Partnership success factors: overcoming cultural misfit between Tunisian SMEs and their French partners

Abstract

This paper proposes a conceptual framework to shed light on cultural issues in health crisis between Tunisian Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their French partners. The Critical Success Factors (CSF) of a formalized management of cultural misfit can be considerable for researchers and practitioners: the steps of turning the page of the paradigm of cultural distance and address cultural difference from the point of view of mutual enrichment are worthy of interest. Indeed, the multivariate analysis proposes to go beyond this cultural paradigm to approach the cross-cultural management. Its goal is to formulate paths for reflection and research that will enrich the understanding of the difficulties encountered during the COVID-19 period in the dynamics of bringing together two entities from different national cultures. In order to achieve this objective, the correlational research design by Fey and Denison (2003) was adopted in this survey, using revised measurement scales from this work. This is because correlational research is concerned with studying a problem in order to analyse the relationship between cultural variables. The active consideration of cultural characteristics has a double advantage: it helps to alleviate tensions related to cultural challenges and capitalize on the CSF derived from the diversity of approaches. It proceeds from a detailed study of the cultural characteristics of the two partners, which will serve as a basis for a possible rapprochement in the future.