Rating: 
Summary: Riding the Waves of Culture
Review: An excellent overview of culture and cultural differences. For a more specific look at Americans, read Working with Americans (Stewart-Allen/Denslow)
Rating:
Summary: A Great Introduction to Intercultural Understanding
Review: At last from Europe, a clear, concise, readable explanation of the critical dimensions of international management. It places culture in a perspective that allows for applications internationally and within the diversity of single nations. David C. Wigglesworth, Ph.D. is an international/intercultural human resource, management, and organization consultant and president of D.C.W Research Associates International in Kingwood, Texas, USA. He can be reached at dcwigg@earthlink.net
Rating: 
Summary: Why are those foreigners so hard to deal with?
Review: Did you ever wonder why your international counterparts or customers are so hard to deal with? If your work involves people from multiple countries and multiple cultures, this book is required reading. If your work involves understanding culture at all, it is definitely worth a quick read. Authors Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner share their cultural insights based on broad research - 30,000 interviews and questionnaires so far - which puts this work on solid ground. They distinguish culture along a number of interesting axes, including relationships and rules, group versus individual, feelings, personal Involvement, status, time, inner directed versus outer directed, and national versus corporate culture. The writing, while not exciting, is clear. And the statistical graphics further clarify and simplify many of the authors' points. On a personal note, whenever the book authors ascribed a particular cultural aspect to Americans, I naturally tried to locate myself on the USA part of the graph. The surprising part was that although I was often squarely in the "right" place, this was not the case a good amount of the time.
Rating:
Summary: A Work of Genius
Review: Do you travel beyond your border? For work? For pleasure? This book will keep you from making some terrible mistakes communicating and understanding other foreign nationals. For example, when do you respect rules over relationships? In Germany rules rule, in South Korea, relationships overshadow the law. Fascinating reading, incredible insights - you won't be disappointed in the usefulness of this work.
Rating:
Summary: Waves or Circles?
Review: Fons Trompenaars's "Riding the Waves of Culture" is an excellent explication of the difficulties in conducting business in an increasingly globalized marketplace. He and his colleagues have made use of an extensive database to dimensionalize culture in way that is understandable to executives and students alike. In fact, I will be using this in my MBA Cross-Cultural Management course this year for just that reason. One of the keenest insights in the book is that culture has its origins in how various societies have solved dilemmas relating to relationships with people, time and the environment. It is from this core that arise the seven dimensions of culture. It is also critically important that practicing managers--and my MBA students--get away from the idea of "one best way" management. That is, there are probably no universal solutions to management problems. To use the catch phrase from contingency theorists: "It all depends." However, we cannot uncritically accept the entire text. I think that in their zeal to get managers to move away from one size fits all solutions, they have overlooked how the global economy today is demanding that businesses of all stripes and origins fall in line with global "rules of the game." For example, today the Big 5 accounting firms must indicate in their audits if international standards were followed, or local ones. While it is possible to keep two sets of standards, this will be untenable in the long run, thus the capital markets will have enforced their own preferred solutions on businesses independent of culture. That type of thing will occur more and more as the world gets increasingly close linked. And, if you standardize systems, some so you will begin to standardize organizations--at least at the structural/systemic level. At some level also, the book devolves to "do this thing and its opposite", and that prescription managers will find impossible to sustain. While it is true that Scott Fitzgerald lauded this capability--to keep two opposing thoughts in your head simultaneously--in practice, most managers will be unable to function at this level. Finally, there is a small, but annoying, underlying tone in many European management writings today of: "Well, but not the American way." This is true of this text as well. Yes, some of my fellow management scholars decry what they see as a hegemony of North American management thought. However, the success of the American globalized system in the last decade provides its own best argument.
Rating:
Summary: Waves or Circles?
Review: Fons Trompenaars's "Riding the Waves of Culture" is an excellent explication of the difficulties in conducting business in an increasingly globalized marketplace. He and his colleagues have made use of an extensive database to dimensionalize culture in way that is understandable to executives and students alike. In fact, I will be using this in my MBA Cross-Cultural Management course this year for just that reason. One of the keenest insights in the book is that culture has its origins in how various societies have solved dilemmas relating to relationships with people, time and the environment. It is from this core that arise the seven dimensions of culture. It is also critically important that practicing managers--and my MBA students--get away from the idea of "one best way" management. That is, there are probably no universal solutions to management problems. To use the catch phrase from contingency theorists: "It all depends." However, we cannot uncritically accept the entire text. I think that in their zeal to get managers to move away from one size fits all solutions, they have overlooked how the global economy today is demanding that businesses of all stripes and origins fall in line with global "rules of the game." For example, today the Big 5 accounting firms must indicate in their audits if international standards were followed, or local ones. While it is possible to keep two sets of standards, this will be untenable in the long run, thus the capital markets will have enforced their own preferred solutions on businesses independent of culture. That type of thing will occur more and more as the world gets increasingly close linked. And, if you standardize systems, some so you will begin to standardize organizations--at least at the structural/systemic level. At some level also, the book devolves to "do this thing and its opposite", and that prescription managers will find impossible to sustain. While it is true that Scott Fitzgerald lauded this capability--to keep two opposing thoughts in your head simultaneously--in practice, most managers will be unable to function at this level. Finally, there is a small, but annoying, underlying tone in many European management writings today of: "Well, but not the American way." This is true of this text as well. Yes, some of my fellow management scholars decry what they see as a hegemony of North American management thought. However, the success of the American globalized system in the last decade provides its own best argument.
Rating:
Summary: A very informative and insightful book
Review: Having read a number of books on intercultural management, I can only say that in my opinion, "Riding the Waves of Culture" is by far the best book on this subject. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner present the results of their research on cultural differences in a most engaging way. Their book is a quick read that is full of wonderful anecdotes about cross-cultural business dilemmas. The stories are presented in a way that demonstrates great awareness of and respect for very diverse approaches to business. The authors also offer a methodology for reconciling value differences that incorporates the best of both worlds.
Rating:
Summary: A very informative and insightful book
Review: Having read a number of books on intercultural management, I can only say that in my opinion, "Riding the Waves of Culture" is by far the best book on this subject. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner present the results of their research on cultural differences in a most engaging way. Their book is a quick read that is full of wonderful anecdotes about cross-cultural business dilemmas. The stories are presented in a way that demonstrates great awareness of and respect for very diverse approaches to business. The authors also offer a methodology for reconciling value differences that incorporates the best of both worlds.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptionally useful and data based
Review: I work in a large international ag company. I've been working on a project on how to approach the challenges of language and culture in fully integrated cross-hemisphere teams. I've done a lot of reading of articles and books. This book is the best resource I have found. Trompenaars gives you a framework to begin to think about and understand the differences between cultures. What makes this really valuable is that the information on how specific cultures operate within this framework is based on a database of reponses from more than 30,000 managers around the world. The book is full of specific examples and data to support conclusions.
Rating:
Summary: A prescription for the millenium manager !
Review: In additon to his work on national culture, Trompenaars' new content on Corporate Culture is a very informative and practical model for understanding bsuiness in today's world. Essential reading for all MBA's and top managers !
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