The limits of the typological approach in the analysis of multicultural business communication: from describing differences to the problem of their alignment

The subject of the research is the capabilities and structural limits of the cross-cultural typological approach in analyzing multicultural business communication. The intensification of international business contacts and the reorientation of Russian business towards partners from non-Western cultures make the analysis of cross-cultural interaction practically essential, while typological models of cultural differences (E. Hall, G. Hofstede, F. Trompenaars, the GLOBE project, E. Meyer) remain the primary language for its description. The paper examines four operational limits of this approach—national aggregation, static nature, descriptive modality, and invisibility of the hybrid effect. The aim of the work is to systematize these limits and reveal their common logical nature as a consequence of a unified orientation of the tool towards profiling differences rather than towards the process of their coordination. The work represents a theoretical and analytical study: systematization of literature, critical reconstruction of typological models, and their comparison with applied studies of international negotiations and the domestic school of cross-cultural studies. Four operational limits of the typological approach are identified—national aggregation, static nature, descriptive modality, and invisibility of the hybrid effect; it is shown that they are manifestations of a single structural limitation defined by the type of tool. The limits are heterogeneous in epistemological status: two allow for partial compensation through the means of the approach itself, while the other two mark the gap between descriptive and procedural modalities of analysis. The scientific novelty lies in reducing disparate specific limitations of typologies to a single structural source, systematizing them as structural limitations of the tool, demonstrating their heterogeneous epistemological status, and posing an independent task based on this—conceptualizing the process of coordinating criteria in multicultural business communication. It is shown that the absence of a developed apparatus for describing such a process is a matter of underdevelopment rather than a principle impossibility, setting the direction for further research—moving from profiling differences to analyzing the mechanisms of their coordination.