Cultural Encounters in a Global World

This thesis aims to shed new light on how globalization transforms cultures within and around organizations. It considers cultures mainly as patterns of meanings embodied in systems of symbols and it adopts a cultural perspective where globalization is perceived as the intensification of worldwide interconnections that generates new frequencies, intensities, and types of cultural encounters.;The four central chapters present four studies that address organizational and societal levels of analysis and combine two investigative approaches: studies of "cultural encounters" and of "encountering cultures.";More specifically, the first study reviews some anthropological perspectives on globalization and analyzes cases of societal cultures disturbed by globalization -- cultural encounters in societies. The second study investigates the formation of organizational cultures in multicultural contexts through the case of Brazilian managers working in China -- cultural encounters in organizations. The third study draws from an eclectic set of secondary sources to build a cultural interpretation of the Portuguese national culture -- an encountering culture at the societal level. And the fourth study uses ethnographic methods applied to organizational studies to examine the ontological basis of a missionary organization -- an encountering culture at the organizational level.;The final chapter of the thesis integrates the conclusions of the four studies and answers the research question by assessing the impacts of globalization on the four elements that have been identified as fundamental to define basic attributes of a culture. In summation, globalization: (1) multiplies cultural boundaries, creating new cultural others; (2) accelerates the rhythm of cultural development, reducing its connection to the past; (3) challenges the way cultures function by changing the way social environments are transformed by cultures; and (4) resets the cultural past by renewing the repertoires of the guiding mythologies of a culture.;The first chapter of the thesis defines its design and presents literature reviews on culture, globalization, and cultural encounters.