The differences between Lithuanian and Icelandic organizational cultures

• Main Author: Virbickaité, Darija, 1986-
• Other Authors: Háskóli Íslands
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Viðskiptafræði; Litháen; Organizational Culture; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/8227

Culture is one of the factors that distinguishes nations from each another. Nowadays, not only are people moving around the world, but organizations are engaging in international business or merging together. Organizations, no matter how big they are, have developed their values and beliefs among the employees inside the company, creating some sort of the organizational culture that also differs from country to country. Being unfamiliar with a different culture and its organizational culture, companies take a big risk in experiencing cultural clashes. Thus, it is important to study the culture before engaging in a business with any particular country. This thesis aims to research two European countries with a large geographical distance between them. It contains one research question: Is there a difference between Lithuanian organizational culture and Icelandic organizational culture? First of all, the standard concept definitions of culture and organizational culture are presented together with Hofstede's model of cultural dimensions, which was the most useful to this report. Secondly, Lithuania and Iceland are presented separately. A short history of each country is described and the cultural development together with national identity formation is discussed. The study includes the analysis of culture and organizational culture in both countries. Moreover, to see how the organizational culture applies to practice, two telecommunication companies, TELE2 in Lithuania and Nova in Iceland, are analyzed. Results are represented in comparison by way of cultures, organizational cultures and in both companies. Furthermore, a few recommendations are proposed to each company as to what they could learn from each other. The research shows that Lithuanian organizational culture and Iceland organizational culture are alike. The main differences were found in decision making and uncertainty avoidance and also in some of the managers' values. However, these differences cannot prevent both countries from working together and ...