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Readers reviews

Essential reading for executives - and politicians, February 25, 2006
Reviewer: By C. D. Lynn (Marietta, GA USA)

This book is deservedly already an international management classic, and should be required reading for anybody who needs to interact with other nationalities and cultures. Hofstede got there first with his classifications of cultural dimensions, but Hampden-Turner & Trompenaars' are arguably more compelling, and - more importantly - the book is both highly readable and replete with case studies. It gives American and Northern European business people insights into why their assumptions about what motivates people from other parts of the world are wrong, and why so many US-centered initiatives founder on the rocks of unrecognized cultural differences. Send a copy to the White House!

For Business People and Managers, June 30, 2005
By Layla (Dubai - UAE)

This is a shorter, and more condensed version of the authors' earlier book 'Building Cross Cultural Competence'. In this book, the authors' target managers and business people who are looking to understand cultural differences and how to deal with them in a variety of circumstances and situations. Each chapter begins with am introduction to one of the dimensions, a discussion of how the differences manifest themselves and concludes with 'tips' on how to deal, and how to do business, with the different culture explored in that chapter.

The authors use the same six dimensions of culture introduced in their earlier work (universalism vs. particularism; individualism vs communitarism; specificity vs. diffusion; achieved status vs. ascribed status; inner direction vs. outer direction; and sequential time vs. synchronous time), but they present these dimensions in a much more accessible and simple manner with more emphasis on what each dimension actually means for business people and how it affects business-related situations.

This book has become the reference for business people and managers in the area of culture. Simple and very well written without losing credibility; this is a book that will enlighten and guide any manager in dealing with people from other cultures. While in some ways it is a 'western-centric' book (targeted to Western - especially US - managers), it remains very useful for managers from other cultures since the authors have attempted to keep the examples and discussion culturally neutral.

A Great Introduction to Intercultural Understanding, May 2, 2004
Reviewer: D. C Wigglesworth (Kingwood, Texas United States)

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.

Riding the Waves of Culture, October 1, 2003
Reviewer: A reader

An excellent overview of culture and cultural differences. For a more specific look at Americans, read Working with Americans (Stewart-Allen/Denslow)

Needs more work and interesting, March 3, 2003
Reviewer: * "Jake W" (Warsaw, Poland)

The authors cover a lot of bases and are very effective in making a reader more sensitive to differences in attitudes and value systems of various persons. Yes, I would say various persons rather than various nations - based on methodology and results of this book. A side note - anecdotal evidence presented in the book shows a lot more differences between the nations researched than the hard data from the authors' research.
Only on a few questions national groups of respondents from say Japan and USA have scored positively different (I mean vast majority from one country holds the same view as a small minority from the other). Having 80% of one country respondents support some principle vs. just 55% of the other(which on the graphs included seems like a lot of difference while it is basically still majority here and majority there) does not tell me really much about the way I should approach managers from the 55% country, does it ? (The authors do not express these doubts stressing differences rather than similarities). Even if the latter group responds not 55% but just 33%, thus widening the gap and making potential choices easier, I still need to clarify in a face to face meeting if this particular person belongs to her national group majority or minority because I have a 33% chance that I will approach that person with a wrong pre-conception.

On top of this the selection of respondents makes drawing conclusions even harder. As authors say, 75% from each country are managers,25% are junior people. Why not focus on managers 100% for clarity? As a result we may have here a situation in which here and there some of a variance can be explained by the fact that managers have one attitude, while junior staff another one, while differences between managers from different countries are still smaller than graphs show.

In effect, quite surprisingly, for me this is more of an interesting and thought provoking book on different styles and values of people/managers in general, than a practical national-business culture guide, just because the data are so much inconclusive.

Why are those foreigners so hard to deal with?, March 7, 2002
Reviewer: Paul Lemberg (Escondido, CA USA)

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.

Highly Recommended!, July 23, 2001
Reviewer: Rolf Dobelli (Luzern Switzerland)

The results are in: All of those stereotypes that we've been told to forget are, in fact, true. At least, that's what a survey of 30,000 people from 31 nations suggests. The data paints some familiar pictures: the inflexible German, the vacillating Frenchman and the pushy American. The statistics from the survey support the conclusions reached by authors Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner in the earlier, first edition of this book: Don't base business decisions on the rhetoric that people are the same regardless of race, color or creed. They aren't! Academically organized, dense with anecdotes and, this time, thoroughly documented, Riding the Waves of Culture is entertaining at least, and possibly essential in this global age. We [...] recommend this book to any professional approaching an international management task, or overseeing a business that stretches across regional boundaries.

A real masterpiece, February 3, 2001
Reviewer: A reader

This is a real masterpiese. I recommend it to not only those top mangers in organization, but also to those immigrants who leave their motheland for a new life.

Waves or Circles?, January 14, 2001
Reviewer: Dwight K. Lemke (Trinity Beach, Queensland Australia)

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.

A Work of Genius, October 10, 2000
Reviewer: Dan Seidman

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.

A prescription for the millenium manager !, January 28, 1999
Reviewer: A reader

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 !

Theory helps make good practice, January 11, 1999
Reviewer: A reader

Unlike many other texts and authors on this subject, Trompenaars has undertaken extensive background and rigorous research. The authors interpret the research in a very practical way making the conclusions generalisable to any manager.
A must for today's manager, whether global or dealing with diversity.