Intercultural Management

Concepts, Practice, Critical Reflection

Intercultural Management is a detailed, up-to-date contribution to management literature. Through illustrative cases from a wide variety of cultures, the book provides a captivating angle on the most recent research in the field. It makes the reader reflect and demonstrates the importance of cultural understanding in intercultural management. Through systematic composition and comprehensive figures, the book shines a light on aspects such as communication, psychology, and history. Intercultural Management is well suited to give students increased cultural understanding and knowledge of international business.

This book is very timely and well written. There is a coherent golden thread in the book and the chapters build on each other consistently and logically. It contains the most extensive collection of relevant theories and concepts I have ever seen in one place. The examples provided are carefully selected and very helpful to add currency to the theoretical claims. They offer opportunity for students to better understand what the content means for the real world and organizations. I also very much appreciate that the book is informed by the state-of-the-art literature in international business and management and that everything is backed up with substantial academic reference and evidence.

Intercultural Management is the textbook I have been waiting on for a long time. It starts where many other textbooks about this topic end. Instead of mainly repeating the obvious, the book contains many interesting and relevant aspects that are new even to experts in the field. The well-founded text mixes perfectly with sound practical examples, exercises, and references to videos and online resources. Students and managers alike will enjoy reading the book as it opens up new perspectives and stimulates critical reflection.

Digitalization has increased the possibilities and necessities to establish and maintain productive collaboration between people of different race, cultural backgrounds, and ethical attitudes. In addition, companies active on global markets have to adjust their value proposition to customers from different cultures. Intercultural Management by Dirk Holtbrügge is an easy to master step-by-step guide on how to develop intercultural competencies at individual, group, and organizational levels, and how to use these competencies in intra-organizational and inter-organizational collaboration. I also must stress that unlike many ‘do-it-yourself’ guides, the book is deeply rooted in academic research.

This book provides an excellent overview of intercultural management. It not only covers the major frameworks one would expect, but also broadens the discussion to less-commonly covered disciplines, such as geography, economic and political systems, and biology. In addition, it has a strong research focus, providing research-based critiques of frameworks and describing challenges of conducting intercultural research. The historical lens is unusual and insightful, and the inclusion of recent research and concepts in intercultural management makes the text timely. Finally, there are several practical examples drawing from many cultures and countries across the world, which are interesting and successfully illustrate concepts from the text. With Intercultural Management, students will gain an understanding of intercultural management concepts, recognize its complexity, and find themselves reflecting on ideas. In brief, the broad interdisciplinary approach, strong research-orientation, historical perspective, inclusion of recent topics, and use of several diverse examples make this a well-rounded, thoughtful, and relevant intercultural management text that will spur student learning.