When in Rome or Rio or Riyadh: Cultural Q&as for Successful Business Behavior Around the World - Softcover

Once people from diverse cultures start to work together, unexpected and puzzling behavior patterns can crop up. Suddenly things can go wrong an no one knows why! Now Gwyneth Olofsson takes on these work-related intercultural issues and offers practical advice in her new book, When in Rome or Rio or Riyadh. After sixteen years of cultural training and business consulting, Olofsson has collected the cultural questions her students and business trainees have asked her and compiled them in brief, to-the-point letters and answers. Largely drawn from her column in Volvo's magazine, Global, she shares answers to burning questions on topics best related to the 33 countries with the largest gross domestic product-those where businesspeople are most likely to be. Olofsson uses each specific cultural question as a springboard to explore cultural commonalities and differences. She also provides "Global Warnings" for topics that are particularly sensitive in certain cultures. And, she's made the book easy to navigate with a country-specific index at the front of the book.Whether searching for the answer to a specific cultural question (such as making a good impression) or understanding a specific area of the world (such as Belgium or Indonesia), the reader can locate the information quickly through this index.

Gwyneth Olofsson is owner of Communico, a Sweden-based intercultural training and consulting company. She began her career as a teacher of English and English as a second language in her native England and in Singapore. Ultimately, she came to Sweden, where her clients include the Volvo Group, Renault, and SchlumbergerSema. Author of a guide to English for Swedish-speakers, Everyone Makes Mistakes, Olofsson also writes a regular column for Volvo's in-house magazine, Global.