In the world of business, the importance of developing good international relationship is increasing as technology and competition arises. Today, there is no country that feels self-sufficient enough to not do negotiations with diverse countries across the world. Nevertheless, certain negotiations may experience conflicts while communicating since the agreement is being done by people from different countries. The most common issue that humans experience while communicating with people around the world is the culture since society can sometimes be close minded, meaning that “people see what they want to see(Riccardi, 2014).” As Pellegrino Riccardi expanded the problem with intercultural communication, he stated the real significance in the definition of culture, which is being in the comfort zone of familiarity and acceptance. In addition, according to Benedict Lee(2015) some of the barriers that affect intercultural communications include “anxiety, ethnocentrism, assumptions, stereotype and prejudice.” However, there are ways to conquer intercultural communications such as acquiring “good attitude, being knowledgeable of the other culture, and developing such cultures empathy skills(Lee, 2015).” Communication across cultures will be described by going in deep in the work of Geert Hofstede and examining culture of China and Australia.
Geert Hofstede is a dutch professor who conducted a research about cultures across the world. According to Hofstede, culture is defined as
Bowe, H. J. & Martin, K. (2007). Communication across cultures: Mutual understanding in a global world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
North America’s culture certainly affect international business activities, the same happen among all countries and continents in the world. Culture and tradition have a particular role in person’s critical thinking, communication barriers and behavior. In the business environment negotiation is an important skill in where all parties needs to be pleased, at the end you have to give for you to be able to receive, either is entering into a contract or building a
Culture is distinguished by the way of speaking, language, clothing, norms, values and beliefs. Culture differences influence the way people communicate. For instance, in China and Japan, exchanging inexpensive presents at first meeting is imperative. But in western countries, gifts are not anticipated initially. Gifts in number of four are prevented in Japan because four sounds like death. Similarly, in doing business, the role of formality is high in Asia but significantly lower in western countries. Therefore, the awareness of cross-cultural variations as well as similarities can lead to an effective international communication.
Because “it is through cultural signs and symbols that we are so often able to communicate with one another” (Thompson, 2003, pg 15), it is almost a given that in intercultural communication we will encounter barriers which will need to be overcome in order for communication to be productive.
If one does not understand the differences it can cause issues to arise as “so many variables are unknown to the communicators” (Balsmeier and Heck, 1994). One must be able to understand the values, attitudes and belief of another culture to communicate successfully. Though too often stereotypes and prejudice stand in the way of effective communication. As Balsmeier and Heck (1994) state, “people tend to make judgements about others based on observed behaviour”, preventing people learning about the true aspects of a culture (Balsmeier and Heck, 1994). Individuals should be able to go beyond negative stereotypes and generalisations (Tannen, 1984). Too often these prejudices get in the way of determining the true character of someone (Tannen, 1984). These prejudices can be eliminated through education, as Banciu (2011) states, “cultural learning is essential” (Banciu, 2011).
Culture within the society helps to develop values, norms, languages and protocol that influence behavioural pattern of the people living in the same society. It has been assessed that culture is among the prime factors that can have major impact on the effectiveness of the communicational process. Many studies have highlighted the fact that culture influences the way of thinking of an individual that can have major impact on the communication pattern of the strategies (Mazanec et al. 2015). For that reason, organizations often try to develop effective strategies to utilize cultural diversity for capturing different perspectives to a particular decision. Specifically, globalization has made proper management of cultural diversity is necessary within organizational structure. In this study, the focus will be on different perspectives of cultural diversity in order to provide an in-depth analysis regarding effective cross-cultural communication. The study will also focus on highlighting the kind of strategies that the management of different organizations will utilize in order to develop appropriate cross-cultural communication. It will also provide an idea regarding the effective management of cross-cultural communication can have on the effectiveness of the operational process of organization. Furthermore, the study will provide an idea regarding the impact of
Culture inevitably influences the needs and desires of consumers of particular countries and socialized groups, consequently, businesses, in order to succeed have to be aware of cultural interests and target their products and operations to cultural demands. Succeeding necessitates knowing the factors that crisscross with the other culture and understanding the other culture's practices in regards to these factors. It also requires an understanding of ethical practices of the other culture as well as their communication style amongst other factors. The business wishes to win customer trust and this too, hinges, on cultural constructs. In short, the goal of standardization has given place to mastery of cross-cultural communication. This is the challenge for the American corporation that does business on a global scale.
Geert Hofstede is an influential Dutch researcher in the fields of organizational studies and more concretely organizational culture, also cultural economics and management. He is a well-known pioneer in his research of cross-cultural groups and organizations and played a major role in developing a systematic framework for assessing and differentiating national cultures and organizational cultures. His studies demonstrated that there are national and regional cultural groups that influence behavior of societies and organizations.
Cross culture communication is defined as the interaction between the team members who are coming from the different countries or groups. All the team member is shared their own knowledge and ideas to present their work in the way that other people can easily understand. In international business, we have to communicate with the foreign people and we have to communicate the other party with their own language to expand our business. It is important to know the intercultural communication in business because to create an effectiveness between people from the diverse culture within a business, to avoid misunderstanding and to improve the efficiency of the manpower and raise the productivity. There are three main points that I am going to illustrate in this essay which is the importance of language, religion, and social habits.
Geert Hofstede was born in 1928 in the Netherlands. He had an interesting life pretty much filled with cultural shocks. Around his twentieth birthday, he decided to leave his native Netherlands and go to explore other places in the world. He went to do an internship as an assistant ship’s engineer in Indonesia; this was his first time out of the country and it proved to be his first cultural shock. Being immersed in a completely different culture, he was keen to observe and compare the cultural differences between the Netherlands and his new host country. Following his work experience in Indonesia, he followed his heart – a girl – to England, where he experienced his second cultural shock. This greatly influenced his career path, and led
This portfolio project will analyze the strong need for proper negotiations between different cultures. This topic is one that needs everyone’s full attention, especially for those professionals involved in negotiations or government. Yes, this matter touches governments, because such negotiations, in many occasions involve other countries. For this particular exploration, one will focus on negotiations with Mexico. Therefore, it is for this affair that everyone must understand how important cross-culture negotiations are for this country. In addition, while involved in negotiations many individuals think that such topics only involves local companies or organizations. This is not always the case. When dealing with cross-cultural negotiations, many times the negotiators are negotiating for the good of the country. For these particular negotiations, it involves all of North America. Yes, this can also involve Canada. These three countries are part of The North American Free Trade Agreement, signed by the three states in 1994 (International Democracy Watch Staff, 2001). That is why this process is more than just making a sale with one particular party. Therefore making it very important for negotiators involved in this subject, to know how to approach parties from a different culture. Even more, knowing the other groups culture alone will not do the job. These responsibilities need deep communication knowledge, proper planning, and the correct negotiating tactic. Many already
When dealing with businesses there are always going to be cultural barriers and obstacles. This is because no two countries are the same and each person is different. Cross cultural communication looks at how people from various backgrounds interact and communicate and this is what this report will cover. It will look at how people from different backgrounds pass information and make negotiations despite the barriers of culture between them. The case study ‘Journey to Sharahad’ displays the cross cultural exchange between the Americans who have just arrived in Sharahad are completely oblivious to the culture and people of Sharahad and what
Second, as the world becomes more and more globalized, the need to increase one’s understanding with other cultures and general communication styles of people also becomes increasingly important,
Greet Hofstede is a Dutch social psychologist who did a comprehensive study of culture across modern nations. His most popular book is Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (1991). He conducted a pioneering studies of how values in
Today,international business develop fast,it is important to communicate in different cultures .we should understand the difference which exist between other culture and ours.