Business managenment
World is becoming closer because of globalization, and more and more business companies started to do the international business. As organizations become more global, the managers and staffs need to take on the cultures and customers of the areas in which they wish to operate. One of the major problems of globalization is how to manage cultural differences. Some may have relatively homogenous culture whereas others come from the less homogenous countries. When they are doing business, the managers will meet different countries businessmen who have diverse culture backgrounds. For example, some people have their evening meal at five o¡¯clock whereas others eat at nine or ten in the evening, which is just one example of cultural diversity. Obviously, cultural diversity plays an important role in the development of international business activities and in the problem of managing these activities.
¡°Culture is defined as an integrated system of learned behavior patterns that are characteristic of the members of any given society. It includes everything that a group thinks, says, does, and makes-its customs, language, material artifacts, and shared systems of attitudes and feelings.¡± (Czinkota, Ronkainen & Moffett, 2002, p33) Culture is considered a key factor in understanding how organizations to work, which can connect organizations together.
Homogenous culture means the similar culture, and people have similar values, beliefs, regions and language so on and so forth. People in this country are quite pure, such as Japan. ¡°Diversity, a word which originally meant simply variety, has come to be used as a specialized term to describe a workplace that includes people from various backgrounds and cultures.¡± (Speechley & Wheatley, 2001, p4) ¡°It makes a distinction among ethnicity, race, color, gender, and wealth.¡± (Parhizgar, 2002, 23) It means that people have different values, beliefs and assumptions because of different race and background, and everyone uses his or her own ways to think and do businesses, such as Americans.
This is a kind of challenge for the homogenous-cultured company to do business with the culturally diverse culture countries. ¡°The challenge for managers is to handle the different values, attitudes, and behavior that govern human interaction.¡± (Czinkota, Ronkainen & Moffett, 2002, p32) On the international scale, the ability to manage different cultures has become an essential business skill for the managers.
Challenges
First of all, different languages are the challenge that managers need to face when they doing business. Communication facilitates international business transactions through language. Without languages, conducting business would be very difficult. English is widely considered to be the language of international business, but there are a number of versions of English, such as British English, United States English, and even Canadian English, and each with its own grammar, spelling and meaning of many words. Furthermore, there were multiple versions of Dutch, French, Italian and Portuguese. Assumed that how a Japanese and American to do business if they only can speak their own languages. When working with people that normally use another language, it is always wise for a manager to seek feedback to ensure [next page]