The impact of national culture on international business performance: the case of foreign firms in Greece

This paper explores the impact of national culture on the performance of the foreign affiliates in Greece, a country which belongs to the economic periphery of the European Union. Greece is characterised by low internationalisation and competitiveness, and has been clustered by Hofstede in the Mediterranean culture managing directorial model. This paper, using a sample of 478 firms, examines the extent to which the national culture factor has affected the performance of foreign affiliates in Greece. It verifies the first hypothesis that the higher the national culture distance between the country of origin of the foreign firm from Greece the better the performance of the Greek affiliate. The findings also support the second hypothesis that the higher the score on the individualism dimension of the foreign firm the higher the performance of its affiliate in a collectivistic society.