can culture identity promote intercultural business communications. .... communication between a Chinese spoken person and an English spoken person ...
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Culture Identity in Intercultural Business Communications Bao Juyuan Baiyun University, Guangdong Province, China
Abstract: This paper is going to introduce culture identity and explain why culture identity is important in intercultural business communications. In addition, the paper will talk about how to develop culture identity and how can culture identity promote intercultural business communications. The third part will explain how to develop culture identity by language and behavior during intercultural business communications. There are two ways culture identity promotes intercultural business communications. The first way is by understanding, and the other one is by multicultural individuals. Keywords: culture identity; globalization; intercultural business communications;
Introduction Business communication is a core step when doing businesses. As economy is globalized today, business communications often meet with culture identity. Wherever you are doing businesses, people there have their own culture identity which affects the business communications a lot. This paper will explain the role culture identity plays in intercultural business communications in four major points. Firstly, the meanings of culture identity will be introduced by two aspects. They are distinction and respect. Secondly, the reasons why culture identity is so important in intercultural business communications will be discussed. Next the paper will talk about how to use language and behavior to develop culture identity in intercultural business communications. And the last part will be how culture identity promotes intercultural business communications by understanding and multicultural individuals. Business communications in an intercultural environment should consider culture identity seriously, because culture identity plays a big part when communicating with business people in other cultures and influence the outcomes. People involved in intercultural business communications can also use culture identity to improve the communications and develop their own culture identity.
1. The Meanings of Culture Identity “Cultural identity is an individual’s sense of self derived from formal or informal membership in groups that transmit and inculcate knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes, traditions, and ways of life” (Jameson 199[6]). As mentioned earlier, distinction is the major meaning of culture identity. Every culture group has its own unique identity in every area, such Copyright © 2017 Bao JY. doi: 10.18686/fm.v2i1.635 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 14 | Bao JY.
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as knowledge, beliefs, and values. In addition to distinction, respect is another meaning of culture identity. People should not only respect their own culture identities, but also respect other culture identities, especially in intercultural business communications.
1.1 Distinction According to the changes happening in working life, organizations are more and more heterogeneous in areas such as gender, age, race, religion, and ethnicity (Lama, and Sintonen 106[7]). This is a phenomenon of culture identity in work place. Culture has become an identity to a certain culture group, and people involved in intercultural business communications have to meet with many other cultures. However, culture identity may cause many conflicts during intercultural business communications because of the distinction of culture identity. As a result of more intercultural business communications are taking place, the distinction of culture identity is obviously becoming a difficulty in business communications. Being aware of the distinction between different culture identities is very necessary for successful business communications in intercultural setting. Culture identity mainly performs as beliefs, value, and way of life of a certain group of people. In other words, the biggest distinction is customs in different cultures. People have different culture identities live with certain customs. Although the world is becoming closer and closer, people doing businesses keep their own culture identity.
1.2 Respect Respecting the distinctions of different culture identity is an effective way for successful intercultural business communications. Just like accepting everyone is unique, people should also accept that there is a substantial amount of cultures in the world. Respecting every culture is a deeper meaning of culture identity. The world consists of many different countries, so people cannot expect others to obey their own cultural customs that are different. To respect means to accept the differences. As the values of intercultural communication competence is more and more important in organizations (Wang 201[14]), understanding and respecting other culture is essential in order to communicate successfully. Business people would not want to deal with people who did not respect their culture identity. For example, McDonald’s meals are very different between China and the U.S. Most McDonald’s in China have some food for Chinese favor, such as soup and porridge. Eating habit is included in culture identity, thus it should be considered when doing business in food or restaurant industry. If McDonald’s just copied what it did in the U.S. but did not think of Chinese culture identity, it would lose profits in China instead of earning so many customers. Here is another example about dressing in Islamic countries. As we all know, Muslim women always wear headscarves, and seldom dress revealing clothes. Therefore, dressing revealingly when having business communications with Islamic countries means not respecting their culture identity, which may lead to the failure of the communications. In addition to understanding the distinctions between different culture identities, respecting different culture identities is also an essential way to have successful intercultural business communications.
2. Importance of Culture Identity Many people will wander why culture identity is so important in intercultural business communications. The most obvious reason is globalization. Economy today is world economy. Organizations, especially big organizations, have to Finance and Market
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deal with business all over the world. Intercultural business communications without culture identity will cause many blocks rather than communications with culture identity.
2.1 Consequences of Globalization As a result of globalized society today, more and more people like to combine economy with culture (Mellander, and Fagerstrom 320[10]). As economy globalization is growing quickly, the world is getting smaller. People not only seeking for businesses overseas, but also seeking for education abroad. Thus, culture identity increasingly appears in business communications. Even in domestic businesses, there are many people with different culture background. Take the U.S. as an example, the U.S is one of the greatest economic powers all around the world, and it has an international population. Wherever you are in the U.S., you will see many people from other countries. Almost every country has its own culture identity, which means almost every culture identity of the world can be found in the U.S. While businesses in the U.S. usually expand worldwide, there are many issues come up along with intercultural business communications both internal and external. The growing of globalization in the U.S. results in business communications often happen in intercultural environment with different culture identities. Many business people have to face different culture identities. More and more business organizations send out their employees for foreign investments and operations because of economy globalization. Nevertheless, people who have been sent out face challenges when they are trying to adjust to both working and living in a culturally different environment (Shi, and Wang 23[9]). Therefore, business people who will have intercultural business communications should think about the culture identity involved in the communications, and get used to its appearance.
2.2 No Culture Identity Intercultural business communications without culture identity will give rise to a risk consequence of the communications. As Jakob Lauring stated, intercultural communications are often represented in accordance with national differences that may violate the transfer of business messages (231[8]). Hence, if people with different culture identities communicate regardless of culture identity, they would possibly send or receive the wrong messages. For instance, the meaning of the answer of a rhetorical question is totally opposite in Chinese and in English. When a business communication between a Chinese spoken person and an English spoken person involves rhetorical questions, the answers may lead to misunderstandings if these two people did not consider each other’s culture identity before. Moreover, the misunderstandings may bring some unnecessary conflicts. Indeed, business messages may be ineffective because of lack of cultural sensitivity (Fatima Oliveira 257[4]). Without culture identity in intercultural business communications can push the business into risk. Fatima Oliveira also mentioned that organizations that lack cultural sensitivity were less likely to recognize risks and earn profits of a potential crisis (257[4]). Especially for the corporations operate overseas, adjusting to the local culture will help foresee local economy tendency. For example, New South China Mall has been completed in Dongguan, Guangdong Province in 2005. This is a
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shopping mall over 7,000,000 square feet, and has a capacity of 2,350 stores and many other recreational facilities. However, over 99 percent of the stores have not been rent out today. In addition, the recreational facilities such as roller coaster have never opened. One of the reasons of this failure is that the investors did not consider the difference of culture identities. The investors just saw the success of shopping malls in some foreign countries, and wanted to exactly copy from them without thinking deeper in Chinese culture identity.
3. Developing Culture Identity There is still a large amount of business people do not know how to develop culture identity during intercultural business communications. Increasing competence in intercultural communications can be achieved by exposure, and communicators are more effective with more immersive exposure (Fall et al. 414[3]). Business people can get immersive exposure through language and behavior, two basic ways to understand a culture identity.
2.1 Language Born and Peltokorpi said, “Language acts as a carrier of cultural values”. It represents not only an agreed-on symbol system, but also the experiences of a culture (Born, and Peltokorpi 100[13]). In order to have successful business communications with business people who speak another language, learning some basic language they speak. Although now English is the official language in the world, speaking the guest or host countries’ language could be an easy way to build a friendly impression. Take France as an instance. People who want to negotiate with French-speaking business people should basically learn some simple greeting words like “bonjour” and “bonsior” in formal business settings. Words like “au revoir”, which means good bye, should also be learned. In some way, the language will help business communications succeed. In order to communicate effectively in business environment, knowing a language should master three required elements that will lead to successful negotiations with people who have different culture identities. They are usage of proper business concepts, usage of corresponding English terminology, and usage of suitable communicative skills (Palmer-Silveira 9[12]). Local language is more significant in some corporations that have subsidiaries abroad, for example, for building good customer relationships and recruiting competent employees (Born, and Peltokorpi 100[13]). Additionally, hiring local competent employees is a good way to have successful business in foreign countries. To overcome the difficulty in language of different culture, many organizations choose to expand overseas by franchising. Both the managers and employees are local language speaking people, which is much easier to operate businesses locally.
2.2 Behavior Behavior is another symbol of culture identity, which carries more impression of a culture because it can easily be seen and felt by others. The most important element of behavior in intercultural business communications is politeness. No one would like to communicate with rude people.
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Otubanjo and Amujo suggested that employees’ behaviors, which are hardly planned, represent an organization’s mainly corporate identity (40511]). The people who involved in business communications represent their company, so their behaviors will influence others’ impression of the company. What’s more, others may consider whether to collaborate or not with the company based on the behaviors and attitudes. As same as the language, if you want to have successful communications with people come from other cultures, you have to respect their culture and learn and basic behavior of that culture. For example, the greeting method in France may be different from other countries. Cheek kissing is a common type of greeting in France. In addition, a formal hand shaking is very necessary for business meetings. Punctuality is treated quite casually in France, so do not be surprised when someone is late for an appointment. About personal space, an arm’s length distance is appropriate. While speaking with French people, it is better to keep direct eye contact. You should be careful when use the gesture of “ok”, because in France “ok” gesture means “nothing”, “worthless”, and “zero”. Placing feet on tables or chairs is rude in France. If you did not pay attention to these details, the outcomes of the communications might be negative.
3. Promotion to Business Communications According to culture identity can affects intercultural business communications in many ways, business people are seeking for the answers of how does culture identity promote business communications. Intercultural communication skills are powerful in intercultural communications, so the skills should be developed to promote intercultural business communications. Some intercultural educators advocated that in order to develop intercultural communication skills, students should improve their understanding of other nations, languages, and cultures (Ainsworth 28[1]). Rather than education area, business area needs more intercultural communication skills. Respecting others’ culture identities will be a basic way to build good relationships. For the purpose of respecting other culture identities, we have to understand the culture identity so that we would not offend others. In addition, intercultural business communications can be improved by multicultural individuals, who know multiple culture identities well.
3.1 Understanding Understanding means having concepts of the objects, and hence understanding a culture identity means having concept on it. However, most people have stereotyping of a certain culture. Helping students to identify stereotypes that others with different culture identity may have of them is an effective method to stereotyping (Cardon 156[2]). The same method can be used to understand other culture identities. Learning how the stereotyping came from in order to understand a culture identity. Whereas, we cannot define a culture identity based on the stereotyping. The more effective way to understand a cultural identity is to do some research before the intercultural business communications but not just listen from others, because everyone has different perspectives on the same thing. For instance, Ken went a trip with his students three years ago, and they met a beggar when they were turning a corner. His students showed two different ways immediately. One group of students sympathized with the beggar and wanted to give him money to help him, but the others wanted to walk away with kindless and stop the people who wanted to give money. Ken then asked their reasons. Students showed kindless thought the beggar has ability to work and live a better 18 | Bao JY
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life, so he should not just lying there and begging for other’s money without doing anything else. In addition, he might be a cheater. On the contrast, other student said maybe he just be hit like lost his job or lost someone he loved, so they should give him some help to go through the hard time because he was very poor. We can conclude from the example that the perspectives of different people go against each other. Another example is that many American students think Chinese students all like math and always make good grade of math. But the truth is there are lots of Chinese students hate math and totally cannot understand it. Here gives us a reason why we should understand other culture identities deeper Understanding a culture identity helps business people get used to a different culture more easily, which will positively impact the intercultural business communications. Take business dressing in France as an instance. For business, men should wear conservative suits and ties, and women should wear conservative suits, pant suits and dresses in soft color. Even if you are invited to an informal occasion, make sure you are wearing a jacket. Understand and follow these dressing rules in France will leave others a good impression during a business communication.
3.2 Multicultural Individuals Organizations increasingly have more employees called multicultural individuals, who are recognized with two or more cultures and internationally cultural mode (Fitzsimmons 525[5]). This situation will make a significant promotion to intercultural business communications. As everyone knows, people like to communicate with people who have similar culture identity with them, because they do not have to explain too much when talking about something associated with the certain culture. Organizations should take the advantage of multicultural individuals to improve the satisfaction of intercultural business communications. Now many transnational enterprises are more likely to assign multicultural employees for negotiations. For example, many business people working in the U.S. are from China. The cultural contents are very different and sometimes contrary between China and the U.S. Therefore, business communications between the U.S. and China will often have some misunderstandings. The situation has been improved a lot since many American enterprises started to hire Chinese employees. Most of them have experience of studying or working in America, and they also know Chinese culture identity well. During the business communications, these multicultural employees devote a lot to convert the information correctly. Communications are all about transferring information. To give people involved in the communications the right information is a fundamental objective of communications. Thus, multicultural individuals can provide a positive effect on intercultural business communications based on their correct understanding of multiple cultures.
Conclusion According to the development of globalization, especially in economy area, culture identity plays an important role in intercultural business communications. Business people should consider carefully the effects culture identity will make during intercultural business communications in order to produce effective and satisfied business communications.
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