Individual Cultural Variables
Food
It may be a good idea prior to
visiting your host country to visit various ethnic restaurants in your home
country. Then you’ll have an initial idea as to the kinds of foods available:
how they are served, fixed or eaten.
Perceptions of Food
a. Are you aware of the eating
habits of your hosts?
b. Are there table conventions
you should be aware of?
c. Are there foods you might find
disagreeable?
Acceptable Dress
It is better to ask about the
mode of dress for an occasion in your host country than to risk making an
embarrassing mistake.
In most American businesses, men
wear the business suit whereas women wear dressed or tailored suits.
Some British people might still
wear the bowler along with a dark suit and carry an umbrella.
In Middle East long cotton coat
are acceptable.
Perception of Dress
a. How much skin may be exposed
in both an informal and in a formal situation?
b. Are certain colors disturbing?
c. Will the Western attire be
accepted?
Manners
Knowing manner is also very
important. Children shake your hand in Germany, hug you in Italy, and often
stay in the background in Pakistan/India. In fact, the ritual of the greeting
and the farewell is more formal many countries with children and adults. You
avoid gifts of red roses in Germany or white chrysanthemums in France, Belgium
and Japan.
Be prepared to sit close together
in Asia. In Saudi Arabia, sons defer to their fathers and at the heart of their
system is the family.
Perceptions of Manners
a. What is the protocol regarding
the introduction of persons in a business situation?
b. What are the “rules” of gift
giving?
Individual Cultural Variables
Decision Making
Patience – above all – is needed
in intercultural communication, in doing business with other countries.
Americans are typecast as moving too quickly in asking for a decision. Give
more thought to inductive communication.
American are accused of being
brusk, curt, impolite; they wish to get to the point – fast, “Getting down to
business” is a trait of the western culture. The Germans, Singaporeans, Swiss,
Dutch, and Scandinavians are similar, quickly getting to the issue. Chinese,
Pakistani, French, and British prefer more pleasuring social amenities.
In Japan, decision time is held
back as group consensus moves toward a decision.
Ringi process (stamps of approval by many people on a proposal)
Your understanding of the
decision process – adds to your success in dealing with foreign business
people.
Perceptions of decision making
a. Is the pattern for making
decisions consistent from one company to another?
b. Is placement of the major
decision maker consistent in meeting situations?
c. Is an inductive or a deductive
pattern of decision making preferred?
Verbal and Nonverbal
Communication
A kind of verbal sparring occurs when strangers meet each other, seeking
to determine which topics are acceptable and uncontroversial. The tone of voice
of one’s initial words can influence your initial perception of whether the
meeting is positive or negative. For example, ‘see you later’ can mean the same
day to the Asian workers or some indefinite time in the future to the
Americans.
Arabs are loud and some Japanese
use little volume. Cantonese demand more volume to suggest changes in word
meaning
A. Accept cultural differences
1. Studying your own culture
2. Learn about other cultures
through books, articles, videos, and other resources.
3. Encourages employees to
discuss their culture’s customs
4. Avoid being judgmental
5. Create a formal forum to teach
employees about the customers of all cultures represented in the firm reader’s
forum.
6. Train employees to see and
overcome ethnocentric stereotyping.
B. improve oral and written communications
1. Define the terms people need
to know on the job
2. Emphasize major points with
repetition and reap.
3. Use familiar words whenever
possible.
4. Be concise.
5. Don’t cover too much
information at one time.
6. Adjust your message to
employees’ education level.
7. Be specific and explicit –
using descriptive words, exact measurements, and examples when possible.
8. Give the reason for asking
employees to follow a certain procedure and explain what will happen if the
procedure is not followed.
9. Use written summaries and
visual aids (when appropriate) to clarify your points.
10. Demonstrate and encourage the
right way to complete a task, use a tool, and so on.
11. Reduce language barriers:
Train managers in the language of their employees, train employees in the
language of most customers and of most people in the company, ask bilingual
employees to serve as translators, print important health and safety
instructions in as many languages as necessary.
C. Access how well you’ve been
understood
1. Research the nonverbal
reactions of other cultures; then be alert to facial expressions and other
nonverbal signs that indicate confusion or embarrassment.
2. Probe for comprehension.
3. Encourage employees to ask
questions in private and in writing.
4. Observe how employees use the
information you’ve provided, and review any misunderstood points.
D. Offer feedback to improve
communication
1. Focus on the positive by
explaining that should be done rather than what shouldn’t be done.
2. Discuss a person’s behaviors
and the situation, rather than making a judgment about the person.
3. Be supportive as you offer
feedback, and reassure individuals that their skills and contribution are
important
A Kind of verbal sparring occurs
when we judge people to a great extent by their voice. Some native languages
demand many tonal variations, giving the impression to a nonnative of loudness,
even arrogance.
A Myriad of nonverbal symbols
exists for every culture, even in subcultures. Knowing the major desirable and
undesirable cues helps knowing both intended and unintended communication
errors.
Process of
Preparing Effective Business Messages
While preparing a written or an
oral business message, you need to plan, organize, compose, edit and revise it.
The message must also be proofread and corrected before it is mailed. Apart
from the steps mentioned above the writer must take care of seven C qualities
and also of legal aspect. Careful preparation of communication is important,
even if the writer / speaker has the modern technology. The basic planning steps
are as follows:
Five Planning Steps
Before writing a message, the
following steps are necessary for effective communication.
1. Define the purpose of the
message.
2. Analyze your audience –
readers or listeners.
3. Choose the ideas to include.
4. Collect all the facts to back
up these ideas.
5. Outline – organize – your
message.
1. Define the purpose of the message.
a. General Purpose
General purpose is to inform, to
persuade, to collaborate with your audience. This deters the amount of audience
participation and amount of control your have over your message.
To inform: you
control is high you inform you need with interaction. Audience absorbs or
rejects the information
To persuade: you
require a moderate amount of participation / moderate amount of control.
To collaborate:
with audience you need maximum participation / you control is minimal.
b. Specific purpose
Specific purpose is the purpose
for which you are going to write a letter. For example for seeking information
or answering some inquiry or what kind of letter you are going to write. So you
must know:
Is you purpose realistic?
Is this the right time?
Is the right person delivering
the message?
Is your purpose acceptable to you
organization?
2. Analyze your audience – readers or
listeners
It is very important to write the
message to the recipient’s views and needs. You might or might not have met the
recipient. It is better to visualize the individual. Try to picture that person
– business or professional person or labourer, superior (boss) colleague, or
subordinate, man or woman, new or longtime customer, young, middle-aged, or
elderly client. Also, consider the person’s educational level, attitudes, and
so on. If the message is for many people, try to find some common
characteristics. In all communications, the areas must be considered on which
the recipient is likely to be well informed or uniformed, pleased or
displeased, positive, negative, or neutral, interested or uninterested and
unreceptive.
Ask yourself some key question
about your audience
1. Who are they?
2. What is their probable
reaction to your message?
3. How much do they already know
about the subject?
4. What is their relationship to
you?
Audience profile
1. Who is your primary audience?
2. How big is your audience?
3. What is your audience’s
composition?
4. What is your audience’s level
of understanding?
5. What is your audience’s
probable reaction?
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