Chapter 5

How Does Culture Influence Management?

The question, “What is culture?” stands at the beginning of every cross-cultural encounter, but is very difficult to answer. In fact culture is a very subjective concept and means something different for each of us. Scientists have long tried to classify culture and to make it understandable for managers. Examples are famous concepts such as the cultural standards by Hofestede or Trompenaars, which are widely communicated but only allow us to look at other cultures from a very specific angle. They can provide a general foundation to learn about differences between cultures, but in real-life situations they are often of little help.

We need basic guidelines on how the host cultures differ from ...

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