Management in Europe: Learning from different perspectives

Managers share some views about the European managerial identity: an orientation towards people, the importance of negotiation, handling diversity and managing between extremes (Calori and de Woot, 1994). However, top managers' perceptions of management in Europe also deviate from the average picture, depending on the country they originate from. This paper, by Roland Calori, Murray Steele and Etsuo Yoneyama, is based on the content analysis of unstructured interviews with 24 top managers (British, French, German, US and Japanese). Concerning management in Europe, insiders' perceptions tend to be more positive and biased by the respective national heritages (British, French, German), outsiders' perceptions tend to be less positive and biased by the respective national heritages (US and Japanese). The findings suggest that the representations of management philosophies and practices are socially constructed and somewhat ethnocentric. Paradoxically, most managers agree on the importance of learning from the best practice abroad, being aware that a variety of perspectives is the first step in such a learning process.