The German-Norwegian working climate : include a field study to test the nature of the German-Norwegian working relationship : a perfect match or a cultural clash?

Abstract

Germany and Norway are two countries of close geographical proximity. In addition to the physical dimension, Germany and Norway have partly a shared history, and today the two countries are important trading partners. The goal of this thesis was to identify and evaluate if there exist significant cultural differences between the two countries and if any of the discovered differences were of such character that they would represent significant challenges, for cooperation between Germans and Norwegians. The major finding is that there are quite some dimensions were the preferences among, and the behavior of, respectively Germans and Norwegians, are differing. On the other hand are the findings of such character that they should not prevent a fruitful cooperation, in particular if both nationalities spend some time in order to understand the behavior and expectation of the counterpart. If this is ignored, then various dimensions like organizational traditions, roles of managers, use of informal and formal language and the attitude towards risk in decisionmaking processes and other situations, might create significant problems and contribute to prevent win-win situations and a profitable cooperation.