Culture-creating factors.

As the world gets smaller, we need to learn more about each others values, beliefs, habits and expectations. Culture is, in the famous phrase, the way we do things around here. The “here” may be a country, a region or a social class. We live in a set of cultures and subcultures that interlock in complex ways, and in this case the most dangerous mistake is to generalize about them. The stereotype may represent the middle of a range of differing behaviors, it may be at one extreme or it may just not be true. That’s why the knowledge of different cultures is very important, especially for business people when they need not to feel like fish out of the water during the singings of contracts, negotiations with their foreign partners and even cultural shock.

For this purpose is very important to be aware of various cultural-creating factors and cultural aspects, for example religion, language, climate and others. So, I would like to talk about some of them.

For example, hierarchy. There are many US corporations who have very young, high-flying business, very successful business executives. If you send one of those individuals to meet and do business with a senior Asian business person then they will be met with a very distinctively negative response.

Time is another important factor. You really do have to learn it if you are from a western culture then how you do approach time and how you do business. For example, in a country like Saudi Arabia it would be very important.

Gift-giving also is very interesting aspect. In Italy you shouldn’t give a business gift until toy receive one. Your gift should be a well-known brand name, but avoid giving gifts showing your company’s logo.

For business people it’s also very important to get to know local customs of country that you plan to cooperate with too.

So how business people can prepare to do business internationally? The answer is training courses. They cover such questions as cultural awareness, particular issues of living in and working overseas, dealing with cultural shock, how to negotiate contracts, telephone, e-mail and written communication, and also different presentation skills.

But there’re some techniques whish can be applied in any culture: flexibility and adaptability, careful listening and a very positive attitude are very important and strong traits.

To cut a long story short, cultural awareness plays one of the main roles in understanding the ideas and beliefs of successful business promotion.

Doing business across culture.

Culture awareness.

As the world gets smaller, we need to learn more about each others values, beliefs, habits and expectations. Culture is, in the famous phrase, the way we do things around here. The “here” may be a country, a region, a social class. We live in a set of cultures and subcultures that interlock in complex ways, and in this case the most dangerous mistake is to generalize about them. The stereotype may represent the middle of a range of differing behaviors, it may be at one extreme or it may just not be true. That’s why the knowledge of different cultures is very important, especially for business people when they need not to feel like fish out of the water during the singings of contracts, negotiations with their foreign partners and even cultural shock.

So, how business people can prepare to do business internationally? The answer is training courses.

For example, you might be sent by your company to live and work overseas for a period of two or three years as an assignee. In this case you can take one- or two-day program covering such issues as living, working overseas, as well as how to deal with cultural shock, which everybody goes through when they go on assignment.

Besides, if you take your family with you, you should learn how to deal with such issues as schooling and health care.

Also, for business people it’s very important to get to know local customs of country that you plan to cooperate with. For example, it’s considered bad manners to either eat or offer something with the left hand in countries like United Arab Emirates.

Presentation and communications skills are very important too. It’s a great advantage to use first names, shake hands, exchange business cards. Moreover, you have to think about everything from words to color, and how to deal with questions and answers and manage your audience because of course in different cultures there’s a different response.

To cut a long story short, cultural awareness plays one of the main roles in understanding the ideas and beliefs of successful business promotion.

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Date: 2015-12-11; view: 2757