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Essay about Van Den Bosch Email

Decent Essays

1. From Van den Bosch’s point of view, what was his intention in sending the email?
The Van Den Bosch case shows issues in different responsiveness and cultural values and cross culture communication. In the case, Johannes van den Bosch, the Rotterdam office representative of Big Four Firm, is having problems communicating and getting the expected actions and results from his partner in Mexico, Pablo Menendez. As the result of this Van den Bosch has been receiving a lot of verbal abuse and pressure from his angry British client, Malcolm Smythe-Jones. In the hope to please his client and solving the problem, van den Bosch composes an email for Menendez expressing his concerns and the situation that they are in.
His intention was to send …show more content…

A very simple approach to understand the cultural differences in this email communication is clearly a relationship orientated strategy and a task orientated strategy between the Mexican and the Dutch person involved. Van Den Bosch biggest interest is getting the job done first and then to deal with his Mexican counterpart as a person, if he is willing to do that at all after the job is done. I think Menendez on the other hand is a person who will go through the relationship approach first once work gets addressed.
Since both of them are partners (same level) Pablo will be feel inferior and may not respect Bosch as he used. He may be unwelcomed and frustrated not knowing the details on why he did is not responsive.
Using the MBI model (p.67) I first looked at identifying and understanding the differences between the involved parties. As mentioned earlier we have a different approach when it comes to leadership style (high Dutch – soft Mexico), time management (High Dutch – Low Mexico) and a more feminine gender style in Mexico compared to a masculine style in Holland. The first part of the MBI model already reveals significant differences in their culture. Overcoming this Bridge, both parties must understand that communication barriers exist. Communication should constantly be able to flow easy to ensure that the original meaning of the message is still

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