ABSTRACT
He who speaks has no knowledge, and he who has knowledge does not speak.
—Japanese proverb
Nothing done with intelligence is done without speech.
—Greek proverb
In Chapter 2, the foundation was set for much of the rest of the book. Several major perspectives on culture, which are valuable tools for interpreting international behavior in organizations, were presented. After all, trying to make sense of the many different ways in which we act, especially across hundreds of cultures and countries, is an extremely complex task. One way to handle this complexity is to isolate a core set of values shared by a specific set of countries. This is precisely what researchers have done-including Hofstede, the GLOBE Research Group, and others reviewed in Chapter 2. In that chapter, it was concluded that a big plus of knowing how cultures and countries cluster together is that it helps companies customize their management practices. This customization, in turn, makes international business easier and more productive.
