Managing across cultures is not a new phenomenon, but it is more important now than ever before. For centuries, travellers, traders, explorers, conquerors, colonizers, knowledge seekers (students and scholars), job seekers and asylum seekers, and employees and/or managers of international organizations have travelled across borders and have had to come to terms with the demands of living in different societies and experiencing new cultures. They had to manage themselves and manage others, when necessary, in tougher and more hostile living environments than those of today. Many empires were built in part on their efficient management of resources across cultures. One of the main reasons for their demise was conflict resulting from misunderstanding or not respecting cross-cultural differences. However, until the later part of the second half of the twentieth century there were few studies, textbooks or courses on the subject of managing across cultures, and it was given very little attention by economists, political analysts and international business scholars. It was not until the 1980s that cross-cultural management became a common subject of academic research and study – and then most of the literature was on the management of expatriates and the problems of staffing US multinational companies in foreign countries
Now, however, managing across cultures is a well-established subject that is taught in universities and practised by managers. It has become one of the main challenges in understanding contemporary management practices and organization theories. The reason why such challenges are important is that management in general and human resource management in particular have become more complex and more problematic than in any time before. A number of textbooks have documented with the use of examples the reasons for the need to learn how to manage across cultures by practitioners and decision makers involved in cross-cultural management.
跨文化管理并不是一个新现象，但更重要的是现在比以往任何时候。几个世纪以来，游客，商人，探险家，殖民者，征服者，知识者（学生），求职者和寻求庇护者，和国际组织的雇员和/或管理者穿越国界，不得不来与生活在不同的社会需求和体验新文化。他们的自我管理和管理他人，必要时，在艰难和更恶劣的生活环境比今天。许多帝国部分建立在其有效资源的跨文化管理。一个灭绝的主要原因是他们的冲突造成的误解或不尊重文化差异。然而，直到下半场的第二十个世纪的后半部分有一些研究，对跨文化管理的学科教材或课程，它是由经济学家很少关注，政治分析人士和国际商务学者。直到20世纪80年代以来，跨文化管理成为学术研究和研究–一个共同的主题，然后大多数文献在外派人员的管理和人员配备美国跨国公司在国外的问题
现在，然而，跨文化管理是一种行之有效的学科，在大学任教，实行管理人员。它已成为理解当代管理实践和组织理论的主要挑战。为什么这样的挑战是很重要的原因是，在一般管理特别是人力资源管理已成为比以往任何时候都更加复杂的问题。许多教科书有记录的使用实例的原因需要学习如何管理跨文化的从业者和决策者参与的跨文化管理。
