MANAGEMENT

Management

Management

In a long time, culture issue has been seen as a major role in differentiating work values (Hofstede, 1980, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 1998), People from different cultural backgrounds may have different values. As Hofstede (1991) said: most people who have visited or worked in another country would readily agree that cultural differences exist. There are also wide variations in individual values and behavior within each national culture. Moreover, it also can be found the management style in different areas is not alike, especially between Asian and western countries.

This paper, chooses Sweden as the object of study, is because authors have deeply feeling towards the difference between Sweden and China; through investigated Chinese employees who work in Swedish company in Sweden, to analyze the effect of culture difference on management style. Nowadays, there are closer connections among people around the world, the information and technology flow more quickly than before; further, there are more and more businesses and cooperation between different countries, for example, lots of Chinese employees work in Swedish organization. As a result, understanding of different cultures and different management characters has a practical value. Sweden is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe; it is a highly developed country and ranks first in the world in the Economist's Democracy Index. Sweden has a total population of over 9.2 million (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden). Further, Sweden is featuring a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications and a skilled labor force, lots of famous international companies are Swedish such as Volvo, Ericsson, IKEA, Sandvik, Electrolux, and so on. The country is very famous as its technology and innovation ability.

The culture of Sweden is typically perceived as egalitarian, simple and open to international influences, Swedes express themselves in very modest terms, the concept of modesty and humbleness is still strong, and there is a strong drive for individualism. To some extent, unlike other Europe people, Swedes are not likely to be harsh in criticizing others, just like Chinese people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Sweden). China has one of the world's oldest and continuous civilizations, consisting of states and cultures dating back more than six millennia, which has a profound influences and most complex cultures; the culture has been molded by three philosophical traditions--Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Briefly, Confucianism deals with human relationship, Taoism deals with life in harmony with nature, and Buddhism deals with people's immoral world. In a total word, Chinese take very care about the relationship between people and the etiquette is important in China. People are not like to embarrass others in any situation. The value of keeping face, Ren Qing and Guan xi is in-depth in Chinese culture. Today, China as the fastest-growing major nations with an average annual GDP growth rate above 10% is still the developing country in the world; the country's per capital income is classified in the lower middle category by world standards. There are lots of problems such as surplus laborers; underemployment and income inequalities exist in the country and the system of ...