In a setting of Global business, the understanding of daily encounters when people are trying to create business opportunities overseas or just traveling abroad in search of such of opportunities is not as easy as others would think. Before making any significant plans concerning the same, there are a lot of factors to consider. The factors have a lot to do with the host countries in which you want to link your business with. One will need to get a thorough study of the time differences that exist between those particular countries together with time and seasons that appear to be favorable for traveling since there will be a lot of business meetings to be made in the cause of the business running. (Ting-Toomey & Dorjee, 2018).
It is also essential to take lessons about costumes and courtesies that are considered to be appealing to the people in the host country so that one may look like they blend well with the rest of the people in the area. It is a necessity for one to get familiar with this since there are a lot of differences that exist between people of various ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity. One will need to appear presentable to the culture of the host area so that respect is maintained among them. Consider that dressing inappropriately will seem like an act of disrespect to the people; hence, other wrong impressions will follow, which may even affect your business, partnership, and relationships.
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By doing so, it will tell them how you are not only interested in investing with them but their culture as well. Understanding one's culture norms act as a great tool to prevent conflicts and misunderstandings, especially when meeting with different people for the first time. And therefore it calls for one to be very open-minded when it comes to dealing with people of intercultural diversities so that one does not experience an intense culture shock which has many other negative implications on one's personality and to the business as well. The interests in business will shut down because of miscommunication or less or limited interactions between the person and the potential business partners together with the customers.
Intercultural communication Strategy
The society today is composed of a vast mixture of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. With this in mind, communication between people of different languages and culture should be as much as possible be free from miscommunications or misunderstanding that may arise due to negligence or any other reason that is not valid enough to cause such a detrimental problem. (Ting-Toomey & Dorjee, 2015).
There is a need for an integrated communication plan which will help to enhance communication among people of different cultures. After the understanding of the nature of cultural diversity, a business person should be able to train adequately for the cause to cope and blend well with the host country. He training will entail every aspect of the differences, including language, dressing codes, foods, and also their participation in various capacities. The training will be a great source of exercise of the different elements, getting familiar with them, and getting ready to create good relationships.
Another important aspect is the conflict resolution strategies. One should be taught widely and more openly on the methods of solving intercultural conflicts that occur along the way. This strategy will give suggestions about the appropriate forms of resolving disputes as well as considering the difference in culture from one country to another. The analysis of their style of conflict resolutions will inform them so that they will in a better position to make sound decisions.
The observances of verbal and non-verbal cues of communication should be an awareness strategy that will keep people always aware of their actions in front of people of different diversity. People will be taught the development of such skills by being provided with pointers such as forbidding the use of certain words publicly. It mostly applies to the actions that convey different meanings among different cultures. They should always be taught to remain sensitive to such actions to avoid miscommunication or creation of conflicts. Teachings on different signals and symbols also should be well spread.
Impact of cultural variations within the global business industry
Cultural differences are most important in a global business industry more than any other sector. Cultural variations will only affect business stakeholders in multinational corporations from every part of the world who are trying to expand their businesses and create branches in places of different diversity. This mainly comes when there is a need for formal aspects of businesses which are primarily defined by people's cultural backgrounds, and many are the times that they are done differently.
The customer preferences of materials and products are based on their culture. In terms of payment, currencies differ from one country to another hence affects the way of transactions. Some cultures prefer the use of credit cards, others invoices, and cash as well. When exchanging packages, different cultural teams have different rules that represent colors and the sizes of the parcel, which usually leads to failure of deals if there is no common ground understanding of the intercultural diversity.
On an informal basis, human behaviors are under the confinement of many of informal rules which are usually determined by the cultural backgrounds of different individuals. Various actions taken by the different stakeholders of global business are interpreted differently by others. Body languages may send different signals out. Others tend to break the rules of other cultures, which causes serious implications. A good example is that some bosses regard it offensive when they are called by their names or when the employees tend to become too friendly to them.
In such a case, it messes with the relationships of the stakeholders and the business or instead strengthens the relationships depending on the relationship type between the boss and the employees. If they keep comparing their culture beliefs within the business, one group could feel disappointed and disrespected and may even attempt to quit the partnership
How personal dignity is impacted in the intercultural global business industry
Due to the obligation to interact and sharing of different ideas, a particular group involved may hold their dignity higher than those of others causing the other party to lose their self-esteem and would always shun from having such relations that would lead to demeaning them. Global business attempts to create a scenario in which conservative cultures choose to do business with the traditional cultures ignoring the none conservative ones and vice versa. This is because there is the fear of suppressing one culture which would lead to tampering of one's dignity.
There are some cultures whose belief of saying no and yes within a business premise does not exist because they always want to maintain personal dignities. The need to keep their dignity, therefore, may affect the productivity of the business and the interpersonal relationships. On the contrary, it may be in a position to boost one's dignity in a context where the culture shows appreciations of cultures of the same level of social esteem. (Liu, & Adair, 2017).
In other contexts, global business requires that people act in a way that does not show cooperation since different cultures find it hard to cope with demands due to their value of dignity more than good deeds. It happens most among cultures who have had prior misunderstandings and therefore are not willing to make sacrifices,
How interpersonal relationship might improve with the implementation of the strategy as Part of intercultural experience
The strategy will be able to improve interpersonal relationships via its impact on the emotional part of the relationships. The emotional differences existing between the task-focused people and the emotionally focused people should not grow to create differences among them, which could then lead to a loss of focus to the business objectives. Consider that some other members think that it is unethical to bring personal issues to work, others prefer that their employees are ever happy, joyful, and sober over the ones who are always gloomy.
Others think that monitoring and assessing interpersonal relationships will boost the productivity of the business. These differences in emotional orientations go a long way in ruining the intercultural experiences of people; hence, this strategy will be useful in dealing with differences and improving the interpersonal relationships.
It is also likely to address the aspect of cross-cultural communication by helping them to handle the full process of managing both verbal and nonverbal cues among stakeholders, therefore, creating a more comfortable working environment for the industry workers. The training will help them understand the various misconceptions that exist between cultures leading to appreciation and embracing of different cultures equally.
It will also assist in the management of intercultural conflicts that may occur at places of work or even outside the business industry. Some will grow more tolerant of disputes due to the better understanding of the nature of conflicts together with their most appropriate resolutions.
Industry-specific roles of cultural variations in intercultural interpersonal relationships
Cultural variations in a global business industry affect the needs, rights, and values of the people involved. In most of the settings, people’s rights are defined from their norms and practices that are perceived to be in consensus. For instance, some cultures find it offensive for a woman to have a higher position than a man. They consider the difference in gender roles in the various aspects of life. This causes a lot of conflicts in case of interferences.
The strategy shapes and foster intercultural competence among people. In the process of sensitizing people on various factors, they will get to understand the differences between countries who speak differently or even the same languages. They will get to know the specific roles of religion and morality in the business industry, together with the importance of upholding etiquette when addressing diverse people. The training will provide communication skills, including the use of verbal and nonverbal communication, considering the meaning of each semantically. The businessmen who intend to do business globally will also learn to observe signals and interpret them in their perspective in an appropriate way. The integrative communication strategy, therefore, will teach people how to develop their self-esteem in cases of discrimination hence fostering general communication competency.
In conclusion, the intercultural variations in a global business industry can cause a significant effect on of interpersonal relationships among the business stakeholders due to the communication barriers, approaches to personal dignity and more so on the conflicts that come in between. The strategy above will help to overcome these issues by sensitizing the industry members about the challenges of the cultural variations and training them about the various issues surrounding these differences.
References
Liu, L. A., & Adair, W. L. (2017). Intercultural Communication in International Negotiation. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, 1-14.
Ting-Toomey, S., & Dorjee, T. (2015). Intercultural and intergroup communication competence: Toward an integrative perspective. The handbook of communication science: Communication competence, 22, 503-538.
Ting-Toomey, S., & Dorjee, T. (2018). Communicating across cultures . Guilford Publications.
