Alfonsus (Fons) Trompenaars (born 1953, Amsterdam) is a Dutch

organizational theorist Organizational theory refers to the set of interrelated concepts that involve the sociological study of the structures and operations of formal social organizations. Organizational theory also attempts to explain how interrelated units of organiz ...

, management consultant, and author in the field of

cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communic ...

. known for the development of

Trompenaars' model of national culture differences Trompenaars's model of national culture differences is a framework for cross-cultural communication applied to general business and management, developed by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner. This involved a large-scale survey of 8,841 ...

Geert Hofstede Gerard Hendrik (Geert) Hofstede (2 October 1928 – 12 February 2020) was a Dutch social psychologist, IBM employee, and Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University in the Netherla ...

(1996) "Riding the waves of commerce: a test of Trompenaars' "model" of national culture differences", in: ''International Journal of Intercultural Relations'' 20(2): p. 189-198.

Biography

In 1979, Trompenaars received his MA in Economics at the

Vrije Universiteit The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

and in 1983 his PhD from the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

for the thesis ''The Organization of Meaning and the Meaning of Organization''. In 1981 Trompenaars started his career at the

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yor ...

Personnel Division, working on job classification and management development. In 1989 together with Charles Hampden-Turner he founded and directed the consultancy firm ''Centre for International Business Studies'', working for such companies as BP, Philips, IBM, Heineken, AMD, Mars, Motorola, General Motors, Merrill Lynch, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, ABN AMRO, ING, PepsiCo, Honeywell. In 1998 the company was bought by

KPMG KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big Four accounting organizations. Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, alth ...

and renamed "'Trompenaars Hampden-Turner''. Trompenaars was awarded the International Professional Practice Area Research Award by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) in 1991. Subsequently, in 1999 ''Business'' magazine ranked him as one of the top 5 management consultants next to

Michael Porter Michael Eugene Porter (born May 23, 1947) is an American academic known for his theories on economics, business strategy, and social causes. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, and he was one of t ...

, Tom Peters and Edward de Bono. In 2011, he was voted one of the top 20 HR Most Influential International Thinkers by HR Magazine. In 2015, he was once again ranked in the Thinkers50 of the most influential management thinkers alive and in 2017 inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame. Trompenaars wrote Riding the Waves of Culture, Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business. This book (in its third edition) sold over 120,000 copies and was translated into 16 languages amongst them, French, German, Dutch, Korean, Danish, Turkish, Chinese, Hungarian and Portuguese. He is co-author amongst others of Nine Visions of Capitalism: Unlocking the Meanings of Wealth Creation and Rewarding Performance Globally. Positions - Co-Director at the Servant-Leadership Centre for Research and Education (SERVUS) at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. - Member of Advisory Board Webster University Leiden. - Distinguished Advisor of Centre for TransCultural Studies at Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore. - International Director at the International Society for Organisational Development. - Faculty member at the Global Institute for Leadership Development (GILD). - Judge of the Fons Trompenaars award for Cross Cultural Management (AHRI).

Work

Trompenaars' model of national culture differences

Trompenaars' model of national culture differences is a framework for

applied to general business and management, developed by Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner.Trompenaars, F., Hampden-Turner, C. (1997) ''Riding the Waves of Culture''. This model of national culture differences has seven dimensions. # Universalism vs. particularism (''What is more important, rules or relationships?'') # Individualism vs. collectivism (communitarianism) (''Do we function in a group or as individuals?'') # Neutral vs. emotional (''Do we display our emotions?'') # Specific vs. diffuse (''How separate we keep our private and working lives'') # Achievement vs. ascription (''Do we have to prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us?'') # Sequential vs. synchronic (''Do we do things one at a time or several things at once?'') # Internal vs. external control (''Do we control our environment or are we controlled by it?'') There are five orientations covering the ways in which human beings deal with each other.

Publications

Books, a selection: * 1997. ''Riding The Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business'' with Charles Hampden-Turner * 2004. ''Business Across Cultures (Culture for Business Series)'' with Peter Woolliams * 2004. ''Managing People Across Cultures (Culture for Business Series)'' with Charles Hampden-Turner * 2012. ''Cross-cultural management textbook: Lessons from the world leading experts'', Introd. by Edgar H. Schein, Ed. by Jerome Dumetz, with Charles Hampden-Turner, Meredith Belbin, Jerome Dumetz, Juliette Tournand, Peter Woolliams, Olga Saginova, Stephen M. R. Covey, Dean Foster, Craig Storti, Joerg Schmitz * 2015. ''Nine Visions of Capitalism: Unlocking the Meanings of Wealth Creation, with Charles Hampden-Turner Articles, a selection: * Smith, Peter B., Shaun Dugan, and Fons Trompenaars.
National culture and the values of organizational employees a dimensional analysis across 43 nations
" Journal of cross-cultural psychology 27.2 (1996): 231-264. * Smith, Peter B., Fons Trompenaars, and Shaun Dugan. "The Rotter locus of control scale in 43 countries: A test of cultural relativity."

International Journal of Psychology The ''International Journal of Psychology'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of psychology. It was established in 1966 by Paul Fraisse, and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International Union of ...

30.3 (1995): 377-400.

References

External links

Trompenaars
at Hampden-Turner Consulting
Riding the Waves of Culture Talk
video recording at TEDxAmsterdam, 6 November 2013 {{DEFAULTSORT:Trompenaars, Fons 1953 births Living people Dutch anthropologists Dutch business theorists Cultural academics Cross-cultural psychology University of Amsterdam alumni Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni Shell plc people Writers from Amsterdam