Business communications
437 North Drive
Los Angeles, California 7002
Manager Quest Inc.
754 Widget Street
Miami, Florida 23114
RE: Cultural considerations for doing business internationally
Dear Mr Bobby
For business relations to thrive, it is indispensable to ensure that the sales personnel, managers are acquainted with proper training that involves making them understand the conflict across cultures and the communication difficulties. To further fortify the bond of international communications among the business personnel, it is decisive for them to look forward to areas of commonality. Based on the various studies about the effects of cultural and communication on business, it is evident that a conducive business environment is created when people from diverse cultural backgrounds find new approaches to tackle the menace of cultural and language barriers. These strategies are necessary for the creation of solutions as they involve incorporation of all the cultural perspectives and analyzing the problem at hand from each culture's conflicting cultural perspective.
United States’ Values, Beliefs, and Cultural Considerations
Verbal communication
Language is one of the most prominent expressions of the culture of a particular country or grouping of people. Understanding the perspective of how a specific verbal communication is used is fundamental for one to be competent to read between the lines the connotation of the language. Developing vocabularies too is also based on the cultural experience of the individual using the language. In the description of a product, various languages use distinct words for each type of product (Moran, Harris, & Moran, 2011). The same case applies in the descriptive words utilized in the description of the extent, amount or even the size of the product (Budde-Sung, 2011).
Written communication
In print communication impacts the business environment in various ways. In a written or e-mail communication, the recipient of the message has deprived the chance to see the sender’s attitude or the physical gesture (Moll, 2012). United States is formally an English-speaking state, though the US citizens speak the US English (Parker, 2000). Many businesspeople have continued to experience problems from the misunderstanding of the Us English, ranging from the vocabularies and comical incorporated in the English language. For an Asian company intending to invest or relocate its production in the United States, it is imperative for the company to educate it employees in understanding the various terminologies used in the US English.
Oral communication
In a scenario whereby an American was conducting business or any other form of transaction with an Indian or an Asian business person, each party would in some circumstance get the wrong impression of the other. For example, if an Asian said “let us revert back” in the course of a negotiation involving a project, the US counterpart would be frustrated. This scenario represents a diverse implication for the statement owing to the cultural differences. The Asian would be implying that he/ she would get back to the American for further discussion of the outstanding issues. The American on the other side would take that statement that the Asian was insinuating that they had not made any progress on the on the matters at hand, and so the Asian was going back to the original stipulations of the project.
Similarly, Asian people are used to typically speaking softly and are more unreceptive about sharing ideas or giving suggestions as opposed US business individuals who are used to talking loudly with more aggressiveness and assertiveness.
References
Budde-Sung, A. E. (2011). The increasing internationalization of the international business classroom: Cultural and generational considerations. Business Horizons, 54(4), 365-373. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2011.03.003
Moll, M. (2012). Verbal Communication in Action. The Quintessence of Intercultural Business Communication, 55-79. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-28238-6_4
Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Doing Business With Europeans. Managing Cultural Differences, 391-449. doi:10.1016/b978-1-85617-923-2.00013-6
Parker, R. H. (2000). English and other languages of account. ENG English Today, 16(02), 43. doi:10.1017/s0266078400011639
Sincerely,
Tony Brown
Communications manager of Quest Inc
