“This is a significant book... for a multitude of audiences, including scholars, practitioners, students, expatriates, travelers, and those who are simply interested in culture... This book is also an ideal reference tool, since the metaphors are easy to remember yet rich in contextual value and are presented in a logical structure for quick consultation. Overall, this book is enormously appealing, genuinely useful, and a worthy addition to any collection.” —Thunderbird International Business Review (2002) In Understanding Global Cultures, Fourth Edition, authors Martin J. Gannon and Rajnandini Pillai present the cultural metaphor as a method for understanding the cultural mindsets of individual nations, clusters of nations, and even continents. The fully updated Fourth Edition continues to emphasize that metaphors are guidelines to help outsiders quickly understand what members of a culture consider important. This new edition includes a new part structure, three completely new chapters, and major revisions to chapters on American football, Russian ballet, and the Israeli kibbutz. New and Continuing Features: Emphasizes clusters of national cultures and variations within each cluster, as well as both topic-oriented (authority-ranking cultures, market-pricing cultures, etc.) and cluster-focused descriptions Includes three new parts: India, Shiva, and Diversity; Scandinavian Egalitarian Cultures (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland); and Other Egalitarian Cultures (including Canada and Germany) Provides three completely new chapters: Finnish Sauna, Kaleidoscopic India and Diversity, and a final integrative summary chapter Integrates chapters through the frameworks of the GLOBE study, the Hofstede study, Hall, and Kluckholn and Strodbeck Highlights religious and ethnic diversity throughout AncillariesInstructor Resources are available on a password-protected website at www.sagepub.com/gannon4instr. These include applications, discussion questions, model examinations,100 exercises, and suggested syllabi. Qualified instructors may contact Customer Care to receive access to the site.Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys Through 29 Nations, Clusters of Nations, Continents, and Diversity is appropriate for courses in International Business and Management, Strategic Management and Planning, and Cultural Studies.

Understanding Cultural Metaphors

Understanding cultural metaphors

The great pedagogic value of figurative uses of language is to be found in their potential to transfer learning and understanding from what is known to what is less well-known and to do so in a very vivid manner. … Metaphors are necessary because they allow the transfer of coherent chunks of characteristics—perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and experiential—from a vehicle which is known to a topic which is less so.

—Andrew Ortony (1975, p.53)

There are many good and obvious reasons for studying cross-cultural differences, including a conservative estimate that somewhere between 25% and 50% of our basic values stem from culture (for such estimates, see Haire, Ghiselli, & Porter, 1966; Hofstede, 2001). Other aspects of workforce diversity, such as age and socioeconomic ...

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