The power for successful business: intercultural communication and competence

I. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Recognition of the intercultural communication 2. 1 Recognition and equality 3 2. 2 corporate culture 4 3. importance of the intercultural competence 3. 1 to foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses 4 3. 2 focus on the specific market 5 3. 3 get well-defined objectives 5 3. 4 benefit to the negotiation in business 5 4. Conclusion 6 II. Bibliography 1. Introduction Today’s world has entered the democratic, free and open era of information technology. The earth seems to become a village – ‘global village’, This shows that the people who are living in it become closer and closer. This close relationship causes a natural phenomenon, which is having the conflicts due to the different traditional culture, different lifestyles & different religion beliefs & etc from different countries. This phenomenon should be eliminated by the reasonable way in order to let the people all over the world be more mutual respect, mutual care, mutual assistance and cooperation with each other. So that intercultural communication is very important to the human beings over the world. It could help to deal with a lot of the conflicts and contradiction owing to the different culture. And also the intercultural communication and competence could help the corporation to get the further success. 2. Recognition of the intercultural communication Knowledge in culture and pragmatics is becoming more and more prominent. Besides, when confronting people different from us, the attitude we take towards them and their cultures can also influence the effectiveness of the communication. Something we should keep in mind in intercultural communication is to avoid offending others. Intercultural communication is quite important for us in daily life. Intercultural communication could enlarge our knowledge. And we should realize it all the time. 2. 1 Recognition and equality Recognition and equality is the core of the multiculturalism. As is known to us, the multiculturalism contains many different cultures due to the different geography environments and different lifestyles. We should to commit other’s cultural value from the other countries. Just like a lot of the country has the religion beliefs, such as the India, we should respect their beliefs, though maybe we have the different beliefs. We should also be equal to them as well as their beliefs. In Kant’s moral philosophy (1785), the categorical imperative formulates the equality postulate of universal human worth. His transcendental and philosophical reflections on autonomy and self-legislation lead to a recognition of the same freedom for all rational beings as the sole principle of human rights (Kant 1797, p. 230). Such Enlightenment ideas stimulated the great modern social movements and revolutions, and were taken up in modern constitutions and declarations of human rights. During the French Revolution, equality – along with freedom and fraternity – became a basis of the Déclaration des droits de l´homme et du citoyen of 1789. The same to the culture, every country own its unique culture, it is very valuable. So it is very important for the foreigners to recognition its value and respect its unique and specific culture. 1. Cf. wan, Fang (2007): p55. In CBN weekly 2. In: Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy 2. 2 corporate culture the nature of corporate culture describles the actual the nature of corporate culture dscribes the asctual situation and behaviour within the organisation and therefore reflects the actual conditions. The corporate culture encompassess all common values and therfore underliners which type of beahviour the corporate society regards asright or wrong, prohibited or allowed, valuable or worthless. Only when the company know the intercultural communication and competence, will it be more success. The corporate culture should embrace the multiculturalism, so that it will get further process. Especially in some specific fields, for instance, the KFC will do different taste food in China in order to cater to the different people. Like people in Si Chuan China are keen on spicy food, so that KFC will do it but not in any other place in China because of the different food culture in China. And also KFC will do the different taste food between the western countries and estern countries. If KFC do the western people’s favorite food-cheese , maybe the business will be really bad in estern countries because of most of the eastern people disliking cheese. Only when the corporation keep its own characters and respect the specific culture, will a foreign-funded enterprises be more successful. 3. Importance of the intercultural competence To develop intercultural competence, hands-on experiences of other cultures are of major importance. If it is not possible to acquire these experiences on site, the importance of intercultural training, including simulations such as Culture Assimilators with critical incidents, as part of professional education is even more emphasized. Only when the enterprise realize the importance of the intercultural competence, will its scales be larger, will it be more successful, especially in the foreign countries. Intercultural competence affect on conducting international business successfully. The employees grasp the intercultural ability will help the company for its better process. 3. 1 to foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses For example, hundreds of years ago, the Chinese denied that the equality between men and women, but as the establishment of the new China, a lot of new ideas and cultures from the other countries which is different from the old Chinese thinking afferented to the China，because of this new intercultural thinking that some women start to defend their rights and 3. Prof Helmut Schwagermann In: text book principle of event management 4. Kaisu Korhonen, PhD p49. In: CBN weekly respects. That proved intercultural communication and competence could help the further improvement & process. It could help to foster the right thinking and cancel the wrong ideas in different culture. For a multicultural country, a quantity of cultures offer us more choices, we can make best use of the advantages and bypass the disadvantages. In the joint enterprise, what a many employers who have different culture basis due to coming from different country work together, they could get the better experience form other people so that the better experience could help them to avoid some mistakes. And also the intercultural competence could help one to deal with the difficulties more successfully. 3. 2 focus on the specific market A market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. The market facilitates trade and enables the distribution and allocation of resources in a society. Markets allow any tradable item to be evaluated and priced. Only when you could understand what the customer need, finding a specific market, will your business be successful. For a foreign-funded enterprises, having the intercultural competence become more and more important. It will help a corporation to do a right decision according to the local culture. 3. 4 get well-defined objectives Just when we have the intercultural competence, will we be more known what is our target & objective. Then we could do the strategy and the planning for a get well-defined tasks. We could find some way to improve the rate of the success according to the local culture. But if we don’t care about the intercultural competence and communication. Though we have the ability to deal with some difficulties, but maybe some incidents that we couldn’t deal with it quite well. For example, the Indian never eat the beef because of its religion belief, if we do the food business, but we don’t know such culture in the India, maybe we will be absolutely fail our business. So it is quite important for us to have the intercultural competence. 3. 5 benefit to the negotiation in business It is said: practice makes the perfect. So it is quite important for the businessman to have the intercultural competence. It is benefit to the negotiation in business. four stages and the frequency of particular sequences varied with culture. We suggest that negotiators can use this model to manage the evolution and strategic focus of their negotiation, especially during the first two stages, when the use of influence-information sequences and reciprocal-information sequences generate the groundwork for joint gains. 5. Peter, G In: European Journal of Operational Research 6. Jeanne M. Brett (2005) : In: orgamization science So it is important to know the culture difference and have the intercultural competence will be always benefit to the success. Especially in the event industry, have a good command of the intercultural competence could make the event more professional, more successfully. 4. Conclusion There exist different cultures in the world, people from other cultures may behave differently from us, so different taboos especially linguistic taboo exists in different country. To think that people from other cultures behave similarly to us is very dangerous. What is proper according to our own culture may not be acceptable in other cultures. But no culture is superior to others. All cultures are equal and they create the colorful world together. It is also not right to criticize other cultures and people from other cultures when differences appear, since both sides should be responsible for the differences. Being judgmental will also result in stereotype and prejudice, which can mislead our understanding of individual communicators. One should value one’s own culture and love one’s own country, but at the same time, try to treat other cultures fairly. Intercultural competence and communication is one of the important powers for the further success. Recognition of more interculture knowledge, it will help us to get further process. No matter in what kind of the professions, knowing more cultural knowledge in different countries, it will help us a lot. Keep these in mind in intercultural communication we will get more successes. 6. Jeanne M. Brett (2005) : In: orgamization science