Riding the Waves of Culture, Fourth Edition: Understanding Diversity in Global Business, 4th Edition

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Toward International and Transnational Management

Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner

THIS BOOK has elucidated national and corporate culture differences, of which we have found a great many. So wide and pervasive are these variations that they would seem to confirm the doubt expressed at the beginning as to whether universal or general principles of “how to manage” are feasible or useful.

Yet the implication of the research presented here is that universals exist at another level. While you cannot give universal advice that will work regardless of culture, and while general axioms of business administration turn out to be largely American cultural axioms, there are universal dilemmas or problems of human existence. Every country ...