Cultural Differences

A few weeks back I had a conversation with a coworker from Sweden about the differences in Swedish vs. American corporate culture. Notably, in Sweden there is a high value put on cooperation and consensus, and a lot of time and energy are spent trying to reach agreement. My coworker from Sweden contrasted this with his observation that in the American approach decisions are taken relatively quickly by managers, with or without agreement from their direct reports and colleagues. Inevitably this talk about how business is conducted in America reminded me of Dilbert, and of several particular Dilbert strips that I had read over the years.

However, I was quite surprised to learn that my Swedish colleague had never heard of Dilbert. Dilbert is such a large phenomenon in America, and so much American culture is exported to other countries particularly our culturally near neighbors in Europe, that it hadn't occurred to me that Dilbert would be unknown in Sweden.

I wonder why Dilbert hasn't found a foothold there. Could it be because it is difficult to effectively translate closely written comic strips into other languages? Or, are most popular American comic strips just so bad that there is no market for any American efforts in the field in other parts of the world? Or is it because of those differences in corporate culture between the US and Sweden? Maybe the jokes just don't work over there?

Here's one I like a lot, even if it isn't about corporate culture.