Culture and Management
Published: 1994(Author is Dr. Kati Laine-Sveiby unless indicated)
Here you will find a couple of articles and books about the problems and solutions applied by businesses in cross-cultural contact, with special emphasis on the Nordic neighbours Finland and Sweden. Even though they all date from around the time of my doctoral dissertation (incl), I still get frequent requests from both students and practitioners for them. Since they can mainly be found only in libraries, I hope that publishing them on the net will make them easier accessible to those wishing to acquaint themselves with them.
Here you will find a couple of articles and books about the problems and solutions applied by businesses in cross-cultural contact, with special emphasis on the Nordic neighbours Finland and Sweden. Even though they all date from around the time of my doctoral dissertation (incl), I still get frequent requests from both students and practitioners for them. Since they can mainly be found only in libraries, I hope that publishing them on the net will make them easier accessible to those wishing to acquaint themselves with them.
Judging by the response I get, the problems are still very much the same. We all tend to bring our own preconceptions to any meeting with others, and the stereotypes still flourish. The world around us is in constant change, but our own cultural assumptions tend to change only very gradually. If we accepted that we don't know everything about other people, it would make our professional and private lives easier. Living with question marks, however, has proved to be notoriously difficult. I hope that these articles and books will give some insights into the kinds of misconceptions we tend to have of one another and how to avoid some of the traps on our way to smooth cross-cultural communication.
Kati Laine-Sveiby