Gerald Le Van is a Family Business Strategist based in Black Mountain, North Carolina. He is Managing Director of The Le Van Company (www.levanco.com).
(The author is indebted to Professor Tarek A Tatem and Larry C Hearn for ideas generated by their unpublished article, 'Egyptians and Americans: Developing Cross-Cultural Competence for Global Business'.)
For a Westerner advising family businesses in Egypt the experience can be fraught with cultural challenges and entrepreneurial insights. A deeper understanding of foreign work ethics is only the beginning
