Global Management

Global Management: Dancing with Icebergs

Is Global Management a Dance with Icebergs?
Approximately 1.5 million managers work outside their home country. They are expatriates, or "expats" and they are growing in number.

They are not only Bavarians setting up subsidiaries in China, or Viennese sent to the American headquarters. They are also "foreigners at home", such as the German department head who manages a Russian subsidiary based in Germany.

Experience shows that many businesses fail because they lack awareness in dealing with "foreign worlds". There are thousands of situations for which they are simply not prepared. Human behavior resembles an iceberg. Only the peaks of the iceberg are visible, but individual behavior is determined by other unseen influences. When people from different cultures work together, the icebergs crash and collide under the waters surface. Managers need to make the icebergs dance! Barbara Wietasch shows how this is possible in her guide book for international business.