Introduction

We are experiencing a rather curious situation today. Globalization is in full swing. International cooperation actions are more and more frequent. An increasing number of agents, who were socialized in different worlds, experience first-hand the difficulties that need to be overcome in such situations. Yet management practices are being homogenized all over the world. The elites in emerging countries are falling over themselves to follow the expensive training given by Western universities. Attempts to achieve a global standardization of management practices have probably never been stretched so far in multinational companies. However, the dissemination of the best practices of a management claiming to be universal is confronted with the irreducible resistance of the diversity of cultures. This resistance remains poorly understood. The most common representation of cultural differences taught in universities and in training seminars for companies disregards the analysis of concrete realities, thus failing to shed light on what is actually taking place in these encounters. Understanding this constitutes a major intellectual and practical challenge for researchers who focus on both ...