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Living in the 21st century tremendous changes are realized. The ongoing globalization with its effects and different facets, people, technologies etc., can be seen everywhere. This work focuses on the consequences of a globalized world and the collusion of diverse cultures in today´s small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The combination of the cultural collusion and business life may result nowadays in the so called supporting managerial tool of cultural diversity management. Whilst being aware of the fact that there are, with no doubt, best-practice studies of diversity management in Europe, the general implementation and beneficial result of cultural diversity management have not been realized and gained its full potential yet. This book provides an insight into the status quo´ of cultural diversity management in European SMEs, because diversity is not only a topic for large multinational enterprises it is also present in SMEs. Extensive literature review in connection with in-depth qualitative case studies gives answers to the question: How does the globalization process affect European SMEs regarding importance and implementation of cultural diversity management?

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Anika Lier, studying a Master of Arts/Science programme in Business Administration (one year) - specialization in Marketing & Management at Mid Sweden University (Sweden) and a Diplom-Kauffrau (FH) European Business Study programme at FH Aachen (Germany). During this 4-year program the third year was studied at University of Alicante (Spain).

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