People in different cultures obviously have different tastes and preferences. In their
simplest form, these tastes and preferences are usually so personal and subjective that
they can be easily ignored (e.g., being a vegan or vegetarian). As management writer
David Cooper puts it, where tastes are concerned, we can simply agree to disagree.12
However, when these tastes or preferences affect other people in fairly direct ways (e.g.,
being a vegan sales representative for a major meat processor like Tyson Foods but
refusing to eat meat products with clients or customers), they are harder to ignore.
In such cases, we often see increased pressures to think of ways to resolve the conflict or
change personal behavior. Thus, knowing how and when to move beyond an “agree to
disagree” strategy becomes crucial.
Consider the example of a small Dutch high-tech firm that was recently acquired
by a major US electronics firm. Consistent with Dutch tradition, the small company
had long provided many of its middle managers with company cars to offset the
country’s high tax rate on personal incomes. In the eyes of its employees, this was part
of their compensation package. However, after the acquisition, the American executive
overseeing the acquisition sought to rescind the local company’s car policy since it
was far more generous than that of the parent company back in the US. (Following a
number of resignations, the parent company policy change was dropped.) This
example illustrates the conflicts and challenges faced by many of today’s global
managers. From his or her standpoint, the American executive was seeking equality
in their employee personnel policies across the two countries, but from the Dutch
standpoint the company cars were part of this equality since their income tax rate was
substantially higher than their US counterparts.