Page 41 - Crossing Cultural Boundaries - Cees den Teuling

the top and middle management is a basic condition to facilitate the implementation of the recently acquired knowledge.
According to Groeschl and Doherty (2000), culture isj a rather complicated phenomenon. Culture has been defined in many ways with an accent on its different elements and characteristics. Most often these elements are explained by terms such as behaviour, values, institutions, norms and other basic assumptions. According to Foster (1991), above all, the genesis of a NC requires the demarcation of boundaries. Within the boundaries of the territory, delimited by national identity, a community of people (“folk”) characterized by some essential, differentiating and distinctive natural iconic elements is located.
At individual level, representatives of a nation may differ but certainly they will share essentials in attributes and behaviour that ensure and certify their national identity. Differences are overridden by the common feelings of being together and sharing norms and values. Differences between countries, framed as Collective Mental Programming of the people of any particular nationality by Hofstede (1993) and Hofstede and Hofstede (2001), are explained as unilateral NC’s. However, a larger group of scientists in cross-cultural studies (e.g. Baskerville, 2003; McSweeney, 2002; Schwartz, 1990; Baskerville-Morley, 2005), widely criticised the dichotomy in presenting cultural differences. On the contrary, outside and beyond the national boundaries, other “folks” are located, not partaking the same, essential identity and are qualified with a different, predominantly their own identity.
As identified by Morden (1999), there are various classifications of NC. Prominent studies of NC are mainly concentrated on the elements of cultural values (Jackson, 2005). As argued by Smith (2011) also styles of communication can be seen as dimensions of NC. The elaboration on the cultural dimension is included in the theories of Lewin (1946), Hall and Hall (1976), Hofstede (1980, 1991, 2011) and more contemporary of Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner (1998). Subsequently, there are different classifications of culture, starting from The Single Dimension models, such as High-context versus Low-context (Hall, 1960; Hall & Hall, 1976), Monochronic versus Polychronic (Lewis, 1992; 2010), High trust versus Low trust (Fukuyama, 1995a), Idiocentric versus Allocentric (Triandis, 1995), monomorphic and polymorphic (Bottger, Hallein & Yetton, 1985) to the models with six (Hofstede, 1983a; 2011) and seven dimensions (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1998). Another approach describes historical-social models, represented by the European management model (Bloom, Calori & de Woot 1994) and The South Asian management model as
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