ABSTRACT
The international business (IB) environment is determined not only by the structures and policies shaping multinational enterprises’ (MNEs’) possibilities but also by the personal cultures of the individuals encountered in different foreign settings. Culture clearly matters as an IB factor but in ways that are less obvious than is often assumed, if only due to phenomena such as intersectionality but also human agency in the adoption of cultural allegiance and affinity. The chapter starts by exploring the difficulty in attributing cultural characteristics to foreign counterparts, an identification affected by standard demographic factors like language and religion but also by other parameters best explored in the work of leading ethnologists such as Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars and Edwin Hall. The chapter’s second section then looks at the management of cultural differences: at the corporate level (including departmental influences) and at an intrapersonal level, including verbal and non-verbal interplay.
