Culture

Culture is significant to international business activity!

It can be argued that culture is significant to some countries for international business activity, however less significant for other countries. For example, USA believe in the theory that it is unnecessary to build a relationship with the host country whom they are doing business with; in terms of building mutual trust before embarking on business discussions and transactions and learning about the host countries culture. However, this theory interferes with other countries theory to culture because Asian business countries like China prefer to build a mutual trusting relationship before proceeding to business talks. In such cultures, one party patiently waits for the other party to start actual business negotiations and are aware that relationship building is in fact the first phase of negotiations. As a result, it can be argued that culture is significant to international business activity because different countries have different cultures and they all need to respect and understand each others cultures before proceeding to business talks. For instance, the western countries are advised to use an intermediary, this is someone who already has the trust and respect of the foreign managers and who therefore acts as a trusted intermediary, so business can proceed smoothly and both parties will be happy by the end result. In addition, advertisement in a foreign market is crucial; in terms of respecting culture so international business activity can run efficiently. For a manager to sell their product successfully overseas, they must make sure that that they adapt their product or service to meet the different needs of that particular group of customers; failure to do so, marketing mistakes occur and communication blunders which becomes marketing folklore. An example of this occurring in reality was when Ford’s low cost truck was initially marketed as the “Feira” to Spanish speaking people when this means...