CULTURE DIFFERENCES AFFECTING COMPANIES WORLDWIDE

Culture Differences Affecting Companies Worldwide

Declaration of originality

This is to certify that the work is entirely my own and not of any other person, unless explicitly acknowledged (including citation of published and unpublished sources). The work has not previously been submitted in any form to the London South Bank University or to any other institution for assessment for any other purpose.

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Acknowledgment

This dissertation would not have been possible without my parents who stood behind all through my years in the university and supported me. It would have been next to impossible to write this dissertation without Professor Leslie Gadman's help, guidance, and who gave me a solid ground to stand on for the future ahead. I would like to thank also the people who were of assistance to me in different companies and who would prefer to be kept anonymous. A special acknowledgement and gratitude to Saradex, Dive Master International and Vinci, they made this dissertation feasible.

Abstract

Culture comes from the Latin cultural stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate". The world consists of 192 countries; there are over 4200 different faith groups, which do not include groups that are being developed frequently and people that do not follow any faith. The Encyclopaedia of world culture has entries of more than 1500 different cultures around the world. Cultural differences are growing in the recent years because of people from different backgrounds and beliefs merging, sometimes to form a new mixture, or one predominant takes over the others.

In the world of business competition is fierce in all industries, hence why companies are growing and expanding rapidly, which is essential for survival in a turbulent economy. Having to cope with different foreign cultures and barriers, companies are failing to achieve their goal and ultimately either going bankrupt, being bought by other big corporations or simply closing down and leaving the country. By working closely with different companies, mainly from the United States, Italy, France, Libya, Lebanon, Spain, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, China, Egypt and others, I gained vast experience and knowledge in the business world, through our family owned companies which over the years have helped many companies to succeed in uncharted territories. This Dissertation's conclusion has been established from interviews and personal experience derived from these companies that I have worked with, from being employed or from working in the family business. This helped to confirm the findings of the study were concluded from interviews focused on higher management employees working in different organisations and questionnaires to other types of employees. This dissertation will tackle the problems these companies faced, where they went wrong, and what alternatives and solutions, if any, are better suited for the culture issues, in order to be able to succeed in an unfamiliar environment. The reason why I have decided to do my dissertation on culture issues that affect companies worldwide is because it's close to home, the family business has been working with companies for years in ...