3.1.1 General characteristics

Some key features and phrases of US culture are:

State laws, SEC, NYSE, NASDAQ, decentralised, Delaware case law, litigation is a right, a way of free expression, not so much soft law.

Everything's possible for every self-made man, comeback kid, voluntarism, yes you can, come back after bankruptcy, go for it, competitive, large mergers, imperial CEOs, anti-trust laws, abundant size and resources, frontier spirit, country of immigrants, melting pot, business as American Institution, openness, quite direct — like Dutch — unlike British.1

Market discipline by corporate control, support for new entrants, managerial capitalism for corporate value, good training of talent in companies, corporate systems, good implementation, team work and hierarchy, strategy developed at officer level, alternatives debated and challenged at board level, art of questioning, primacy of the board, influence of academies, many changes by pressure groups after long debate.

Abundant size and resources, decentralised takeovers, support for new entrants, carrots for directors, bonus culture, all lead to short-term strategies; elements for long-term strategy thinking are: team work and hierarchy, primacy of the board, managerial capitalism for corporate value, strategie investors.

Below I will elaborate on these key words. I should say at this point that I am a Dutchman who has lived and worked in Chicago for 6 months at the age of 31. As a lawyer I have worked with American lawyers for many years, regularly, on committees and boards of the International Bar Association.