神秘内容 Loading...
The third dimension Hofstede indicated is the individualism. It is a concern for yourself as an individual as opposed to concern for the group. The priority of self-concern or group-concern varies from different cultures. For example, most western employees like to work with their own plan for defending their interest. That is a high individualism. Because of the different attitude to work, 'the incubator culture' (Trompernaars, 1997:175) arises when cross-cultural individuals work together as a group. Trompenaars (1993: 158) told us "the incubator is both personal and&nbs p;egalitarian." People do not cooperate at all. They just simply work in their own ways, follow their own rules, and achieve their own objective. They do not like to be interfered by others. It is good for a company to gather as much ideas as they can when starting a new program. But how to manage these individuals to reach the group goal should be the awareness for managers. I think who is good at this should be good at grouping, troubleshooting, and coordinating skills.
Finally Hofsted pointed out the masculinity. That is about the sexual inequality. According to Hofstede's definitions, masculine societies define gender roles more rigidly than feminine societies. In business, managers should take a big concern of the treatment to different sex under different cultural influence. In today's world, because of the masculine value and point of view, males take most senior managing positions. But a experienced manager suppose knew that it is harmonious that men work with women since women sometimes are more sensitive. Therefore, how to balance ;the masculinity/femininity from different culture and background in order to maximize the team power is worth considering by managers.
The above four dimensions illuminated the most important cultural differences that affect on business. International managers should be able to aware not only the cultural difference but also the intercultural communication. (来源：英语学习门户网站EnglishCN.com)
Gudykunst and Kim (1992:13-14) classify intercultural communication as 'a transactional, symbolic process involving the attribution of meaning between people from different cultures'. Different nations use different languages, so there will be loss or misunderstanding during interpreting. And in some culture, people use implicit words more than others, like China. Thus, the non-verbal communication is important, especially the scenic communication. It includes gestures, body language, eye contacting. The more scenic part in communication, the harder for people to transmit and receive information. Anoth er part is the concept of time. From that, punctuality is the same but reflects different reality. We all know time is money. But when there is a conference, the German usually presents 5 minutes before the start. Spanish will be late for 15 minutes. But in their mind they are both on time. That is something that managers should understand. In my mind, there is another aspect of time, called 'the use of time'. The American and Northern European have a linear time concept. These societies are referred to as Time-Bound societies. Southern Eu ropeans and Arabs regard time in a linear way but more things they can do or handle at the same time. That can be called 'multi-active time'. And then there is the Asian view of time, cyclical time. Asian thinks time will come around again when it pass away, also the opportunities and risks. Besides the above three aspects of communications, there left the space. It is a big concern of in intercultural communications. When you have a conversation with a foreign business partner, the space between you and him are referred to the personal&nb sp;boundary of every culture. Ignorance of space can be lead to real bad impression from other side.
The last but not the least, I would like to talk something about the cross-culture negotiation I researched. Negotiation is a course that at least two groups of people trying to reach an agreement with the others for their own benefit. There are two things in negotiation: the topic and the course. During cross-culture negotiation, the course is the crucial obstruction. Different negotiation ways are produced by different cultures. Under this circumstance, there is a classic standpoint of procedures: exploring with no objective, task oriented, persuading period, and sign contract. International managers should be aware of every procedure. And during each procedure, the strategy, technique, substance, time, sequence and the focal point are different.
In this essay, I wrote about the cultural differences. There are four dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity. After that, I talked about the intercultural communication, which contains language, non-verbal communication, time and space concept. The conclusion is different cultures do cause problems in business. We cannot change or solve the cultural difference. To avoid misunderstanding, clashes, and bias, the international managers should realize and understand the different cultures, adapt themselves to fit into the business environment in order to get the& nbsp;best achievement in business. |
