A talk with one of the foremost authorities on cross-cultural management

Thirty years ago, cross-cultural management was virtually an unknown field. It was widely assumed that American techniques were state-of-the-art and therefore could be applied to run any company anywhere in the world; saying otherwise was tantamount to heresy.

In the mid-1970s, Nancy Adler was beginning her PhD in management. She already sensed that global complexity couldn't be reduced to American assumptions of universality. She began researching how culture affects global business behavior and chose to write her doctoral thesis on re-entry transitions.

Her research was highly praised, leading several U.S. universities to offer her a professorship...on the condition that she agree not to teach "that intercultural stuff" to their students. But McGill University--in bilingual, bicultural Montreal-appreciated the importance of her work. McGill hired Nancy to teach cross-cultural management, an approach that has since become a staple of MBA programs worldwide...

To read full article, please view .pdf attachment (SIETAREUROPA Journal, September 2011)