ABSTRACT
There are many perceptions of reality and this is one reason why we need novelists: there are many aspects of reality and this is one reason why we need academic writers. This is a picturesque way of saying that sometimes one can answer the same question by offering different blocks of information or presenting different sets of ideas. The question: what is German management like? is an example. In Chapter 1 we tried to say something about what it is like by describing the recent historical and economic performance context. In Chapter 2 we described German management in formal organisational terms and in Chapter 3 we ‘answered the question’ by locating German managers educationally and socially. The aim in the present chapter is to try to give some idea of the character of German management and the ethos of the German company. This is a less precise operation than that attempted in the three previous chapters, and the problem is where to start.
