... firm trying to export a 'company picnic' idea into its Spanish subsidiary. The US executives dressed up as chefs and were serving people but this embarrassed the Spanish employees and they were unsociable. They stood up every time they were approached at there table. You can see here that there is a huge amount of respect for authority figures in Spain and this is where the culture difference lies in this case. (Managing organisations (2000)) The convergence and divergence model (Lammers and Hickson, 1979) has an impact on national culture. The convergence view says that organisations are basically all the same in terms of structure, technology, bureaucracy etc. Therefore the businesses view will overwrite national culture. The divergence view however gives superiority to the differentiating effects of national culture for example effects of history, beliefs, values and attitudes in society. Pressures on businesses may change the shaping of the organisation ...

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