Understanding Cultural Differences: Germans, French and Americans

by Edward T. Hall and Mildred Reed Hall

Book Overview

Understand German and French cultures for better business
Human resource management, at home and abroad, means assisting the corporation's most valuable asset - its people - to function effectively. Edward T. and Mildred Reed Hall contribute to this effort by explaining the cultural context in which corporations in Germany, France, and the United States operate and how this contributes to misunderstandings between business personnel from...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1877864072
• ISBN13: 9781877864070
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Good service and product

The used book I ordered from this company was delivered in a week's time and was in really excellent condition.

A Truly Useful Book

I read this book several years ago, in large part due to the fact that I had married a French woman and was having quite a bit of difficulty understanding the culture during my visits to France. Granted, this book largely focuses on the business aspects of the cultural divide, but I found it incredibly accurate as it relates to the culture as a whole. Especially useful was the description of a "polychronic" culture as opposed to a "monochronic" one like the U.S. If you want to get to the root of the differences and gain an ability to work with others of France, Germany, or Japan, I highly recommend this book.

Extrodinary!

If you have little time to read about Doing business in Europe then this book is ideal choice. Well analysed and Excellent Presentation. Worth for my money sure your's too.

A Must for anybody dealing with one of these three cultures

Anybody dealing with any of those three cultures in business should read this book. It is simple, handy and quite accurate. I am myself French and have been living and working in Germany for ten years now in an international environment. I also spent three years of my life in the US. The book - already ten years old - does need some up-dating as far as the political and economic situations in each of these three countries are concerned and I found a few inaccuracies in the French part (probably due to the fact that the French culture is more difficult to grasp for an American than the German one), but all in all it is a highly recommendable book. The key notions of "monochronic" and "polychronic", of "high context" and "low context" cultures are extremely useful. This is not only a book for Americans doing business with Europeans : as far as I am concerned it helped me understanding and being more patient with my American colleagues.

Very useful and intriguing book

The authors try hard not to generalize, and use specific examples to illustrate cultural differences. I read this book while working for a company in the US that was jointly owned by a French company and a German company. Our 'bosses' were very much typical of that described in the book. I found this to be fascinating and used the information in the book to improve communications and information flow between the different groups. I would highly recommend this book to anyone working with any of these 3 cultures!