The Nordic Management Style In A European Context

Nordic companies and organisations are often distinguished by committedemployees and a high degree of creativity. One reason is a specific Nordicleadership style, which sets itself apart through the delegation of power and responsibility to employees and a high degree of consensus seeking, among other things. Nordic leaders also stress the necessity of co-operation. In addition, they play down their authority and often function more as coaches for their employees. It is also important that leaders are able to inspire their employees, and be visionary yet realistic at the same time. This report describes how various studies on culture, leadership and values characterise the Nordic leadership style. The report also attempts to find factors in Nordic societies that could help explain the leadership style in the Nordic region. Particular attention is given to two of these: the creation of the Nordic welfare state and the tradition of balancing different interests in society, especially within the labour market. The discussion of these factors is also supplemented by examining the role played by the industrial structure.

This book contributes to the expanding field of cross-cultural and comparative management, and addresses the issue of whether the main Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden – exhibit such similarities in management style and practice as to constitute a country cluster. It is based on a qualitative, interview-driven study of managers in companies matched by industry in the three countries and seeks to contextualise the research findings in a general discussion of the Scandinavian countries, showing their intertwined histories and similar institutions and values. The book argues that the central values of these managers are equality, informality, decency, and conflict avoidance; it shows that the behaviour of Scandinavian managers is inspired by these values and that they can be attributed to national culture and not to the peculiarities of any particular industry. Management in Scandinavia will be of interest to students and teachers of international management, as well as practitioners of business and management.

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.

This book focuses on workplace innovation, which is a key element in ensuring that organizations and the people within them can adapt to and engage in healthy, sustainable change. It features a collection of multi-level, multi-disciplinary contributions that combine theory, research and practical perspectives. In addition, the book presents new perspectives from a number of nations on policies with novel theoretical approaches to workplace innovation, as well as international case studies on the subject. These cases highlight the role of leadership, the relation between workplace innovation and well-being, as well as the do’s and don’ts of workplace innovation implementation. Whether you are an experienced workplace practitioner, manager, a policy-maker, unionist, or a student of workplace innovation, this book contains a range of tips, tools and international case studies to help the reader understand and implement workplace innovation.

This volume in the Routledge Global Human Resource Management Series is dedicated to analyzing the process of trust development between managers and subordinates in different countries of the main cultures of the world. Behaviors and trust are linked in a process that can reinforce or diminish the trust between the two parties. This book examines that process in an array of countries, contextualizing each setting through a brief historical, institutional, and cultural overview. Addressing the dominant HR practices and the main local leadership styles of each country, it draws upon an extensive country-by-country data set of leader-subordinate trust to analyze the universal and culturally-specific elements of this process. With its rigorous research, insightful analysis, and consistent presentation, this book will help readers to systematically compare the process across countries to draw conclusions and analyze HR implications. This book is intended as a text for graduate courses in Cross Cultural Business, International Human Resource Management and Cross Cultural Organisational Psychology. In addition to a student market, the text will also be of interest to the reflective practitioner operating in different cultural settings who requires a contextual knowledge of key aspects of workplace relations, management style and host country situation.

This revised and updated fourth edition of this core textbook builds on the text's established success. It provides the basis of knowledge, understanding and practice for developing skilled work communication in an intercultural world. Using many illustrations and international examples, the book analyses culture, cultural diversity and cultural similarities and differences in how we interact at work and in the psychological factors that influence our communication. It shows how to overcome impediments to intercultural communication and interact effectively with different others, whether face-to-face or by email, chat, text, phone or video. It describes cultural differences in negotiating, cooperation, coordination, knowledge sharing, working in groups and leadership, and demonstrates how to perform these activities skilfully in an intercultural setting. This textbook is the ideal companion for students taking undergraduate modules in cross-cultural management or managing diversity on international business or business administration degrees, in addition to MBA courses and specialist postgraduate modules on international and comparative management. New to this Edition: - New and improved pedagogical features, including end of Part exercises, activities and role plays - Topic-by-topic coverage of computer-mediated communication, explaining how it is affected by culture and in turn affects intercultural communication - Discussion of new developments in the field such as the increasing emphasis on language and discourses - Focus on new types of research such as country-by-country studies and reports of realities on the ground

In order to improve competitiveness and performance, corporations must embrace advancements in digitalization. Successful implementation of knowledge management is a huge factor in corporate success. Analyzing the Impacts of Industry 4.0 in Modern Business Environments is a critical scholarly publication that explores digital transformation in business environments and the requirement for not only a substantial management change plan but equally the two essential components of knowledge management: knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. Featuring a broad range of topics such as strategic planning, knowledge transfer, and cybersecurity risk management, this book is geared toward researchers, academicians, and students seeking current and relevant research on organizational knowledge intensity and monitoring of knowledge management development.