Myths, culture and success in business: A case of US and Serbian cultures

Abstract

This study attempted to determine success patterns of US business leaders and their relation to the cultural dimensions of American society and the American myth of success. The paper is based on an analysis of life stories of US business leaders of Serbian descent, and biographies and autobiographies of more than fifty non-Serb US business leaders of the 20th and 21st century. The analysis identified the structural elements and formula of success and presented them graphically. These stories of real success are compared with the American myths of success and American cultural characteristics as defined by Hofstede. The analysis resulted in the construction of the scheme of success that shows the process of success in American culture. The authors found correlation between the success patterns and dimensions of national cultures, comparing US and Serbian myths of success and analyzing whether the American scheme of success could be universal and applied to other countries, for example Serbia, a country with a completely different cultural characteristic, myths and success schemes. The paper also addresses the question of leadership using qualitative methodology compared to the standard use of quantitative methods in leadership studies. Key words: Success, scheme of success, myths of success, leadership.