Target Audience: Secondary, tertiary.

Language Proficiency: Intermediate to advanced.

Learning Focus: Research skills, reading, business report writing, impact of culture on business communication.

Technology Needed: Web browser software and Internet connection.

Instructions:

This task develops an awareness of cultural priorities and intercultural communication skills in practical business communication and professional contexts. Learners strengthen their online research skills and become familiar with valuable, free-of-charge sources of country-specific cultural data. They gather data on a country of interest and present it in the form of a professional business report.

Task: All over the world organizations are finding themselves increasingly engaged in cross-cultural communication, whether they are doing business in another country, sourcing products from abroad, managing an increasingly multicultural workforce, or appealing to customers from a variety of cultural backgrounds. As a result, intercultural communication skills are not a distant need for the future, but a real need right now in the workplace.

Select a country where you are planning to visit or do business in the future. What should you know about the culture before you go? To start your research, go to the globalEDGE web site.

On the Reference Desk page, you will find links to valuable resources for international business. Look at the heading Global Resources. Under that heading, you will find the subheading Reference and the link for Culture. Click on Culture. You will be connected to a list of cultural information sources for different countries and regions, including Executive Planet, Global Road Warrior, and Business Etiquette Around the World, which includes ratings for Hofstede’s five primary cultural value indicators. Hofstede's research provides important insight into how culture impacts communication in the workplace.

The questions below will help you begin to understand both the visible and hidden aspects of the new culture.

I. Visible culture: the behaviors in a culture that are easiest to observe.

Go to globalEDGE and find out the country’s preferences for the following:

• Greetings.
• Eating customs.
• Style of dress.
• Two other key protocol guidelines that you find interesting.

II. Hidden culture: the invisible value preferences that guide people’s behaviors.

Based on what you know already or have learned in the previous task, make predictions for the following. What are the country’s preferences for the key values below? These preferences are reflected in the protocol expectations above, i.e. the visible aspects of culture.

• Personal space preferences: private (a larger space bubble) vs. public (a smaller space bubble).
• Attitude toward time: (rigid vs. fluid).
• Power distance: (equality vs. hierarchy).
• Informality vs. formality.

III. Present your findings.

Organize the above information and present it in a report using professional business format.

Note: When researching a country’s culture, remember that the information you find reflects cultural priorities, that is, what most of the people do most of the time. Generalizations such as these are useful; however, they should not be used as rigid stereotypes, but as dynamic, changeable prototypes that provide a starting point for beginning to understand a different culture. If you want to know what a specific person in a culture values, you need to get to know him/her. Every person within a culture has a unique background and set of previous experiences that shape his or her value preferences.

More on this Topic:

For other resources on cultural values and their impact on communication, see:

globalEDGE Get Insights by Country (Choose a country and then click on “Culture”.)
http://globaledge.msu.edu/global-insights/by/country

globalEDGE Reference Desk: Culture
http://globaledge.msu.edu/global-resources/culture

For business writing guidelines, see:

Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL).
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
This OWL contains many helpful writing guides and exercises, including business-related writing (reports, résumés, cover letters, memos, etc.). See the section (pull-down menu) for Professional Writing.

Kay Westerfield, Global Communication Consulting,kwesterf@uoregon.edu