In 1979, Trompenaars received his MA in Economics at the Vrije Universiteit and in 1983 his PhD from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania 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. 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 .
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.
Universalism vs. particularism
Individualism vs. collectivism
Neutral vs. emotional
Specific vs. diffuse
Achievement vs. ascription
Sequential vs. synchronic
Internal vs. external control
There are five orientations covering the ways in which human beings deal with each other.
Publications
Books, a selection:
1997. Riding The Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business with Charles Hampden-Turner
