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Culture and Management

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Society is made up of different groups of individuals who share the same cultural background. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate") is a term that has different meanings. To me culture is a sense of identity, as an individual and a group, and about the creative expression or response to life. Dr Fons Trompenaars who is a Dutch author in the field of cross-cultural communication developed the “Seven Dimensions of Culture Model” for the analysis of cultural differences. The seven dimensions were defined as; Universalism versus Particularism, Collectivism versus individualism. Affective versus neutral relationships. Specificity versus diffuseness, achievement versus ascription. Orientation towards time and internal versus external control. According to Dr Trompenaars culture is the manner in which these dilemmas are reconciled, since every nation seeks a different and winding path to its own ideals of integrity. Trompenaar believes that not only will conflict be reduced by this reconciliation but businesses will succeed to the extent that this reconciliation occurs.

According to Hofstede (1991) culture is like an onion that can be peeled, layer-by layer to reveal the content. The meaning of culture is compared with the layers of an onion. Where the outer layer is what people principally associate with culture e.g. clothing, language and foods etc. The middle layer refers to the norms and values which a community holds. The core of the onion is the key to successfully working with other cultures. Hofstede sees culture as "the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another."

Universalism versus Particularism

I will analyse and discuss two out of the seven dimensions named above, starting with Universalism versus particularism.

This dimension asks

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