The impact of cultural differences on business decision-making of prospective managers : a comparative study of Germany and Thailand

Abstract

The internationalization of the world business brings managers and companies from different countries and cultures together. Hence, the importance of intercultural competences of employees and managers grows significantly. Based on this fact, the paper picks up cultural differences of Thailand and Germany by using Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory and illuminates different ways of decision-making. The research examines how business decision takes place and whether and how cultural aspects influence business decision-making of prospective managers among the two countries. Multiple regression analysis was used in order to provide a better understanding of how business decisions are made along with cultural influences among prospective managers from Germany and Thailand. As a result, the German as well as the Thai prospective manager seem to decide mostly rational, but combine their rationality with non-rational decision-making approaches. In addition to that, the cultural impact on decision-making was not as strong as it could have been expected due to Hofstede’s differing outcome of both cultures. Further, this paper provides some recommendations for practitioners in enabling them to cope with cultural differences in business decision-making within different cultural contexts and to be sustainable successful in business.