Cultures and Organizations

Now for the first time in paperback, Geert Hofstede's classic study of the "software of the mind" helps us look at how we think - and also at how we fail to think as members of groups. Drawing on decades of rigorous research, the author reveals the unexamined rules by which we live and work together. Melding unswerving intellectual courage and hard social, cultural, and organizational research, Hofstede shapes a sobering picture of a world perilously lacking in self-knowledge - unaware of serious differences between the groups that populate our planet and appallingly oblivious to the hidden "programs" that govern the behavior of cultures in a time of skyrocketing global contact. But culture shock - whether the shocking contact is between an individual and a new country, between organizations, between the sexes, or between opposing diplomats - can be turned to our advantage, Hofstede says - if we understand it. And understanding is what this work is all about.