In 1998, management consultants Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner published their “Seven Dimensions of Culture” model to help explain national cultural differences in organisations and to show how managing these differences in a heterogeneous business environment is a major challenge for international managers. Trompenaars and...

Michael Porter regarded the selection of a defendable position within an industry as the end result of a competitive strategic analysis. He argued that successful, profitable companies generally choose to compete on either low costs or by differentiating their products to meet specific customer needs. Although these two strategic options are mutually exclusive,...

The Canadian academic, Henry Mintzberg who had trained as a mechanical engineer, wrote his PhD thesis at the MIT Sloan School of Management analysing the actual work habits and time management of chief executive officers (CEOs). In 1973, Mintzberg's thesis on the nature of managerial work was adopted as a study and published for a wider audience. Mintzberg's...

Firms that want to internationalise must decide on a fitting mode of entry into a foreign market in order to make the best use of their resources. Once an entry mode has been chosen, multinational organisations limit their tactical flexibility by developing skills and knowledge to support the chosen arrangement.  The entry mode selection...