This textbook provides an overview of the existing conventional culture paradigms which focus on the national, societal and/ or corporate levels of culture in the context of business (both domestic and international) before challenging the limitations of these concepts and suggesting possible alternatives.

Part 1: Overview: Culture and its impact on business 1. Culture: A complex construct of many layers 2. The impact of culture on businesses Part 2: Introducing and critiquing conventional frameworks of culture 3. Introducing and critiquing national, societal, and regional culture frameworks 4. Comparing national, societal, and regional frameworks of culture and exposing recent developments in the field 5. Understanding corporate culture: The integration perspective 6 Understanding corporate culture: The differentiation and fragmentation perspectives Part 3: Alternative cultural paradigms and their comparison to conventional cultural paradigms 7. Introducing the Transactional Culture Approach 8. Introducing the Douglasian Cultural Framework as a tool of the Transactional Culture Approach 9. Comparing the Douglasian Cultural Framework with conventional frameworks of culture Part 4: Applications of Douglasian Cultural Framework to resolve a variety of business problems and conclusions 10. Appraising the versatility of Douglasian Cultural Framework: Illustrations from varied managerial scenarios 11. Culture in business: Drawing the big picture

Taran Patel is an Associate Professor of Cross-Cultural Management, Organizational Behavior, and Human Resource Management in the People, Organization, and Society Department at Grenoble Ecole de Management, France.