] This paper was completed whilst the author was a visitor at the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Abstract: Dialectical tensions are very evident in almost all international business episodes, as well as in the perceptions and value-priorities of once-separated civilisations. It is regrettable indeed that these have hardly ever been mentioned in the mainstream business media, nor in professional education. At the same time, much has been communicated (and replicated) on subjects like business-ecology, product-ecology, knowledge-ecology and ecology-of-mind. Such ideas, together with the sciences of life and mind that support biotechnology and information technology, are all closely associated with the principle of dialectic (intuitively, historically and formally). Accordingly, much greater emphasis should be placed upon dialectical reasoning in contemporary strategic business analysis, not to mention political calculations.
Keywords: International business, strategy, ecology, dialectic
