Christian missions requires leadership that is theologically sound, inter-culturally appropriate and effective. Bernard Bass’ transformational leadership is a well-studied contemporary leadership theory and has the potential to be a significant theoretical basis for missions leadership. Transformational leadership must undergo a thorough critique before leaders attempt to apply the theory in missions contexts. This study is an assessment of transformational leadership theory for missions purposes. The theory is assessed from three perspectives: theoretical, theological, and cultural-anthropological. This research demonstrates that Bass’ transformational leadership theory is a sound theory, but one with significant limitations for Christian missions. Bass did not design his theory as a tool for Christian missions and it lacks key biblical notions that make the theory, as is, a poor choice of leadership in missions. Transformational leadership has been studied in many intercultural contexts and the general principles appear to work in these environments. Through the use of Hofstede’s dimensions of culture, this research demonstrates that Bass’ transformational leadership theory is a variform universal—the principles are maintained interculturally but with various mediations, modifications, and moderations. This research presents two new typologies by which to assess transformational leadership theory—the first is a leadership theory typology and the second is a leadership theology typology. These typologies may be useful to other researchers in their attempt to examine other leadership theories for use in missions. As a result of this research process, this study presents a roadmap for future research in leadership theory for missions.

Die herausragende Arbeit von Hofstede et al. über Unternehmenskultur (1990), die in den 1980er Jahren in Dänemark und den Niederlanden durchgeführt wurde, konnte teilweise in Österreich mit einer unterschiedlichen Stichprobe rund 25 Jahre später repliziert werden. Fünf der sechs Dimensionen konnten repliziert werden, eine Dimension(P3) zeigte keine signifikanten Ergebnisse. Eine Replizierung von Hofstede's angewandter Methode einer Faktoranalyse brachte erneut sechs Dimensionen, wobei eine Hofstede Dimension mit beiden Ausprägungen aufschien(P2), und die Hofstede Dimension P3 wiederum keine signifikanten Ergebnisse brachte. Die neuen Dimensionen wurden mit den empirischen GLOBE Österreich-Ergebnissen (Szabo & Reber, 2007) in Verbindung gebracht. Da zwei der neuen Dimensionen sehr gut mit den österreichischen GLOBE-Ergebnissen übereinstimmten, wurden sie "Leistungsorientierung" und "Partizipative Führung" genannt. Die gute Übereinstimmung mit den GLOBE-Ergebnissen unterstützte die Hypothese vom nationalen Einfluss auf Organisationskultur. Die neuen Dimensionen wurden mit einem Leistungsindikator (Umsatzentwicklung der befragten Unternehmen) in Zusammenhang gebracht, um eine mögliche Organisationskultur/Performanz-Verbindung zu untersuchen. Die Arbeit besteht aus einem Literatur- und einem empirischen Teil. Im Literaturabschnitt untersucht der Autor aktuelle Modelle der Organisationskultur und Studien, die sich mit der Beziehung zwischen Unternehmenskultur und Leistung befassen. Der empirische Abschnitt präsentiert die Methoden und die Analyse der quantitativen Forschungsdaten. In der Folge wird ein adaptiertes Organisationskultur-Modell mit Bezug auf österreichische Kultureinflüsse entwickelt. Die Ergebnisse werden mit den etablierten Forschungsergebnissen von GLOBE (Szabo & Reber, 2007) und Sagiv und Schwartz (2007) zur Organisationskultur in Österreich in Beziehung gestellt. Weiters vergleicht der Autor die Ergebnisse von Hofstede's (2001) Nationalkultur-Werten für Österreich mit den denen seiner Stichprobe auf experimenteller Basis. Die Verbindung dieser neuen Skala mit finanzieller Leistung als Leistungsindikator resultiert in einer moderaten Korrelation (erklärte Varianz von rund 7%), was sich aus dem Einfluss zahlreicher Variablen erklärt. Diese Arbeit wird mit einer Diskussion über die Resultate und die damit verbundenen Management-Empfehlungen abgeschlossen.

I föreliggande studie undersöks mångkulturell interaktion på en forskningsavdelning i Norge för att studera hur konflikter på arbetsplatsen upplevs på en arbetsplats med kulturell mångfald. Studien baseras på information från åtta medarbetare och en chef från olika länder genom intervjuer och frågeformulär. Intervjupersonerna berättade om hur kulturella skillnader bidrog till situationer som bland annat berörde aggressivitet, ignorerande av kollegor och hot om uppsägelser. För att analysera resultatet har Hofstedes teori om kulturdimensioner använts. Resultatet visar att kultur formar och påverkar människor och att kulturella skillnader kan resultera i missförstånd, vilket skapar ett behov av kulturell anpassning hos de utländska intervjupersonerna. Flera kulturella skillnader kunde ses mellan norrmännen och de utländska intervjupersonerna. De utlandsfödda framstår exempelvis som mer kompromissvilliga än norrmännen som i sin tur uppvisar konflikträdsla. Konflikträdslan leder till att kognitiva konflikter inte alltid behandlas konstruktivt samt att konflikter undviks. Vår slutsats är att mångkulturell interaktion är någonting som kräver kunskap och förståelse snarare än någonting vars positiva resultat bör tas för givet.

The present thesis deals with the topic of intercultural models in advertising. The theoretical part is concerned with the definition and characteristics of culture and cultural dimensions. It also describes and compares the Hofstede model and the GLOBE model. It defines the concept of advertising and its aims and means. The methodology section describes the design of focus group interviews that are used in the practical part of the thesis. The aim of this work is to compare the consistency of opinions of respondents on the TV commercials presented with the Hofstede model. In its sub-goals, the work aims to identify the attributes of advertisements that respondents are most addressed by, and to select the most appropriate advertisement for the Czech market based on evaluation of the respondents.

Oil and Gas companies have the inevitable need to operate in a global environment and therefore have a global reach. This thesis seeks to understand the nature and degree of localisation of the websites in this industry. This thesis introduces two notions of ‘global’, and seeks to examine the relationship between them: the first of which is the Global reach or operations of companies and the second is where a company’s communication is localised in language and cultural terms. A company can be seen to be ‘global’ in one of these two notions and it is this relationship that this thesis seeks to explore. The contribution of this thesis firstly, is that it adds to previous studies of website localisation, which have focused primarily on consumer goods and the retail industry, by examining a different kind of industry. Secondly, it takes into account the important semiotic and symbolic dimensions of language and culture when looking at localisation practices. The thesis thus contributes to the growing literature on website localisation and practices in Multinational companies. This study was carried out on 387 corporate and country specific websites of 16 Oil and Gas Companies to understand the extent and nature of their localisation practises particularly the way that language and culture are presented. The websites were studied using a qualitative and quantitative research design which involved carrying out a linguistic/semiotic analysis and a cultural analysis to give a balanced perspective of localisation practices. The conclusions of the study were that the companies operated a ‘glocal’ strategy, a combination of both a localised and a globalised (standardised) strategy. The companies had a combination of globally standardised features such as the website layouts, images, colour schemes, logos and the use of global celebrities on their websites and a limited degree of localisation where the ‘local’ is signified by local country websites, local news stories, local languages, local celebrities, images of local sights, images of company’s local office buildings and local petrol stations.

My diploma thesis is focused on the culture, interculture comminication and cultural differences, especially in south-east Asia - with focus on Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore. I made my own research on the perception of cultural differences. The target group was young people from the whole World, who are working in south-east Asia. At the end of my thesis I am combining the knowledge I got from the research and the theoretical part.

The thesis provides an insight into Danish culture and society. First chapter is dealing with the general characteristics of Denmark and its economic situation. Furthermore, it includes brief history. Following chapter introduces Danish culture and the values of the society. The cultural standards are divided into cultural dimensions, introduced by Hofstede, and compared to the Czech cultural standards. Danish business culture as well as business negotiation style is subject to third chapter. The chapter also provides information about consumer behaviour in Denmark. The last chapter introduces the results of a survey made.

This paper deals with theory of cultural differences, specifically cultural differences in web design. This paper aims at websites of investment promotional agencies (IPAs) and its target is to find out whether IPA's websites reflect national culture of representing country, so there is a kind of cultural divergence, or if cultural convergence prevails. The research is based on assumptions and theories of Dutch scientist Geert Hofstede and content analysis is used as a research method. The results imply cultural convergence among websites of IPAs and at the same time influence of Western countries is noticeable. Cultural differences, websites, design, investment promotional agencies, Geert Hofstede.

The goal of this thesis is cross-cultural comparation of Czech and Slovak subsidiary of 3M Company. It will be reached through GLOBE study in comparison with Geert Hofstede method and its five main cultural dimensions. Questionnaire research will be conducted for achieving this goal ( according to original questionnaire of GLOBE study) among employees of mentioned subsidiaries in Prague and Bratislava. Findings of this research method will be used for explanation of cultural differences (should there be any) between 3M Cesko and 3M Slovensko. Also these findings will proof wheter or not is possible to apply the same marketing management in both countries.

The objective of this thesis is to characterize the corporate culture of the United States, both from a theoretical and practical point of view, taking into account some specific U.S. companies. The entire thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is solely theoretical and its purpose is to familiarize the reader with the most basic terms connected with this topic (i.e. culture, national culture, corporate culture, etc.). The second chapter deals with the specific typologies and theories of national and corporate culture. The third subsequent chapter analyzes both the relationship between national and corporate culture, as well as the comparison of Czech and American culture. On top of thar, the Hofstede's and Trompenaars's dimensions are used in this chapter to help highlight the differences but also common features of both nations. The fourth chapter is devoted to the American corporate culture, focusing on its connection with corporate identity, the importance of code of ethics and the portrayal of the work environment and employment process in the United States. The final fifth chapter contains the analysis of information obtained from interviews with employees of four U.S. based companies, as well as of the FBI agency.