WORKING IN FRANCE - CultureShock! A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette: France - page 201

OFFICE AND BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS
Learning to Work with the French
Differences in cultural behavior have become such an
impediment to international business that a whole new
branch of social sciences has sprung up. Now, cultural
considerations are a major part of advanced international
degrees in Business Management all over the world. And
research continues.
While we cannot plunge too far into the depths of this
subject in the coni nes of this chapter, we can give some of
the well-known elements of comparative cultural norms in
the French business place. There is much reading you can do
for yourself on this fascinating topic, so check the 'Further
Reading' lists starting on page 254.
In 2007, a book called Culture and Leadership Across the
World was published based on the original GLOBE (Global
Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness)
research project conceived by Robert J. House. For the topic,
170 voluntary collaborators collected data from about 17,000
managers in 951 local (non-multinational) organisations
belonging to one of three industries—food processing,
i nancial services, and telecommunication services—in 62
societies throughout the world.
The GLOBE study is one of four major cross-cultural
research projects carried out in the 1990s, and it is based on
the pioneer work of Dutch author Geert Hofstede. Hofstede