MP A R
Munich Personal RePEc Archive

Culture as an individual process: Deficits of national cultural theories in management of cultural diversity
Lenz, Rainer University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld

May 2008

Online at http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/26629/ MPRA Paper No. 26629, posted 10. November 2010 / 23:56

UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES BIELEFELD

Culture as an individual process

Deficits of national cultural theories in management of cultural diversity Rainer Lenz (rainer.lenz@fh‐bielefeld.de) May 2008

Most prevalent theories in cross cultural management reduce the variability of individual relations to one single category, the national culture. Based on the assumption that the national cultural values determine individual behavior the individual’s behavior in different national cultures becomes predictable. This over simplistic model pretends to provide “easy” answers for a complex world. In this article a new approach to culture is developed where culture is seen as a permanent individual process. The focus is the individual in its complex correlation to the society. This approach leads to a holistic view of a human being as it takes beside the social relations the individual's personality and it’s reflexivity into account.

Culture as an individual process
Deficits of national cultural theories in management of cultural diversity

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Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Shortcomings of the “national culture” concept ............................................................................. 4 The individual as the source of culture ............................................................................................. 8 Culture as an individual momentum ............................................................................................... 13 Implications