Few days ago, an American vendor expressed his frustration on a forum of the LinkedIn virtual professional community over his foreign prospective clients’ unexpected attitudes. In his US homeland, it is so easy to meet with the senior executives who are open to new solutions and products. Based on his experience, the vendor has assumed [...]
Monday, May 23, 2011
Most African societies feature a large number of indigenous ethnic groups as well as minorities of Africans from foreign descent. Such diversity brings about numerous challenges not only at the level of the society but also at the level of the organizations and of the businesses. The situation varies from place to place: in some [...]
Sunday, March 20, 2011
After his first year as head of a Canadian organization operating in Zambia, Jean Trudot got some feedback from his 360 evaluation. His employees stated that they had a problem of communication with him. Immediately some consultant had been brought all the way from Canada to Zambia in order to investigate the matter and to fix [...]
Saturday, January 22, 2011
In the 90s, the management literature examined the link between human resources management and cultures. A number of papers both in the Anglophone and in the Francophone literatures uncovered the scope of cultural differences in the various activities performed by people who manage human resources. Recruitment is one of the areas where differences in societal [...]
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
More and more research projects take the form of co-operations between researchers from different countries. With the rising role of Africa in the international business arena, academic institutions from the rich countries develop an increasing number of partnerships and research co-operations with the academic institutions of the poor countries. This rising interest in scientific cooperation [...]
Thursday, October 14, 2010
African countries transition towards market economics as well as the creation of common markets between the regions and sub regions of the continent, suggest that more and more African businesses are developing a service-minded approach to their customers both on their domestic market and beyond. But what does it mean to be serviced minded? Is [...]
Sunday, May 16, 2010
In an increasingly interrelated world, it is prevalent to be exposed to dealing with people from different societies. International ventures have put cultural differences at the forefront. Today, the literature has mushroomed in order to raise awareness on how culture matters when it comes to international relationships. Subsequently, people are slowly realizing they must be [...]
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Diplomats and translators know all too well that a word can carry different meanings across societies and languages. Disagreements on proposed text wordings often feature a concept that is perceived, understood or applied differently across societies. Extensive discussions and negotiations are often needed to come to a text that expresses words that have different meanings [...]
Saturday, May 8, 2010
In the early nineties, while I was working in a business school in Brussels, I dealt with a group of Eastern European executives who attended several weeklong seminars on the principles of market economics. They had been exposed to case studies from a prominent American university. A few of the senior executives told me that [...]
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Tuesday, May 31, 2011
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