The metaphor of cultural distance has dominated the cross-cultural studies area for over four decades through a vision focused, mainly, on economic interest and cultural differences between countries. The use of this metaphor is grounded on positivist epistemology and adopts lenses of a narrow view; although, paradoxically, it is applied to the international area. This paper aims to problematize the arguments of Shenkar (2001, 2008) and Luo and Shenkar (2007), according to whom the metaphor of "distance" is not appropriate for understanding, describing, and analyzing the cultural issue impact on international business. One proposes, here, its replacement by the metaphor of "cultural friction", which captures in a more legitimate way the essence of the cross-cultural issues applied to phenomena in international business.
Cultural distance; Cultural friction; International business; Cross-cultural studies