Ôèëîëîãè÷åñêèå íàóêè/ 7. ßçûê, ðå÷ü, ðå÷åâàÿ
êîììóíèêàöèÿ
Mikhelson S.V.
Krasnoyarsk state agrarian university,
Russia
Intercultural business communication and
the influence on it
Rapid
development of communication, tourism, the elimination of certain barriers, the
expansion of borders and the emergence of vast infrastructure, contributed to
the rapid growth of international contacts. All these factors influenced the
increase in the frequency of relationships between businesspeople, experts, and
researchers. Our life is a continuous dialogue with different cultures and
people representing them. It is obvious that different cultures have different
mentality, religion and values. It is very important to understand and
appreciate different cultural systems to be able to interact in intercultural
dialogue. Communication, or dialogue, is one of the Central components of human
activities, and effective communication is the key to success, both in everyday
life and in business. As Americans believe: “Business is the ability to talk to
people”.
This
article examines intercultural business communication in the conditions of a
conflict because of a lack of knowledge about the culture of the partner.
Our present
study focuses on cultural differences and their effects on business and
business communication. To conduct successful business communication in a
cross-cultural context, it is important to understand of what the other side
wants out of that communication.
We
must understand that while communicating with different cultures for the
effective management, negotiation, transactions or for the formation of a
successful long-term cooperation it is important to anticipate and consider the
possible reactions and behaviors of people from different culture.
Different
cultures use different communication styles, and a party’s style in negotiating
directly impacts the terms of the final agreement. It is important to
understand the various communication styles and the cultural issues that
influence behavior during negotiation.
Culture is difficult to describe as it is a rather vast and inclusive
concept. It is something that goes mostly in discussed by the members who share
it. Those members go about their daily lives without being overtly conscious of
their culture’s influence on them. As E.T. Hall wrote: “Culture is those deep,
common unstated experiences which members of a given culture share, which they
communicate without knowing, and which form the backdrop against which all
other events are judged [4].
Cross-cultural
negotiations are more complex due to cultural factors, environments, languages,
ideologies, and customs [5;
6]. Because many negotiators may lack understanding of these cross
cultural differences, they are often unsuccessful at reaching an agreement.
Cultural aspects can be more of an obstacle than economic or legal factors [2].
Insensitivity to the cultural realities of foreign
workforces can lead to less than desirable results. David Anderson tells of a
U.S. businessperson who rewarded the most outstanding member of a Japanese
marketing team by promoting him to head up the group. Rather than being proud
and grateful, however, the top performer seemed ashamed, and the others in the
group were uncomfortable and demoralized. Contrary to what the American manager
had anticipated, performance in the group quickly deteriorated [1].
What the
American had not realized was that Japanese feel most comfortable working in
teams, with all sharing equally in decisions, workloads, and responsibility for
outcomes. As Anderson puts it, “The attempt at motivation, American-style,
destroyed a sense of harmonious cooperation the Japanese workers had cherished”
[1].
Just as
inattention to the cultural context can result in some costly blunders in
marketing and management, it also can affect seriously the success of
international business negotiations. Time, effort, reputation, and even contracts
can be lost because of cultural ignorance.
Language also reveals
a culture's basic value structure. For example, the extent to which a culture
values the individual, as compared to the group, is often reflected in its
language or linguistic style.
Owing to the
close interrelatedness of language and culture, values (such as individualism
in the United States) are reflected in standard American English. One such
indicator of how our language reflects individualism is the number of words
found in any American English dictionary that are compounded with the word
self: To illustrate, one is likely to find in any standard English dictionary
no fewer than 150 such words, including self-absorbed, self-appointed, self-centered,
self-confident, and self-supporting. The list of English terms related to the
individual is significantly larger than one found in a culture that places
greater emphasis on corporate or group relationships. In the United States,
individual happiness is the highest good. But in
Japan
(group-oriented culture, people strive for the good of the larger group such as
the family, the community, or the whole society. Rather than stressing
individual happiness, the Japanese are more concerned with justice (for group
members) and righteousness (by group members). In Japan the “we” always comes
before the “I”; the group is always more predominant than the individual.
Group members in Japan do not want to stand out or assert their
individuality because, according to the Japanese proverb, “The nail that sticks
up gets hammered down.”
In Japan the emphasis is on “fitting in,” harmonizing, and avoiding open
disagreement within the group. People in the United States express their
individualism in exactly the opposite way by citing their proverb “The squeaky
wheel gets the grease.” If Japanese must disagree, it is usually done gently
and very indirectly by using such passive expressions as “It is said that…” or
“Some people think that …”.
The use of
language in Japan and the United States both reflects and reinforces the value
of group consciousness in Japan and individualism in the United States. The
goal of communication in Japan is to achieve consensus and promote harmony,
whereas in the United States it is to demonstrate one’s eloquence. Whereas
language in Japan tends to be cooperative, polite, and conciliatory, language
in the United States is often competitive, adversarial, confrontational, and
aimed at making a point. The Japanese go to considerable length to avoid
controversial issues that might be disruptive; Americans seem to thrive on
controversy, debate, argumentation, and provocation, as is evidenced by the use
of the expression “Just for the sake of argument.” Moreover, the Japanese play
down individual eloquence in favor of being good listeners, a vital skill if
group consensus is to be achieved. Americans are not particularly effective
listeners because they are too busy mentally preparing their personal responses
rather than paying close attention to what is being said. Thus, all these
linguistic contrasts between Japan and the United States express their fundamentally
different approaches to the cultural values of “groupness” and “individualism”.
Communicating in
a business context requires a certain amount of small talk before the business
at hand actually takes place. All linguistic communities have certain topics of
conversation, conversational
taboos, that are considered inappropriate in
either polite society or in a business context. For example, when Americans deal with one
another for the first time, the small-talk conversation usually
starts off with topics that are fairly innocuous, such as the weather, sports,
or some noncontroversial aspects of the physical environment. Such topics as
religion or politics are usually scrupulously avoided because they are likely to
be contentious. Other topics are avoided because they are considered to be too
personal and thus off limits, particularly in initial meetings. These include
such topics as health, the health of family members, how much one earns, the
cost of personal possessions, and such personal data such as age, weight, or
sexual preference.
Some cultures,
such as German and Iranian, do not share American taboos on discussing
politics; in fact, they often think of Americans as being intellectual
lightweights for avoiding such topics. In many parts of the world that place a
high value on group and family (such as South America), inquiries about the well-being
of a family member is considered quite appropriate. People from a number of cultures
do not appreciate discussing topics that may be historically embarrassing, such
as World War II for the Germans and Japanese, or illegal immigration into the
United States for Mexican businesspeople.
Successful
communication in the international business environment requires not only an
understanding of language but also the nonverbal aspects of communication that
are part of any speech community. It has become a cliché to say that the
world is becoming a global village. Rapid technological developments in
transportation and communications in recent decades have brought the peoples of
the world closer together in ways that we could barely imagine just decades
ago. This rapid globalization of world economies is making the need for
understanding the cultural dimension of our business enterprises increasingly more imperative,
not less. Working, as many of us do today, with high speed technology in the
world of e-commerce does not absolve us from having to understand the cultural values
and behaviors of our customers, suppliers, or business partners. The cultural
differences found in today’s world are every bit as important in our
cyber-businesses as they were a mere some years ago when few people had even
heard of the Internet.
References
1.
Ferraro,
G. P. The Cultural dimension of international business. USA: Prentice-Hall.
2002. 214 p.
2.
Gulbro, R.
D., Herbig, P. The effect of external influences in the cross-cultural
negotiation process. Journal of strategic change, 3, 1994. P. 34
3.
Hall,
E. The silent language. Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday. 1959. 240p.
4.
Hall, E.
Beyond culture. New York: Anchor Press. 1976.
5.
Hoffmann, G. When scientists or
engineers negotiate. Research
Technology Management 44(6). 2001. P. 13-16.
6.
Mintu-Wimsatt, A., Gassenheimer, J.
B. The moderating effects of cultural context in buyer-seller negotiation. The Journal of Personal Selling and Sales
Management, 20(1). 2000. P. 1-9.