Culture study in international marketing: a critical review and suggestions for future research Attila Yaprak School of Business Administration, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a critical review of culture study streams in international marketing and offer suggestions for future development. Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive review of earlier and current approaches to culture study in international marketing is offered. Shortcomings of earlier studies are highlighted and suggestions for remedies are presented. Future research suggestions are also offered. Findings – Five streams of earlier studies and their shortcomings are presented, along with four avenues for future research. Practical implications – More sharply framed culture study will lead to a deeper understanding of culture’s role in targeting, segmentation, and positioning and strategy formulation by scholars and managers of international marketing. Originality/value – The paper integrates a large body of research in an important research area in international marketing and offers future research directions. Keywords Cultural studies, International marketing, Marketing Paper type Literature review Introduction Ever since Hall’s (1960), introduction of culture as the silent language in overseas business, the study of culture, often defined broadly as national culture, has fascinated scholars and managers of international business for four decades. The contributions of the earlier pioneers of culture study in business, Lee (1966) and Hall (1970) among them, cast environmental analysis into international business as an essential ingredient in understanding and analyzing foreign markets. But extensive culture study in international business research and practice began in earnest during the 1980s, after Hofstede’s (1980, 1983) pioneering work in classifying national cultures was published, and gained acceptance as the framework to apply in analyzing, and understanding, national cultures. As this framework rose to prominence in culture study in the 1990s, international business researchers learned from developments in cognate disciplines, such as anthropology (Levine, 1984; Chapman, 1997; D’Iribarne, 1997; Bond et al., 2004), sociology (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz and Bilsky, 1990) and organizational behavior (Smircich and Stubbart, 1985; Hatch, 1993; Schultz and Hatch, 1996; Hatch and Schultz, 2002), and enriched their study of culture with increasing sophistication. For example, culture study was expanded to include deeper analysis of the content and structure The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0265-1335.htm The author thanks Professors Julia Gluesing, Research Professor at Wayne State University and David Griffith, Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Editor of this Special Issue, and two anonymous reviewers of the International Marketing Review for their valuable comments in the earlier development of this paper. Culture study in international marketing 215 International Marketing Review Vol. 25 No. 2, 2008 pp. 215-229 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0265-1335 DOI 10.1108/02651330810866290