E-Learning
Local Expert
Need advice or training
We will put you in touch with the leading Cultural Awareness Expert in GermanyGerman Business Structures
Germany
Everybody knows what is expected of them and has a process to help them achieve clearly identifiable goals
Cultural Compatibility
How compatible are you?
Fill in this online test and we will generate your personalised report.
Most of the power in German companies is vested in the hands of a few senior managers. Larger companies (AG & GmbH) have a Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat) which appoints the Management Board (Vorstand). The management board is the final decision-maker on policy matters which affect management.
The members of the Vorstand have shared responsibility for the overall management of the company and this means that the chairman of a company has considerably less personal power than in certain other countries — management at the top could be said to be collegiate.
However below Vorstand level, companies tend to have a strictly hierarchical approach within which individual's specific roles and responsibilities are tightly defined and compartmentalised. This results in a methodical approach to most business issues where procedures and adherence to well-defined rules are respected. This methodical approach has both good and bad points. On the plus side, everybody knows what is expected of them and has a process to help them achieve clearly identifiable goals. On the other hand, a criticism that is often levelled at German industry as a whole and at German business people individually is that they are inflexible and slow to change to new situations.
The members of the Vorstand have shared responsibility for the overall management of the company and this means that the chairman of a company has considerably less personal power than in certain other countries — management at the top could be said to be collegiate.
However below Vorstand level, companies tend to have a strictly hierarchical approach within which individual's specific roles and responsibilities are tightly defined and compartmentalised. This results in a methodical approach to most business issues where procedures and adherence to well-defined rules are respected. This methodical approach has both good and bad points. On the plus side, everybody knows what is expected of them and has a process to help them achieve clearly identifiable goals. On the other hand, a criticism that is often levelled at German industry as a whole and at German business people individually is that they are inflexible and slow to change to new situations.