EUROPEAN FIRMS’ INTERNATIONALIZATION TO ALGERIA. OVERCOMING CULTURAL DISTANCE

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how European firms can optimize their entry strategy in Algeria by building cultural bridges.
Actually cross-cultural differences strongly affect subsidiary’s performance in Southern Mediterranean Countries (SMCs), that is why exploring a way to reduce that differences can represent a key step to facilitate European firms’ internationalization to these areas.
As soon as the interest towards SMCs is increasing, managerial literature is still lacking.
In addition, the concept of cultural bridges has not been explored so far. This paper aims to reduce this gap and explores the opportunities deriving from cross-cultural bridges through the case study analysis of a French Multinational successfully operating in Algeria and other SMCs. Cultural differences are strongly perceived by Algerian employees of Schneider Electric Algérie, but the co-existence of Algerian managers and of an Egyptian top manager has improved performances and local employees’ motivation.
KEY WORDS Algeria | internationalization | cultural differences | and cultural bridge.