Cross-cultural behaviour and its impact on intercultural business operations and relationships

Abstract

The main aim of this project is to make clear how big the influence of culture in the business world is, how could it become a key factor of a company’s success and why it should not be underestimated while dealing with international operations with other countries or societies. In order to reach that goal, an analysis of the presence of culture in the some of the most important business areas such as marketing or human resources has been made. Beforehand, an introduction has been designed so we can cover first the importance of international relations and its reason, along with the origins of international trading and the concept of globalization. Secondly, the different cultural dimensions from G.Hofstede (an influent social psychologist and a recognized professor of international management) will be analysed to establish the main characteristics of the world countries and its culture. On the other hand, we will also focus on highlighting the patterns of Cross-Cultural Business following the model of R.Gesteland, who is an expert on negotiations, sales and marketing across cultures. Thanks to this study, we will be able to distinguish the different types of behaviour that a company from a certain country will show, depending on their culture. Additionally, we will exemplify both of the analysis explained above with one case in which two culturally different countries will be compared and studied, to come to the conclusion that the cultural behaviour does show a large impact on business operations.