馮斯·瓊潘納斯（Fons Trompenaars）生于1952年。畢業(yè)于賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)沃頓商學(xué)院，是跨文化管理的開創(chuàng)者和倡導(dǎo)者之一，曾先后在18個國家開設(shè)了1000多次跨文化管理培訓(xùn)課程，現(xiàn)任特姆彭納斯公司的總經(jīng)理。該公司致力于國際管理咨詢與培訓(xùn)服務(wù)，服務(wù)客戶囊括了摩托羅拉、殼牌、龐巴迪、喜力等世界一流企業(yè)，為企業(yè)經(jīng)營管理做出了卓著的貢獻(xiàn)。

1994年，他和C.H.特納（Charles Hampden Turner）合作出版了《資本主義的七種文化》，他的聲譽源于他在現(xiàn)代管理文化方面的研究。是位于荷蘭阿姆斯特丹的國際商業(yè)研究中心的負(fù)責(zé)人。

討論管理者在經(jīng)濟(jì)全球化過程中可能會遇到的各種文化因素是如何影響人們的行動的，列舉幾種文化的沖突，著有《跨越文化浪潮》等。

一、特朗皮納斯的組織文化模型

馮斯·瓊潘納斯（Fons Trompenaars）即“弗恩斯·特朗皮納斯”根據(jù)他的組織文化緯度將組織文化分為四種類型：家族型組織文化、保育器型組織文化、導(dǎo)彈型組織文化、埃菲爾鐵塔型組織文化。

二、ERP項目的核心是“人”

ERP是一把手工程。一把手要重視項目，拿ERP當(dāng)作企業(yè)最關(guān)鍵的問題之一來做。但一把手并不需要親力親為，只需在ERP項目中解決最核心的問題——選擇合適的執(zhí)行人、充分授權(quán)、合理配置資源。堯也好、舜也好、上帝也好，莫不如此。

在整個實施周期內(nèi)，ERP是項目經(jīng)理的項目。制定可行的計劃、鼓舞士氣并率眾執(zhí)行、解決執(zhí)行中的關(guān)鍵難題是項目經(jīng)理的三大任務(wù)。ERP系統(tǒng)是企業(yè)每個操作者的系統(tǒng)。無論是項目團(tuán)隊還是最終用戶，都要理性面對。馮斯·瓊潘納斯把人分為“普遍主義者（如美國、加拿大、澳大利亞人）”和“具體主義者（如中國、韓國、馬來西亞人）”。前者提倡“唯一最佳方式”，即在任何情況下都適用的一系列準(zhǔn)則，因此非常容易接受這種被看作是企業(yè)最佳實踐的ERP系統(tǒng)；后者則注重每個特殊情況下的特殊性，在看到ERP系統(tǒng)時，滿眼都是“和我們這里不一樣”。在中國實施ERP系統(tǒng)，最基層的員工、最基本的數(shù)據(jù)，解決不好都有可能成為壓倒駱駝的最后一根稻草。馮斯·瓊潘納斯說：“國際化的經(jīng)理人需要的不只是對文化差異的理解。他或她應(yīng)該尊重差異，調(diào)和文化交叉難題，并對因此形成的多樣性善加利用。國際化經(jīng)理人應(yīng)該調(diào)和文化難題?！盓RP項目的核心是“人”。

三、規(guī)章制度對企業(yè)文化建設(shè)具有舉足輕重的作用

馮斯·瓊潘納斯曾對企業(yè)制度有過一段精辟的論述：“如果想理解其他文化，首先必須懂得文化是一系列規(guī)則和方式。在一個特定社會的發(fā)展過程中，它的文化也逐漸演化，并成為解決各種反復(fù)出現(xiàn)的問題的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。”

企業(yè)的規(guī)章制度是企業(yè)經(jīng)營宗旨、經(jīng)營理念、企業(yè)精神、企業(yè)價值觀的體現(xiàn)，因此說制度是企業(yè)文化的重要組成部分。通過制度可以看出一個企業(yè)倡導(dǎo)什么、限制什么；喜歡什么樣的人、討厭什么樣的人；褒獎哪種人、懲罰哪種人等等。凡此種種，必然對企業(yè)員工的行為起到至關(guān)重要的導(dǎo)向作用，也體現(xiàn)了各個企業(yè)的特色。

Fons Trompenaars is a Dutch author in the field of cross-cultural communication. His books include: Riding the Waves of Culture, Seven Cultures of Capitalism, Building Cross-Cultural Competence and 21 Leaders for the 21st Century.

Trompenaars studied Economics at the Free University of Amsterdam and later earned a Ph.D. from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation on differences in conceptions of organizational structure in various cultures. He experienced cultural differences firsthand at home, where he grew up speaking both French and Dutch, and then later at work with Shell in nine countries.

Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner have developed a model of culture with seven dimensions. There are five orientations covering the ways in which human beings deal with each other.:

• 1. Universalism vs. particularism (What is more important, rules or relationships?)

• 2. Individualism vs. collectivism (communitarianism) (Do we function in a group or as individuals?)

• 3. Neutral vs. emotional (Do we display our emotions?)

• 4. Specific vs. diffuse (Is responsibility specifically assigned or diffusely accepted?)

• 5. Achievement vs. ascription (Do we have to prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us?)
  • In addition there is a different way in which societies look at time.

• 6. Sequential vs. synchronic (Do we do things one at a time or several things at once?)
  • The last important difference is the attitide of the culture to the environment.

• 7. Internal vs. external control (Do we control our environment or are we controlled by it?)

Having researched and written extensively on how reconciling cultural differences can lead to competitive advantage, Fons Trompenaars is now widely recognised as a leading authority on organisational culture. He talks to Simon Lelic about what he sees as the five cultural dilemmas that sit at the heart of KM, and the need to move beyond ‘knowledge management’ and towards ‘knowledge leadership’.

To Fons Trompenaars, knowledge management is, or should be, fundamentally a cultural issue. “Data becomes meaningful when you structure it in a certain way – it becomes information. When you structure information, it becomes knowledge, and when you structure knowledge it becomes science,” he tells me. “It is the process of structuring that adds meaning. And since different cultures have different ways of structuring meaning, you can see that, by definition, knowledge management is a cultural construct.” This, he feels, is what many KM practitioners still fail to grasp. Technology continues to drive knowledge management, when what is needed is a holistic, systemic approach, one that aligns the use of technology-based tools with the philosophical and cultural concepts that underpin knowledge management.

The importance of culture in any sphere of human activity is something Trompenaars has been aware of for most of his life. The son of a French mother and a Dutch father, he grew up cognisant of the problems – and opportunities – that cultural differences often present. After reading economics in Amsterdam, Trompenaars studied for his PhD at Wharton School in Pennsylvania, sponsored by the Dutch government. Inspired by the likes of GeertHofstede, Hasan Ozbekhan and Russell Ackoff, the title of his thesis was ‘The organisation of meaning and the meaning of organisation’, a discourse on the way culture affects how we perceive organisational structures. After a number of years at Shell putting what he had learnt into practice, Trompenaars founded the Centre for International Business Studies in 1989, now Trompenaars Hampden-Turner, an Amsterdam-based consultancy specialising in – naturally – cross-cultural management.

Working with his associate Charles Hampden-Turner and a team of 20, dilemma reconciliation is the approach that dominates the majority of Trompenaars’s time. “Processing knowledge effectively has become today’s most important source of competitive advantage,” he explains. “It determines the way you can apply and retain the core competencies within an organisation, and the way an organisation learns. In turn, effective knowledge management is dependent on the type of organisational culture in which it reconciles dilemmas.” Through his extensive research and Trompenaars Hampden-Turner’s ongoing work with clients, five central dilemmas have emerged that Trompenaars believes are key to the success of the vast majority of knowledge-management initiatives.

The first of these he identifies as the universal versus the particular, a dilemma that he explores in great depth in his most recent book, Did the Pedestrian Die?^[1]. “Imagine you’re riding in a car, you’re friend is speeding and he hits a pedestrian. You come to court, and your friend’s lawyer tells you not to worry, as you were the only witness. You know he was speeding, but what right does your friend have to ask you to lie? Would you do so?” This is a question that vividly demonstrates the divide between universalist and particularist thinking. Trompenaars’s research has revealed that 92 per cent of Americans, for example, would fall into the universalist camp: respect to the truth and to the law overrides any notion of there being exceptions to the rule. Conversely, the majority of those in South Korea, Venezuela and France (and indeed most of the Latin world) would tend to a more particularist standpoint: in Trompenaars’s experience, most ask for more information before they are able to decide whether they would lie for their friend, the most common question being, did the pedestrian die?

In a corporate context, this cultural dilemma raises obvious difficulties for a knowledge manager, particularly those operating in a multinational organisation. Even on a functional level, it is a disparity that needs to be addressed. As Trompenaars says, while HR, finance and marketing professionals are generally universalist in their outlook, salespeople tend to be more particularist – they invariably demand exceptions for their clients, for example. For a KM system to succeed, therefore, it must reconcile the two. Implementing a standardised system in every office around the world and across functions will isolate the particularists, just as allowing every office and department to develop their own approach to KM will lead to chaos. “Mass customisation is the reconciliation of the universal and the particular,” he says. “You will not solve knowledge management through one approach alone; it’s about how you combine the two.”

The second of Trompenaars’s five dilemmas is the individual versus the team, which is closely aligned to the third: specific and codified versus diffuse and implicit knowledge. Finding and lighting the cigar for which he had been hunting for the first 15 minutes of our interview, Trompenaars leans back in his chair and offers an example by way of explanation. “A short time ago we worked with General Motors to help integrate its joint venture with Isuzu, a Japanese truck-producing firm. Because their knowledge was so individualised, the Americans spent about 30 per cent of their time codifying their knowledge and writing it up in handbooks and procedures. The Japanese, on the other hand, never wrote anything down. Their knowledge was stored in the network of their relationships. This infuriated the Americans, but in a group-oriented culture, you need other ways of communicating knowledge. Whereas in an individualised society, there is a tendency to keep knowledge because knowledge is seen as power, in Japan, knowledge is only knowledge when it is shared; your status is dependent on how much you contribute to the group.”

Eventually, GM’s managers succeeded in convincing their Japanese counterparts to compile more concise, less time-consuming manuals, which went some way to satisfying both parties, but the challenge of reconciling the individual and the group, particularly in an international organisation, is clear. Again, though, and as Trompenaars says, this dilemma is not unique to multinational settings. IBM experienced a similar problem in the US, he explains, a dilemma that was ultimately resolved by altering the firm’s system of rewards. “IBM gave bonuses depending on how many computers you sold as an individual salesperson. This led to pretty good sales, but also to a great deal of stress and internal competition, which the firm realised was impacting on sales potential.” As such, the company introduced a system whereby bonuses depended not on individual sales but on each salesperson making a presentation to their colleagues detailing what they had learnt from their customers. Their peers then voted on which presentation was most useful to them. Sales went up 38 per cent. “So individuals were held responsible for what they had learnt as part of a wider community,” says Trompenaars. “Talk about knowledge management in action!”

The IBM example also illustrates a means of reconciling Trompenaars’s fourth dilemma – internal versus external control, or how to connect an organisation’s inside world with the external environment. “Effective knowledge management should not be constrained by the walls of the organisation,” he says. “Inner-oriented cultures prefer to start by enhancing internal processes, while externally-focused cultures begin with the insights and needs of the client. The internal and external environments need to be amalgamated in order to develop, not a balanced, but an integrated scorecard, in which the client has a direct influence on internal processes, which in turn serves to increase knowledge of the client.” Trompenaars points to Sony as a prime example of a firm that has done wonderfully well in this regard, in contrast to, say, Philips, which has patented a huge number of revolutionary products yet often struggles to find a market for them.

The last of Trompenaars’s five dilemmas of knowledge management relates to the disparity between perceptions from the top down and from the bottom up. “Data about clients and products is stored in the heads of individual staff members,” he says. “Middle management translates it into information that in turn is organised as knowledge by top management. For effective KM, the reconciliation of this dilemma can be found in ‘middle-up-down’, in which middle management is the bridge between the standards of top management and the chaotic reality of those on the front line,” he says. It can also be reconciled by the ‘servant leader’, he continues, a leader who connects the bottom with the top through the style with which he or she leads, drawing their authority by serving the community as a whole. In Trompenaars’s view, this is an approach Goldman Sachs seems to have mastered.

“In all these dilemmas, the context of organisational culture dictates the starting point of reconciliation,” says Trompenaars as he stubs out his cigar, “but effective knowledge management is dictated by the integrated scorecard of rules and exceptions, group and individual, explicit and implicit, top and bottom, and inner and outer worlds.” In fact, Trompenaars is adamant that the only real competence an effective leader needs is the ability to integrate opposites, a conclusion he also draws in his book, 21 Leaders for the 21st Century^[2]. Perhaps, he suggests, ‘knowledge management’ would be better termed ‘knowledge leadership’. “After all, the essence of making knowledge fruitful is to reconcile the types of dilemmas I’ve mentioned,” he says, “and that’s essentially leadership, not management. In KM there is too much management and not enough leadership.” It is a convincing argument, but in a world where the promises of technology still tend to obscure the centrality of cultural concerns, it will only be the most forward-thinking companies that take heed.