When Cultures Collide

Richard Lewis provides a truly global and practical guide to working and communicating across cultures, with penetrating insights into how different business cultures accord status, structure their organizations, and view their role of leaders.

The successful managers for the next century will be the culturally sensitive ones. You can gain competitive advantage from having strategies to deal with the cultural differences you will encounter in any international business setting. Richard Lewis provides a guide to working and communicating across cultures, and explains how your culture and language affect the ways in which you think and respond. This revised and expanded edition in paperback of Richard Lewis's book provides an ever more global and practical guide not just to understanding but also managing in different business cultures. New chapters on more than a dozen countries - from Iraq, Israel and Pakistan to Serbia, Columbia and Venezuela - vastly broaden the range.

The successful managers for the next century will be the culturally sensitive ones. You can gain competitive advantage from having strategies to deal with the cultural differences you will encounter in any international business setting. Richard Lewis provides a guide to working and communicating across cultures, and explains how your culture and language affect the ways in which you think and respond. This revised and expanded edition in paperback of Richard Lewis's book provides an ever more global and practical guide not just to understanding but also managing in different business cultures. New chapters on more than a dozen countries - from Iraq, Israel and Pakistan to Serbia, Columbia and Venezuela - vastly broaden the range.

"This book is a MUST for every business team leader who plans to start doing business in a new cross-cultural environment." - Markku Vartiainen OBE, President, Finnish-British Chamber of Commerce International teams are rapidly becoming the central operating mode for global enterprises. They are often agile and perceptive, know local markets better than HQ does, lead innovation and exploratory ventures, and are more culturally aware than their parent company. But how much autonomy should they be allowed? How can we get things done with colleagues who have different worldviews? How can we strike a balance between core values and the necessary diversity - and is diversity within the team a strength or a hindrance? What is the role of the team leader in all of this? How do you establish team trust? How important is team humor? Who decides the team's ethics? What misunderstandings can arise in a virtual team, lacking face-to-face contact? In answering these and other questions, Richard D. Lewis draws on 30 years experience mediating with hundreds of international teams in two dozen countries. Generously illustrated with explanatory diagrams, When Teams Collide analyses profiles of 24 different nationalities and suggests how they should be led for best results. Commenting on vital considerations of leadership, team trust, ethics and humor, the author also evaluates the relationship between teams and HQ. Applying the cultural concepts in the bestselling When Cultures Collide specifically to team leadership, this is a wide-ranging and compelling account of how to handle what is a difficult and sensitive task.

How national culture impacts organizational culture—and business success Using extensive case studies of successful global corporations, this book explores the impact of national culture on the corporate strategy and its execution, and through this ultimately business success—or failure. It does not argue that different cultures lead to different business results, but that all cultures impact organizations in ways both positive and negative, depending on the business cycle, the particular business, and the particular strategies being pursued. Depending on all of these factors, cultural dynamics can either enable or derail performance. But recognizing those cultural factors is difficult for business leaders; like everyone else, they too can be blind to the culture of which they are a part. The book offers managers and leaders eight recommendations for recognizing those cultural factors that negatively impact performance, as well as those that can be harnessed to encourage superior performance. With real case studies from companies in Asia, Europe, and the United States, this book offers a truly global approach to organizational culture. Offers a fresh approach to the effects of national culture on organizational culture that is applicable to any country in any region Based on case studies of such companies as Toyota, Samsung, General Motors, Nokia, Walmart, Kone and British Leyland It describes the origins and nature of the most common corporate crisis and how culture impacts the response to such a crisis Ideal for managers, business leaders, and board members, as well as business school students A welcome response to the flat-Earth fad that argues we're all alike, this book offers a nuanced and practical view of cultural differentiators and how they can enable or derail business performance.

When Technocultures Collide provides rich and diverse studies of collision courses between technologically inspired subcultures and the corporate and governmental entities they seek to undermine. The adventures and exploits of computer hackers, phone phreaks, urban explorers, calculator and computer collectors, “CrackBerry” users, whistle-blowers, Yippies, zinsters, roulette cheats, chess geeks, and a range of losers and tinkerers feature prominently in this volume. Gary Genosko analyzes these practices for their remarkable diversity and their innovation and leaps of imagination. He assesses the results of a number of operations, including the Canadian stories of Mafiaboy, Jeff Chapman of Infiltration, and BlackBerry users. The author provides critical accounts of highly specialized attributes, such as the prospects of deterritorialized computer mice and big toe computing, the role of electrical grid hacks in urban technopolitics, and whether info-addiction and depression contribute to tactical resistance. Beyond resistance, however, the goal of this work is to find examples of technocultural autonomy in the minor and marginal cultural productions of small cultures, ethico-poetic diversions, and sustainable withdrawals with genuine therapeutic potential to surpass accumulation, debt, and competition. The dangers and joys of these struggles for autonomy are underlined in studies of RIM’s BlackBerry and Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks website.

Finland: the world's best-kept secret Finland, Cultural Lone Wolf is the story of an accomplished nation and her extraordinary people. Pursuing a "Lone Wolf" policy, Finland raised itself from a struggling, war-battered state in 1945 to one of the most developed countries in the world. The exponential rise of Nokia from tire and timbers to leading the world's telecommunication industry is indicative of the Finns and their characteristic business style. These remarkable people speak a language unique in its origins and have kept their cultural identity intact despite the influences of powerful neighbors, Sweden and Russia. Uniquely qualified to write about Finalnd, best-selling author Richard Lewis traces the fascinating Finnish origins, as well as her history, geography, values and culture. His extensive experience with Finnish business provides him with keen insight on leadership style, negotiation strategies and the uniquely Finnish suomi-kuva (Finland image). And Lewis shines when describing Finnish humor, complete with hilarious jokes and stories. Finland, Cultural Lone Wolf shows a nation and a writer at their best.