Culture Management

"Dr Lukasz Wroblewski's book Culture Management: Strategy and Marketing Aspects clearly recognises that the pressures on the cultural sector in the 21st Century are greater than ever before. Based on robust academic research within a practical industry context, this book addresses all the key issues related to marketing strategy and planning for the cultural industries. It will be an invaluable tool for managers, policy-makers and all those working in the creative and cultural world, and will help them to develop sound strategies for the future." Dr Kim Lehman Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania "Dr Wroblewski's book explains clearly what has changed to make the use of business models necessary, even in organizations which might have resisted in the past. Globalization has resulted in a population which understands and appreciates art and culture created in other countries. While it might be agreed that this is beneficial for society, it means that cultural arbitrators within a country no longer have the authority to dictate what is accepted as culture. Managers now understand that to gain the support of the public they must explain the benefits of consuming their cultural product." Dr Bonita M. Kolb Professor Emeritus of Lycoming College in Pennsylvania "A thoughtful and penetrating analysis of culture management addressing marketing strategies and cultural institutions. An important `must read' book for those involved in this exciting sector." Prof Adrian Payne University of UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales

All cultures appear to share the belief that they do things ‘correctly’, while others, until proven otherwise, are assumed to be ignorant or barbaric. When people from different cultures work together and cannot take shared meanings for granted, managers face serious challenges. An individual’s parsing of an experience and its meaning may vary according to several cultural scales – national, professional, industrial and local. Awareness of cultural differences and the willingness to view them as a positive are therefore crucial assets. This edited textbook sets itself apart from existing cross-cultural management texts by highlighting to the reader the need to avoid both ethnocentrism and the belief in the universality of his or her own values and ways of thinking: the success of international negotiations and intercultural management depends on such openness and acceptance of real differences. It encourages the development of ‘nomadic intelligence’ and the creative use of a culture’s resources, according to a symbolic anthropology perspective. Through the essays and case studies in the chapters, readers will become aware of the intercultural dimension of business activities and better understand how they affect work. Cross-Cultural Management will help interested parties – students of business management, international relations and other disciplines, and business managers and other professionals – develop their ability to interact, take action and give direction in an intercultural context.

An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life. Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to each other, chaos breaks out. In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain in which people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together. She provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business, and combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice.

The purpose of this book is to reimagine the concept of culture, both as an analytical category and disciplinary practice of dominance, marginalization and exclusion. For decades culture has been perceived as a ‘hot topic’. It has been written about and deployed as part of ‘a search for excellence’; as a tool through which to categorise, rank, motivate and mould individuals; as a part of an attempt to align individual and corporate goals; as a driver of organizational change, and; as a servant of profit maximisation. The women writers presented in this book offer a different take on culture: they offer useful disruptions to mainstream conceptions of culture. Joanne Martin and Mary Douglas provide multi-dimensional holistic accounts of social relations that point up similarity and difference. Rather than offering totalising or prescriptive models, each author considers the complex, polyphonic and processual nature of culture(s) while challenging us to acknowledge and work with ambiguity, fluidity and disruption. In this spirit writings of Judi Marshall, Arlie Hochschild, Kathy Ferguson, Luce Irigaray and Donna Haraway are employed to disrupt extant management cultures that lionise the masculine and marginalise the concerns, perspectives and contributions of women and the diversity of women. These writers bring bodies, emotions, difference, resistance and politics back to the centre stage of organizational theory and practice. They open us up to the possibility of cultures suffused with multifarious potentiality rather than homogeneity and faux certainty. As such, they offer new ways of understanding and performing culture in management and organization. This book will be relevant to students and researchers across business and management, organizational studies, critical management studies, gender studies and sociology.

Latin Americans are culturally different from North Americans in ways that so far have been inaccurately portrayed in the management literature. In Culture and Management in the Americas, Alfredo Behrens argues that these differences merit a substantial overhaul of management theory and practice to make the best of the significantly untapped Latin American potential for creativity, innovation, and teamwork. This applies in organizations with North American ownership and management, whether they are based in the U.S. or Latin America. Behrens, a management consultant and academic who has studied, taught, and practiced in South and North America and Europe, explains why the use of traditional North American research methods to capture cultural traits in the multi-cultural workforce is inappropriate. This practice produces a false picture of the cultural attributes and capabilities of Latin American managers and key staff. And this, in turn, leads to serious shortcomings in the development of appropriate motivation and leadership strategies and of appraisal and control instruments. Rather than relying on standardized surveys for measuring cultural attributes to underpin and develop such strategies and tools, the author suggests that managers look to the arts—particularly literature and cinema—for a richer and more useful alternative. He illustrates his points by reference to literary icons such as Argentina's Martin Fierro, Brazil's Macunaima, and America's Captain Ahab. He uses a variety of case studies to demonstrate what we can learn from these iconographic characters and what we can expect of each other when we apply these lessons—whether we are leading, following, or working in self-directed teams. This readable and enjoyable book will be an invaluable, engaging, and practical tool for anyone charged with managing at any level in workforce that combines both North American and Latin American cultures.

Vocational occupations are attractive not so much for their material rewards as for the prestige and self-fulfillment they confer. They require a strong personal commitment, which can be subjectively experienced in terms of passion and selflessness. The choice of a career in the cultural sector provides a good example of this. What are the terms of this calling? What predisposes individuals to answer it? What are the meanings of such a choice? To answer these questions, this book focuses on would-be cultural managers. By identifying their social patterns, by revealing the resources, expectations and visions of the world they invest in their choice, it sheds new light on these occupations. In these intermediary and indeterminate social positions, family heritages intersect with educational strategies, aspirations of upward mobility with tactics against downward mobility, and social critique with adjustment strategies. Ultimately the study of career choices in cultural management suggests a new take on the analysis of social reproduction and on the embodiment of the new spirit of capitalism. The empirical findings of this research conducted in France are set in a broader comparative perspective, at the European level and with the USA.

ÔPrimecz, Romani, and Sackmann provide managers and educators with a powerful framework that goes beyond simple categorization of national and cultural differences in business. Their framework of negotiated meaning systems, and the rich cases that illustrate the Òin-the-momentÓ experiences of global managers as they conduct business in culturally unfamiliar milieus provide managers and educators with a powerful tool for developing global managerial skills. This is a book every global manager and cross-cultural educator should have on his or her bookshelf.Õ Ð Mark E. Mendenhall, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, US ÔThis is a unique, alternative view of culture that has both practical and theoretical significance. The creative analysis of cases from around the world moves the field beyond the sophisticated stereotyping that can result from relying solely on cultural value dimensions to decode interactions. The cases address significant cross-cultural issues, providing useful lessons and richer perspectives on culture.Õ Ð Joyce Osland, San JosŽ State University, US ÔThis book is an excellent collection of practical and useful cases in cross-cultural management, with some that are very different from what we would call ÒtraditionalÓ cases in cross-cultural management. They are excellent teaching material with an introduction and a conclusion that show students and practitioners how meanings are negotiated in diverse and complex cross-cultural situations.Õ Ð Marie-Therese Claes, Louvain School of Management, Belgium ÔA fascinating book for both the diversity of cultures that are touched upon (from Asia and Africa to Europe and America) and the cultural analyses that are made of various management situations resulting from the transfer of management techniques across countries or the encountering of those embedded in different cultures.Õ Ð Philippe dÕIribarne, CNRS, France ÔA group of multidisciplinary authors from various countries and cultures bring rich experience to this volume. The focus on real-life situations offers a fresh perspective on culture in organizations and management through in-depth case studies including both academic and pedagogical sides. It addresses multi-level cross-cultural issues of international strategic importance for globalizing workplaces. This insightful book is excellent reading for practitioners as well as scholars and students interested in applications in the field of cross-cultural management.Õ Ð Cordula Barzantny, Toulouse Business School, France ÔThis volume offers an insightful introduction to qualitative field research aiming to understand the dynamics in intercultural business interactions. Based on the findings provided in ten rich cases from Asia, Europe, North Africa, USA and Latin America, the editors also propose strategies for more effective collaboration in challenging multiple-cultures contexts. The authors and editors have succeeded in transforming the field studies into cases that are stimulating and thought provoking readings, both for practitioners and students of cross-cultural management.Õ Ð Anne-Marie S¿derberg, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Based on the view that culture is dynamic and negotiated between actors, this groundbreaking book contains a collection of ten cases on cross-cultural management in practice. The cases draw on field research revealing challenges and insights from working across nations and cultures. Each case provides recommendations for practitioners that are developed into a framework for effective intercultural interactions as well as offering illustrations and insights on how to handle actual cross-cultural issues. This enriching book covers various topics including international collaborations across and within multinational companies, organizational culture in international joint ventures and knowledge transfer. Based on empirical fieldwork and qualitative analyses, this path-breaking book will appeal to graduate and postgraduate students in international management as well as practitioners.