The title of his thesis was “Differences in conceptions of organisational structure in various cultures”. He worked for Shell and in 1989 he established the Centre for International Business Studies, a consulting and training organisation for international management. Since 1998 it operated as Trompenaars Hampden-Turner.

Prof Trompenaars’ topic during the guest lecture was “Building a cross-cultural competence and leaders for the 21^st century”. He called for leadership to move away from an either/or notion towards the combination of opposites and said true leadership is the ability to combine caution and courage. He further argued that organisational value can not merely be added; it must be created by leaders within the organisation through the effective management of opposites.

Postgraduate students of the Department, staff and guests attended the lecture, which formed part of the internationalisation strategy of the University of Pretoria. The lecture also served to add value to the learning curve offered by the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.

 
Professor Trompenaars in action during an exciting lecture.