Cultural challenges in Thailand - An unchanged fact? : A minor field study abour cultural challenges among Swedish executives in Thailand

Today, all companies face a challenge to cope with the globalized market, where organizations continuously establish on new markets in new countries. Different cultures meet and must be able to collaborate in an organization. The increased economic growth as well as the explosive Swedish tourism in Thailand today attracts more and more Swedish companies to the Thai market. It is likely that this can lead to different cultural challenges where people from different cultures meet and are forced to adapt to each other's established norms and behaviors. Our study aims to investigate the cultural challenges experienced by Swedish executives in Thailand. Our purpose is to identify the largest cultural challenges experienced by Swedish executives and to understand why this may be perceived as a cultural challenge among the Swedish executives. A qualitative method and a semi-structured interview form have been used in the conduct of the survey. The result showed that the main cultural challenges experienced by the Swedish executives were hierarchy, view of a leader, crosscultural leadership and collectivism. The Buddhist religion, the strongly established norms of Thai culture and the executives own positive and adaptable attitude towards cultural challenges proved to be the reason why these cultural challenges were experienced by the Swedish executives