Category Archives: Study Reports

A Study report about Key Characteristic of a European Style of Management

This article investigates whether key characteristics of a European style of management can be discerned. To this end, a conceptual framework is developed for reconciling the observed tension and pinpointing a key common characteristic of a European style of management. No attempt is made here to show that national styles of management such as Swedish or British management (Barsoux and Lawrence, 1990) will disappear in the fiiture. On the contrary, we maintain that national styles of management are and will remain part of Europe’s diversity (Lessem and Neubauer, 1994). We aim to improve our understanding of how management relates to the European business environment as a contingency factor. In particular, we investigate ways of approaching the above-mentioned management problem in Europe.

We begin with a short overview of the literature and draw attention to the tension between integration opportunities and constraining diversity for managers in Europe. We then introduce a managerial perspective in describing various relevant forms of an important contextual variable of Europe—namely, diversity. After developing a conceptual framework for reconciling this tension, we describe how this framework can focus attention on a key characteristic of a European style of management. We use a case study of Unilever Foods Europe to illustrate the proposed conceptual framework. In discussing our findings, we touch upon some implications for developing the distinctive managerial skills required by a European style of management and suggest directions for future research. Keep reading…