Management-trend-watcher Stuart Crainer (author of The 75 Greatest Management Decisions Ever Made, 1999) has called Trompenaars one of the “new gurus.” Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, a British management researcher, are partners in an Amsterdam-based consulting firm that specializes in cross-cultural management and training. They are also authors of The Seven Cultures of Capitalism (1993) and Riding the Waves of Culture (1994). These two books were among the first to detail how different national cultures affect corporate culture and organizational behavior. The authors’ research database has now grown to 50,000^B respondents, and as business becomes increasingly globalized, they look anew at the multicultural workplace. They suggest that various national groups often hold values that are mirror images of one another. When confronted with opposing values, cultures develop survival strategies that often foster wealth building. Organizations can use these strategies to their advantage. Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars identify seven “opposing” value dimensions, pose the dilemma these contrasts create, and suggest ways to reconcile differences. David Rouse
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From the Inside Flap
Cross-cultural competence is a skill that has become increasingly essential for the managers in multinational companies. For other business people, this kind of competence may spell the difference between surviving and perishing in the new global economy. This book focuses on the dilemmas of these managers and offers constructive advice on dealing with culture shock and turning it to business advantage. Opposing values can be understood as complementary and reconcilable, say Charles Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars. A manager who concentrates on integrating rather than polarizing values will make much better business decisions. Furthermore, the authors show, wealth is actually created by reconciling values-in-conflict.Based on fourteen years of research involving nearly 50,000 managerial respondents and on the authors’ extensive experience in international business, the book compares American cultural values to those of more than forty other nations. It explores six culture-defining dimensions and their reverse images (universalism-particularism, individualism- communitarianism, specificity-diffusion, achieved status-ascribed status, inner direction- outer direction, and sequential time-synchronous time) and discusses them as alternative ways of coping with life’s-and business’s-exigencies. With humor, cartoons, and an array of business examples, the authors demonstrate how the reconciliation of cultural differences can cause whole organizations to grow healthier, wealthier, and wiser.
About the Author
Charles M. Hampden-Turner is senior research associate at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, Cambridge University. He is director of research and development and Fons Trompenaars is president of Trompenaars-Hampden-Turner Group, a cross-cultural consulting and training company based in Amsterdam. Hampden- Turner and Trompenaars are coauthors of The Seven Cultures of Capitalism and Riding the Waves of Culture.
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