4. Culture and Its Dimensions: General Implications for Management

This chapter offers a review, critique, and survey of the implications of culture and its dimensions for management, tracking its development as an autonomous academic field and outlining contemporary reflections on potential future trajectories, themes, and methodologies. The chapter acknowledges the effects of the globalization process, which poses tough challenges for small firms, and provides specific approaches to go beyond national boundaries by recognizing the multi-faceted, multi-layered, and dynamic nature of culture. In particular, international business studies agree that managers need the flexibility to respond positively and effectively to different practices and values in order to succeed in global business. As a consequence, cultural differences call for differences in management practices. The chapter explores the concept of culture and its evolution, by focusing on socio-cultural systems, cultural dimensions, and how they rely on the main managerial issues firms must face when dealing with international contexts. The fact that management practices must be adapted to the different local environments is also illustrated by examples with which most managers are familiar. The chapter also analyzes the main theoretical approaches to culture developed by Edward T. Hall, Florence R. Kluckhohn and Fred L. Strodtbeck, Geert H. Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Shalom H. Schwartz, the GLOBE project, and Tony Fang.