Martin Gannon argues that the cultural flavor and tone of American business culture can be captured it by likening it to a football game -- the flag-waving pageantry, the aggressiveness on the field, the complex plays and elaborate rules, the triumphant expressions of victory. He goes on to draw comparable images for the business cultures of other societies (2001).
British business culture he likens to a sturdy, traditional, built-to-last-for centuries English house. German business culture he compares to a symphony, put together by the precise integration of scores of subtle threads. Italian business culture becomes an opera, an elaborate production of lavish spectacle and high drama. Each is clearly chosen for familiarity, vividness, and association with its country. We all have some image of British home life, if only from British movies. We also have images of a Germany symphony, an Italian opera, and so on.
In the construction of his book, Gannon does not present the American football game first: it is tucked in roughly halfway through the book (2001, pp. 205-20). If we read it cover to cover, therefore, we will only encounter his portrayal of our own society after we have seen him present more than a dozen others to us. It is hard not to suspect, though, that the American reader does not first turn to the chapter on American culture first. Thus, in spite of Gannon's evident intention in the plan of the book, they are likely to end up reading his portrayal of every other culture after first being hit with his NFL image of America.
This is a very good book. The images are vivid, and they "feel" right. Gannon's chapter on Germany does not mention automobiles, but who can read his description of precision technique and self-discipline, applied as a labor of love to create a thing of beauty, without thinking of a German car? Who can read about the Italian love of drama and display without thinking about the f...