Will management become ‘European’?: Strategic choice for organizations

Abstract

There are grounds for believing that international companies operating in European countries could, and should, make a strategic choice whether or not to develop a ‘European’ approach and style in management. Several pressures are currently encouraging enterprises to adopt such an approach: first, political influence from institutions of the EC, like the European Commission; second, the urgency for transnational enterprises to set up European planning and co-ordination centres as they extend their operations cross-frontier; third, the increasing demand by their own senior managers and specialists for international careers within the European context. The authors then consider in which type of business situation ‘European Management’ is appropriate.