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The marketing implications are examined of a recent research project which shows how respondents from England “read” furnishing interiors from Denmark, and vice versa, in ways which are fundamentally different from those intended by the owners. The differences arise not least because the two cultures hold very different ideas of appropriate product syntax; of how the furnishing items could and should be combined. The marketer’s strategic choice between a standardized and an adapted approach to a new market involves an assessment of the impact of the cultural variable. Using a model developed in previous work to assist in this strategic choice, the data on the two contrasting furnishing cultures is examined to illustrate some of the processes at work in the impact of the cultural variable, and to suggest some possible approaches to utilising the insights in the construction of culturally adapted promotional material.

The purpose of this paper is to show that organizational behaviour and business relations in African countries reflect preindustrial social norms typical of kinship based, rural communities such as in-group/out-group differentiation, reliance on kinship and the use of gift-exchange to create and strengthen social bonds.

Two books on African management are interpreted using anthropological and sociological theory as the analytical perspective.

The analysis of the two works suggests that the preindustrial patterns described in the anthropological literature play a central role in African management and business.

The paper concludes that manager should recognize the negative effects that may follow from a rejection of these socio-cultural patterns of behaviour.

It introduces Marshall Sahlins’ theory of social distance and reciprocity showing how this theory explains behaviours in and between African organizations.