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0:00
Good morning and good afternoon or evening of course as well.
This talk will be about "How Cultural Similarities Can
Lead to Cultural Difficulties," cultural similarities.
So not cultural differences but cultural similarities and that can also lead to
cultural difficulties or you know why culture matters when you're working internationally.
0:20
A little bit about myself.
I grew up in the airlines as I always say,
I was a consultant for 12 years when working for KLM.
I traveled the world doing that.
I talked about sales marketing and cultural differences,
and all in all added up together,
I have about 20 plus years of experience of international consulting under my belt,
predominantly talking about culture and cultural differences.
In terms of education and educational background,
I'm an organizational psychologist.
I got my master's degree in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
That's where I'm from originally as well.
I'm a Senior Consultant for the company Culture Matters.
I also write and research on the topic of culture and cultural differences.
At the moment I have three books printed or present
or published if you want on the topic of cultural differences.
I lived a year in the States when I was younger, upstate New York.
Woodstock for those of you that still remember that name,
Woodstock the famous concert in
New York in Woodstock that never actually took place in Woodstock.
But currently, being a Dutchman coming from Amsterdam,
I live and work in Belgium very close to Brussels.
1:22
All right, let's get right to this.
What you will learn in this presentation is that even when
cultures follow the same cultural trends,
it can still be difficult to cooperate with each other.
I'll explain to you what cultural similarity is, what I mean with that.
I'll also tell you that similarity doesn't guarantee a smooth operation and I'll
explain to you why that is using four cultural primary dimensions.
However, that there are difficulties,
it doesn't mean that you can actually make use of cultural similarities in terms of
using that in your advantage or as a strength and I'll explain how this works as well.
Practical tips to facilitate cultural integration and effectiveness will be for the end.
