Culture refers to our understanding of acceptable behavior, beliefs, values, languages, and all other actions and practices. Cross culture denotes to dealing with different cultures of the world. Globalizations, the expansion of global trade, the increase in the number of companies dealing on the international stage, and diversity in the workplace have made ‘cross culture communication’ a significant element of organizational life.
International and national businesses are ultimately the result of people. As with incompatible software, if people are running on different cultural coding, problems can occur. Lack of knowledge of cross culture and language proficiency often leads to poor internal unity. The loss of customers, poor staff retention, lack of competitive edge, internal conflicts, external miscommunication and conflicts, poor working relations, misunderstandings, stress, poor productivity, and lack of co-operation are all by-products of poor cross cultural communication.
Cross culture experience ensures proper communication among the people coming from different cultures which is highly diverse and tends to bring obstacles, challenges and difficulties in the company. That is why cross culture experience in international business is increasingly being viewed as a valid and necessary means of enhancing communication and interaction in and between companies, between companies and customers and between colleagues.
Cross cultural differences manifest in general areas such as in behavior, etiquette, norms, values, expressions, team work and non-verbal communication which ultimately influence management styles, corporate culture, marketing , human resources and public relations.
There are some obvious ways culture influences an international business:
* The way how we present ourselves
* How we express opinions
* Assumptions based on the environment and context
* Perceptions of voice, and other personal physical details
* Leveling of a product
Cross culture experience is a must for the people involved in international business to facilitate the following:
* Negotiations with various business partners and government bodies.
* Long term strategic alliances with complementing and competing organizations.
* Internal communication within a multicultural organization.
* Leveraging cultural differences and synergies.
* Cultural preservation and appreciation within a multicultural organization.
If a communicator of an international business organization lacks knowledge of cross culture, communications and negotiations with people from dissimilar cultures may end in smoke and bring disasters for the company.
Example: Negotiations and external communication conflict
Cultures have different ways of holding introductory meetings; in Japan for example the introduction starts off very formally and with a bow and an exchanging of business cards. The bow is extremely important in Japanese culture. Visitor may be greeted by a soft handshake. The Japanese simply don’t place any importance on shaking hands. If he bows to a visitor, however, the visitor must return a bow equally as low as the one that he received. Then the cards are exchanged with the both hands. The card should be printed in home language one side and in Japanese on the other. The cards should be handled carefully and kept in a safe place that does not include wallet or pocket, as these are considered to be disrespectful. Visitors receive a lot of questions because the Japanese love detail. They don’t like impatient, arrogant people; they don’t like people who disagree with others openly.
Suppose a Bangladeshi Executive of a multinational company visits Japan for business meeting. He does not bow rather shakes hands. He exchanges cards with one hand, keeps the card in the back pocket of the pants, produces a card writing in English, and shows impatient when he is asked similar questions. This whole scenario which is opposite to Japanese culture will create a bad impression on him and ultimately the meeting will end with a zero result. Hence international business success is not possible without having cross culture knowledge.
Here is a review of the Patterns of Cross-Cultural Business Behavior developed by Richard R. Gesteland.
Deal-Focus vs. Relationship-Focus
Deal-focused (DF) people (Northern Europe, North America and Australasia)are fundamentally task-oriented and they are considered to be assertive, aggressive and offensively blunt by relationship-focused people. Contrary, relationship-focused folks (most Asians) are more people-oriented and they are considered to be slow, vague and unreadable. That is why conflicts arise when deal-focused export marketers try to do business with relationship-focused people. Cross culture experience can remove these conflicts very easily.
Informal vs Formal Cultures
Breezy informality (like US people) offends high-status people from hierarchical cultures just as the status-consciousness of formal people (like Japanese) may offend the open sensibilities of informal people.
Rigid- Time vs Fluid- Time Cultures
One group of the world's societies (Denmark, Germany) worships the clock and the other group (Asia, Africa, Latin America) is more relaxed about time and scheduling. Conflict arises in business environment when some rigid-time visitors regard their fluid-time business partners as lazy, undisciplined and rude while the latter often regard the former as arrogant martinets locked up by arbitrary deadlines.
Expressive vs Reserved Cultures
Expressive people communicate in radically different ways from their more reserved counterparts. The expressive/reserved split creates a miscommunication that can be difficult to close.
Example: Expressive vs Reserved Cultures
Europe and the Mediterranean area are among the world's most expressive cultures while Thailand is the opposite - one of the most reserved. So the culture clash related above is clear. Here is an imaginary example based on the issue. Sohana Smith, the executive director of an important trade association in Singapore, an outgoing, enthusiastic American. Sohana was pleased when she was asked for the first time to chair an annual meeting of a Thai women's organization in Bangkok. Sohana was really delighted when during the morning session three Thai participants quietly offered useful comments and suggestions. She showed her delight in characteristic fashion: Getting up from the table with eyebrows raised and arms waving, Mrs. Smith thanked the three women and praised them for their contributions, making sure to speak loudly enough that all the attendees would be able to hear.
The meeting then continued, but the Thai women stopped responding to the chairperson's questions and remained silent for the remainder of the conference. After the meeting two of the Thai members who had spoken up approached Sohana and tearfully asked, "Why were you so angry with us this morning? We don't know what we did to displease you so." Sohana hastily replied that she wasn't angry or upset at all, but the two women just muttered their good-byes and walked sadly away. Sohana Smith wondered why things had suddenly gone wrong at the conference after such a promising beginning.
Because Thais tend to be relationship-focused, high-context, hierarchical people. She was talking too loud, using too much facial expression and too many hand gestures. Soft-spoken Thai women tend to interpret a loud voice as a sign of anger. If we apply this example in case of internal communication where Sohana is a newly appointed CEO of a company in Thailand, the same misunderstanding will be created with the company employees, which will result into poor employee performance. And the ultimate result will be the crash of the business.
In conclusion, the knowledge of cross cultural communication is important to succeed in today’s international business. In essence the primary objective of cross cultural communication is integration. This integration between colleagues, clients, customers, and other stakeholders is crucial for creating bridges of understanding and opens lines of effective communication which is possible only by acquiring cross culture experience.
(Awarded UMAP scholarship for this essay in 2009)
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