Cultural Differences Within Leadership : Kosovo From a Swedish Perspective

Sammanfattning: Globalisation opens the door of opportunity for individuals and businesses around the world, at the same time globalisation presents significant challenges which need to be over-come if the opportunities presented are to be successfully pursued. In a world where peop-le and companies are working across borders and with multi ethnic employees, one impor-tant factor is the cultural diversity found between people of differing nationalities and the ability of the organisation to absorb and overcome cultural and ethnic differences.A country that caught the interest of the authors of this report is Kosovo, a brand new country established on February 17, 2008.The purpose with this report is to investigate cultural differences faced by Swedish expatri-ates, who hold a leadership position in Kosovo and whose followers are Kosovars.The theoretical framework includes theories that help the authors to identify the cultural differences and to form the basis of the semi-structured interviews. The main theories are Hofstede’s ‘five cultural dimensions’ (2005), Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner ‘six dimen-sions of culture’ (2000), and Schein’s ‘Artifacts, Values, and Basic Assumptions’ (2004).A qualitative methodology has been adopted utilising semi-structured interviews conducted over the phone with Swedish leaders that work in Kosovo. Since the authors have collected non-standard data and have used both inductive and deductive approach, an adductive ap-proach has been applied. The research was conducted with Swedish leaders that are native Swedes’ with both parents being born in Sweden.The authors found numerous factors influence attitudes which could lead to conflicts due to the differences between two cultures. The authors have observed that it can be difficult for an expatriate to attempt to understand part of a foreign culture and adapt to it. The authors belief that one good way to avoid cultural clashes is by improving education and at-tending practical courses specifically designed to address the cultural differences between two countries and its people before commencing a foreign journey.It can be concluded that cultural differences may be difficult to overcome, at the time of writing there is no single handbook defining the approach to international commerce or how to act in a different culture. Finally, this paper recognises the challenges required to overcome individual values and beliefs and the even greater challenge to overcome resis-tance to change international organizations cultural values.