International Business Cultures - Recognition of Different Cultural Elements - Coursework Example

Introduction

When an entrepreneur decides to work in a global business environment, one of the key factors towards succeeding in the international business is to recognize the impact of the cultural differences across the partner countries. Without considering this concept, the business will be in jeopardy. The knowledge ought to cut across all sectors i.e. finance, economics, technology, law etc. International competencies can be built by companies when cultural awareness levels are being improved. This will in turn improve the profitability of the business (Brock pp.279, 2005).

Recognition of Different Cultural Elements

It is important to note that there are different cultural elements in almost every country of the world. The elements include religion, appearance, cultural themes, behavior, communication, amount of resources and group dynamics. It is noticeable that the elements vary in Eastern and Western cultures. For instance, the cultural themes for the Chines people is deeply rooted in the famous folk belief and also the Confucian values which entails endurance, filial piety, trustworthiness and thrift. The Chinese psyche is made up of these values (Zubko and Sahay, 2010). These values have profound effect on the process of business negotiations as the Chinese would use them to protract negotiations as a way of evaluating the endurance of the business counterpart. These cultural elements do not exist in Eastern cultures. Individualism is common among the Western cultures as indicated by their power distance.

Recognition of Ways of Overcoming the Obstacles

There are several ways of overcoming these cultural differences as far as the business context is concern. The main of overcoming the barrier is locating offices in various countries of the world. It is through this means that both the customers and the business staff are able to interact and learn from each other. Furthermore, the frequent interaction between the clients and the staff through e-commerce websites, social media and emails has reduced the challenges and pressures of serving the international business clients. Each country has its own unique traditions. For instance, the business standards of the United Kingdom is different from that of India. The interactions would greatly reduce the embarrassments associated with the cultural differences for example the United Kingdom citizens and Indians both use English as the official mode of communications but the accents and some meanings of words do vary (Trompenaars and Woolliams, 2003). Therefore, as a British speaker, an entrepreneur ought to appreciate the difference in accent.

Contrasting Cultural Approaches

The examples of these contrasting cultural approaches in a holistic business environment are many and they range from communication issues to group dynamics. The variations of power distance in the Geert Hofstede analysis can be used to explain this phenomenon. For instance, the Power Distance (PDI) for India is ranked as the highest culture’s Hofstede Dimension of 77. This is high as compared to 56.5 i.e. the world’s average. This is an indication of high power and wealth inequality and is accepted by the entire Indian population as just a cultural norm. The U.K’s Geert Hofstede analysis shows strong efforts towards both masculinity and individualism as per their low Power Distance. This is an indication of good response to change in U.K irrespective of their cultural norms (Carté and Fox, 2008).

Individual Reflection

Our company is a U.K telecommunication company which has over the last one year grown rapidly and it has spread to various countries in Asia and Africa. The company use a robust software to connect to all clients remotely. After allocation of bandwidth to the clients, our customer support team troubleshoot on various network issues that our clients face. In the recent days, we received consistent complaints from one of our clients in India that they had some difficulties in logging into the software. After troubleshooting from our end, we noticed that the problem emanated from the clients end and therefore we had no option but to send a team of our engineers to India. Since, we could not identify the cause of the problem from our premises, we were not in a position to exactly estimate the amount of time that it would take our team to solve the issue. It was in order for us to travel to the client’s office since avoiding violation of the Service Level Agreement is one of our core values and it is our responsibility to maintain our customers (Tijhuis and Fellows, 2012).

The team that we would send are pure Britons and none of them have ever been to India. Neither have they had a close interaction with the Indian people. In this regard, we were left with the challenge of briefing them about the cultures of the Indians. We also ought to brief them on how they would balance the nature of their interaction from both the Indian and British perspective. Firstly, we make them to be aware that the appreciation of multiculturalism is an important phenomenon as far as international business is concern. According to Zubko, K. and Sahay, R. (2010). , the crucial cultural elements that can direct affect business internationally are behavior, communication and appearances. We would brief our team to consider dressing in an attire that would not provoke the clients. In India, every man is expected to be dressed in both a tie and a suit when they are engaged in a business activity. We would request our team to be in suit and tie throughout their stay in India. Since, it was on summer, wearing of jackets was optional and therefore we left that choice for our staff to decide on whether to wear a jacket or not. Our team had some two ladies and we briefed them to wear either a pantsuit or a conservative dress as it was a requirement in India during business periods. Furthermore, we would also make the team to be aware that wearing of leather products was a taboo since the Hindi religion revere cows. They would instead wear a plastic belts or handbags.

Nonetheless, we were left with the challenge of doing a deeper research on the various Indian behaviors. This is very delicate as it might coat the business if our team will not trade carefully (Carté and Fox, 2008). First of all it was important that we please the clients with gift so that they can have a soft touch on us. According to Brock, D. (2005), it was a taboo in India to open a gift in giver’s presence. Therefore we would advise the head of the technical team to wrap a nice gift for the company’s CEO and ensure that it is set aside until they have left. Moreover, we advised them to invite them for business lunch since most Indians prefer that to business dinners. During the lunch dates, we would tell them to avoid neither buy beef nor pork since majority of the population are Hindus and Muslims. Kenneth Shaw, (2015) argues that patting the air of an Indian child or even touching the head of a person in India is an insult since they believe that the head is soul’s seat. In this regard, we would make our team aware of this.

Furthermore, we would advise our team to be careful during their movements in the office when resolving the software issue. It is considered an insult in India to beckon a person by wagging the finger or palming up. Standing up while the hands are all on the hips is interpreted by the Indians as a sign of anger. According to Wilk, R. and Cliggett, L. (2007). , whistling is treated as an impolite act among the Indian people and it is actually interpreted as sexual proposition or total insult. Pointing a person’s feet with the fingers is also a taboo. The feet is a body part that is often considered unclean. Our team would be requested to be careful with these cultures and at the same time balancing them with the British cultures to ensure that neither of the parties are offended (Kenneth Shaw, 2015).

By sending a team of seasoned and qualified team, the matter will be fully solved and confidence will be yielded to the clients. Once the issue is solved the contract will not be cancelled because the clients will build trust on our company. Sending the team alone is a strong indication of our seriousness in maintaining our clients and avoiding cancellation of the Service Levels Agreements. Observing and appreciating the cultures will maintain a good relationship between the business partners (Mitchell, 2009). The probability of repeat business would also be very high.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the economic development of any country in the world can be well defined from the perspective of capability of international business success. According to PwC, the growth of India’s GDP is expected to hit 8.9 percent by the year 2050 and that of China at 6 percent. The forecast of U.K is a 2.5 percent meager, a comparable figure with Western economies. All these are possible if mastery of strategic skill in handling business across cultures is yielded. The core competence of multicultural appreciation has sustainable competitive advantage (Balasubramanian, 2007).