The business of international business is culture

Geert Hofstede

International Business Review, 1994, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: National cultures are distinguished from organizational cultures. The first have been studied from over 50 countries, and described with the help of five dimensions. The differences shown set limits to the validity of management theories across borders. Special attention is paid to characteristics of East Asian cultures that help explain the recent economic success of these countries. Organizational cultures were studied across 20 organizational units in Denmark and the Netherlands; this research identified six dimensions of organizational cultures. The findings lead to a number of suggestions for the management of organizational cultures. Managing international business means handling both national and organizational culture differences at the same time. Organizational cultures are somewhat manageable while national cultures are given facts for management; common organizational cultures across borders are what keeps multinationals together.

Keywords: National; Cultures; Organizational; Cultures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (89)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0969593194900116
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:iburev:v:3:y:1994:i:1:p:1-14

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/133/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

International Business Review is currently edited by P. Ghauri

More articles in International Business Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().