The Air France-KLM culture clash:
How history repeats itself
A recent internal report from the Air France-KLM group comes to a pessimistic conclusion: The clash of national cultures and an inability to understand each other’s languages threatens to make the French-Dutch merger of airlines unmanageable. Quoted by British, French and Dutch newspapers, the leaked report lists grievances like the following
One questions whether the alliance can survive, given the long-standing mutual incomprehension between the Dutch and French camps within the group,” one researcher was quoted as writing. French staff in the Franco-Dutch company complain their colleagues from the Netherlands are money-grabbing, while the Dutch regard the Air France staff as aloof, according to the report. Among the petty grievances, there is irritation that a KLM employee working in Paris is charged €10 for lunch in the canteen, while an Air France colleague pays only €4.”
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/20/french-dutch-culture-clash-revealed-leaked-air-france-klm-report
Symptom Number One of Intercultural Failure: Seeing and describing partners, colleagues, superiors or subordinates as representing a (national) group and its presumed characteristics – rather than acknowledging their distinct individualities
BMW and Rover
– “The Germans come straight up to you, fix you in the eye and give you the information. I find it a bit frightening.”
– “I thought the English were like us. But the differences were greater than we had expected.“
– “You having it on your system at BMW doesn’t mean we have it on ours!”
– “They don’t give very much away, the Germans play their cards close to their chests.”