Introduction

The introduction starts with the conversation between the Country Director Silva of a Portuguese subsidiary in Angola, and his boss in Portugal. Silva has been shocked by a wild strike of his frontline workers. It is the start of a transformative journey for him and his organization. The introduction provides some background to the passage from Silva to Angola and his first years of executing the ‘best management practices’. Suddenly he realizes that it isn’t sufficient. The aim of the book is to tell the story of the novel management approach Silva took, creating a culturally hybrid organization and making use of both Portuguese and Angolan, indigenous forms of leadership. The book is meant for scientists, who ask for such descriptive case studies, as well as business leaders, managers, and facilitators, who can be inspired to follow this example. The content of the book is described, and some background is provided about the authors, since this book is a joined production of Silva (as a personal testimony) and Vonk, an intercultural lecturer and consultant, who puts the whole story into perspective.