Whether, for example, it is the Friday, Saturday or Sunday which most people have off work can be found out easily. Monochronic means that one thing happens after the other, polychronic means that several or many things can happen at the same time. If you move from a polychronic culture to a monochronic one, you will probably find it boring. If, on the other hand, you move from a monochronic to a polychronic one, you will experience it as chaotic. Values Values are not ideals - they are the unconscious engines of our actions, they are what really believe in, perhaps without even knowing it.
Values are the result of our upbringing, our socialisation and our cultural background.
They are the principle which make us decide what action to take in a given situation. In particular, they shape our attitudes to other people and how we cope with difference and ambiguity. The values which underlie our attitudes and our decision making can actually be measured. Geert Hofstede, a fellow at the Institute for Research of Intercultural Cooperation in the Netherlands, defines four key variables which determine our attitudes. Instead, a very big multinational company was unhappy about the friction between managers and staff from different cultural backgrounds, and the subsequent loss of energy, hence money.