Introduction

In the first part of this book, we discussed the historical origins of the debate about culture in economics. We have shown how culture and economics over the course of centuries evolved into opposite concepts, the one being about collective, inherited and particular structures and perspectives, the other embracing individual, rational choice as a universal behavioral principle. This deep-rooted opposition sets the stage for any attempts to reintegrate culture and economics, be it from the side of cultural theory or economics. The fundamental nature of this opposition makes attempts to address culture in economics challenging, more so than is often realized. We discussed several of the theoretical and methodological challenges and the ways economists have confronted them in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively. The second part of this book dealt with research into culture in economics in practice. We critically discussed the treatment of culture in the literature about entrepreneurship, trust, international business and corporate governance. In all of this literature, we observed a number of difficulties in aligning economics and culture.

Now it is time to make up the balance and take these two discussions together. The aim of this concluding chapter is to show that the theoretical and methodological oppositions discussed in the first part of the book are not just abstract, conceptual tensions of concern only to those working on abstract theoretical levels, but that they translate into practical difficulties for economists studying culture in practice.