Culture's Impact on Business

In his cultural differences keynote, Chris Smit explains why culture matters in international business. The intercultural management specialist believes stereotypes indicate general commonalities within society. He demonstrates this by comparing humor and other aspects in different countries.

The Dutch speaker identifies the variations in British, Dutch and German humor in his cultural differences keynote. He states jokes do not translate in language or in culture. He goes further saying his research so far would show nothing is culturally neutral. Culture is not good or bad, but a taught behavior and the "collective programming of the human mind." This means differentiation is a determining factor of success for global companies. The cultural differences keynotes goes on to make comparisons regarding the management of perceptions, hierarchy, dealing with uncertainty, structure and detail as well as project management.