Cross-cultural cooperation in The Netherlands: A Damoclian sword

Abstract

The paper studies cross-cultural cooperation between black Curacaoans and white Dutch in the Netherlands. It shows that while respondents share the same cultural characteristics, the way they handle these and the way they value both their own traits and those of the other group differ with the specific context in which cooperation takes place. Culture is shown to be a more flexible and dynamic concept than is commonly used in the more static approach of standardized, universalistic cultural differences, which still prevail in management thinking on cross-cultural cooperation. "All the world"s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts." (Shakespeare 1598: 42)