ABSTRACT
As the opening case illustrates, cultural awareness is vital to the success of strategic alliances. Neither of the alliance partners was a particularly strong industrial competitor. Nissan was virtually bankrupt at the beginning of the union. Many observers feared a cultural clash between Renault and Nissan given their different national and corporate values and norms, but the two firms were able to turn this diversity into strength. Ghosn’s ability to craft a culturally sensitive team has led to one of the most successful turnarounds in history. “It is important how you handle small
frustrations. And when you have taken time to understand and accept that people don’t think or act the same way in France or Japan, then the cultural differences can become seeds for innovation as opposed to seeds for dissention.” 1
The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary defines culture as the art and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively; the customs, civilization, and achievement of a particular time or people; the way of life of a particular society or group. Culture has been defined, however, in literally hundreds of ways 2 —a testament both to its importance and to its elusive and intangible nature. For example, anthropologists Melville Herskovits and Marvin Harris define culture as “the man-made part of the environment” and “the learned patterns of thought and behavior characteristic of a population or society,” respectively. Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist, distinguishes “culture” from “civilization”—both civilization and culture refer to a people’s way of life, values, norms, and modes of thinking; however, a civilization is the broadest cultural entity. 3 Among modern management scholars, Geert Hofstede defines culture as “the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.” 4 Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner define culture as “the way in which people solve problems and recognize dilemmas.”
