As U.S. organizations continue to explore overseas business opportunities, they will be challenged to adapt to the new market's local characteristics, legislation, fiscal regime, sociopolitical environment and cultural system. Riding the Waves of Culture shows international managers how to build the skills, sensitivity, and cultural awareness needed to establish and sustain management effectiveness across cultural borders. This revised edition is updated with new research and statistics.
More than an encyclopedia of cultures and customs, this essential guide:
- Describes successful and failed cross-cultural business transactions of multinational organizations such as AT&T, Heineken, Motorola and Volvo
- Offers techniques managers can use to anticipate and mediate some of the difficult dilemmas of international management
- Uses country-by-country graphs, examples, and other comparisons to illustrate how different cultures regard and respond to various management approaches
- Includes a CD-ROM of graphs, charts, and exercises to help readers evaluate their effectiveness as a global manager
With over 50,000 copies sold in its first edition, Riding the Waves of Culture dispelled the idea that there is only one way to manage, and was the first book to show professional managers how to build the cross-cultural skills, sensitivity, and awareness required in today's global business environment. In this second edition, Fons Trompenaars and co-author Charles Hampden-Turner reveal the seven key dimensions of business behavior, and how they combine to form four basic types of corporate culture:
- The Family (Japan, Belgium)
- The Eiffel Tower (France, Germany)
- The Guided Missile (US, UK)
- The Incubator (Silicon valley)
This revised and updated edition features completely new sections including:
- An in-depth examination of one of the world's most multicultural nations South Africa and how recent events make it an ongoing laboratory of intercultural reconciliations
- A detailed analysis of how gender differences within the United States affect workplace and problem-solving behavior
- Current research findings on how ethnic differences within a society can be more troublesome than international differences and how some managers are keeping the peace
- A systematic program for uncovering, understanding, respecting, and reconciling cultural differences at all levels of the organization