Fons Trompenaars


Alfonsus 'Trompenaars' is a Dutch organizational theorist, management consultant, trainer, motivational speaker and author of various books on all subjects of culture and business. Known for the development of his model of national culture differences and Dilemma Theory.

Biography

In 1979, Trompenaars received his MA in economics at the VU Amsterdam and in 1983 his PhD from the Wharton School for the thesis The Organization of Meaning and the Meaning of Organization.
In 1981 Trompenaars started his career at the Royal Dutch Shell 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 and renamed Trompenaars Hampden-Turner.
Trompenaars was awarded the International Professional Practice Area Research Award by the American Society for Training and Development in 1991. Subsequently, in 1999 Business magazine ranked him as one of the top 5 management consultants next to Michael Porter, 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. Fons is the recipient of the George Petitpas Award 2023. The AHRI Cross Cultural Management Award, is supported by Fons Trompenaars, acknowledging excellence in fostering cross-cultural inclusion and implementing effective management strategies.
Trompenaars wrote Riding the Waves of Culture, Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business. This book 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 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.
- Judge of the Fons Trompenaars award for Cross Cultural Management .
He has spent over 30 years helping Fortune 500 leaders build meaningful connections to manage and solve their business and cultural dilemmas to increase global effectiveness and performance, particularly in the areas of leadership, innovation, globalization, intercultural understanding and managing culture change by reconciling differences.

Work

Trompenaars' model of national culture differences

Trompenaars' model of national culture differences is a framework for cross-cultural communication applied to general business and management, developed by Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner. This model of national culture differences has seven dimensions.
  1. Universalism vs. particularism
  2. Individualism vs. collectivism
  3. Neutral vs. emotional
  4. Specific vs. diffuse
  5. Achievement vs. ascription
  6. Sequential vs. synchronic
  7. Internal vs. external control
There are five orientations covering the ways in which human beings deal with each other.

Trompenaars Hampden-Turner Dilemma Thinking

Source:
Dilemma theory, as proposed by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, is a framework for understanding and managing cultural differences in organizations. Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner suggest that cultural diversity often leads to dilemmas or tensions between conflicting cultural values. These dilemmas can arise in various areas such as communication, decision-making, leadership, and teamwork.
The key premise of dilemma theory is that these cultural dilemmas are not problems to be solved but rather paradoxes to be managed. Instead of trying to eliminate one side of the dilemma in favor of the other, individuals and organizations must learn to navigate the tensions between conflicting values.

Publications

;Books, a selection
;Articles, a selection