Introduction

Nowadays, business is moving towards globalization. Therefore, the Universalist

perspective becomes inappropriate when doing business internationally. Thus,
international corporations have to follow the notion of when in Rome do as the Romans
do. From the above statement, we strongly believe that successful cross-cultural
communication and negotiation depends on an understanding of regional or local cultural
practices. Hence, we had concluded several main arguments to support this statement.
Content
Firstly, the language differences might result national boundaries between countries when
it

comes

across

international

business.

Language

differences

might

cause

misunderstanding and misinterpreting in communication and translation while running

business. Thus, ineffective of transferring information will cause additional costs to
company because the company has to spend extra time to reevaluate the information by
both parties from different country. According to when in Rome do as the Romans do,
we can avoid problems cause by language differences. For example, in 1930, the CocaCola company had mistranslated their brand name Coca-Cola to Kou Ken Dou La as they
enter into China market. Kou Ken Dou La (Mouth Gnaw Tadpole Wax) actually contains
a different meaning based on Chinese phonetic, "Bite" is "Yao". Phonetic for "Gnaw" is
"Ken". The Chinese understands that gnaw in Chinese is not just someone picking at a
bone, but can project an image of a mad dog shaking his bone till the last meat morsel
out. You can imagine average Chinese would think it is bizarre that the Westerners
enjoyed tadpole wax extract refreshment (Uwe, 2011). Hence, the Coca-Cola Company
has re-created a new brand name to Ke Kou Ke Le which is defined as suit taste, suit
happiness (Joyful refreshing taste). Therefore, it is very important that company implies a
suitable brand name in different countries. Therefore, company should be cautious about
the various definitions from multiple languages of a word used while designing a brand
name as if company desires to expand globally.
Besides, there are noises in communication which will potentially interrupt the flow of
information and might influence the quality of translation during communications and
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negotiations (Boundless, 2014). Thus, company often faced semantic noise, which is a
noise caused by the different interpretations of words and abbreviations (Phatak, Bhagat
& Kashlak, 2009). Also, words have different meanings across nations andthis might
cause embarrassing when someone unintentionally misunderstood the meaning.
Therefore, transmitter has to encode the information clearly and beware ofdissimilar
meaning would be delivery to the other party. On the other hand, upon receiving the
information, receiver has to decode it carefully and comprehend the actual information by
transmitter. For example, the word fancy dress in United States means formal attire but
it means costume in United Kingdom (Erin C., 2013).Company may employ a
professional translator, local people who expert in both countrys semantic errors or
native speeches. This can help to avoid misinterpreting meaning of the words actually
means in the countertrade country (Gibert,2000). Although it may consume more time but
in order to avoid failure in communication and negotiation, hiring a translator or an
interpreter is always suggested to get along with foreigners. There was a mistake done by
Chevy Nova campaign, the word nova cause infamous in Latin American because it
mean it does not go in Spanish (Phatak et al., 2009).
Yet, language learning does not guarantee cultural understanding. In other words,
linguistic competence is not the same as cultural intelligence. Although language is an
effective and efficient means to communicate explicit information or content, every
communication also conveys relational messages. Cultural barriers can be hindrances to
effective communication across country (Phatak, Bhagat & Kashlak, 2009). Sometimes,
the relational messages are communicated not by words, but through nonverbal
communication that includes facial expression, eye gaze, posture and even our volume of
tone (Martin and Nakayama, 2014). Generally, Asians are more perceptive to body
language than the North Americans. Misuse of body language can be an unpleasant or
even dangerous experience for message encoders. As an example, in 1992, the President
George H.W. Bush made a state visit to Australia. People lined up along the roadside to
welcome the American President who greeted them with raised fingers in the form of 'V'
with the back of his hand toward the onlookers. The following morning a headline in a
local newspaper proclaimed that the 'American President insulted the Australians
(Rugsaken, 2014).
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There are few examples of how body parts, from head to toes, are used in
communications across nations. Handshaking is the common form of greeting and leavetaking in the Western culture. While it is being accepted in Asia, the Asians still prefer a
different form of greeting. For examples, a bow in East Asia and a 'wai' means joining the
two hands together like in prayer for some Southern and Southeastern Asian countries.
Hence, Asians and Middle Easterners prefer a soft handshake, and strong grips are
interpreted as a sign of aggression (Rugsaken, 2014). Based on the example, we can see
the different culture got different expression for gesture. Therefore, better understanding
to the local culture can help to build effective communication with local people. Also,
this will help to evade offends to the other party.
In term of heads gestures, a nodding head signifies agreement or approval in most of the
societies. But in some societies like Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey, a nodding head means
"no". On the other hands, head is where spirit resides in Asian cultures and they won't
allowed others to touch another's head (Rugsaken, 2014).Thus, we have to interpret
carefully the same gesture in different culture as different meaning is given. However,
this prevent misunderstandings and miscommunications between both parties.
Nevertheless, chronemics are important in international business negotiations and
technical assistance projects. For example, U.S. business people always concerns about
punctuality, but in the Middle East, the local business people are not "on time"
(Rugsaken, 2014). As a result, the divergence of time concepts between nations result in
cancelation of meeting and this might lead to a lose business opportunity. Nonetheless,
company need to realize the sense of the efficiency that execute by a country while doing
business internationally because this is the key element to access to new business
opportunities and build a good relationship with them.
In order to have a well-communication globally, company need to the environmental
context of communication. Thus, high context culture has less verbally explicit
communication and less written of formal information. The people from this culture are
more internalized understandings of what is communicated (Beer, 2013). A low context
culture is one in which things and thoughts are fully and concisely spelled out. Things are
made explicit, and there is considerable dependence on what is actually said or written.
3

High context cultures are vulnerable to communication breakdowns when they assume
more shared understanding than there really is. They are strongly inclined to indirect
methods of communication. This is especially true in an age of diversity. Low context
cultures, on the other hand, tend to be more insular. The explicitness with which they
communicate can often cause offence and resentment (Retludge, 2011).
For example, ImseVimse, which is a Sweden company that sells textile products for
women and children has encountered a problem with a Greece retailer. The retailer
always said that the prices are wrong and the products are not stylish and not good
enough. The representative from ImseVimse then approach to the retailer and questions
Why you are interested in our products, if everything is wrong, why you want to sell it?
Why dont you choose another brand or something that you find better?
Misunderstanding occurs at this point due to the cultural differences and method of
delivering the context. Actually the Greece retailer which is from a high context country
was trying to get a discount. The retailer later admitted that he really liked the products
and he just want to get a better offer by signaling indirectly. In this case, the retailer was
thrown-off by managers low-context straight forward questioning his desire to buy
ImseVimse products if it was bad and expensive. Therefore, when doing business across
culture, it is important to understand the opposite partys culture and the way they convey
their message and the meaning that they intended to say (Klimina, 2011).
Furthermore, it is important for business man to analysis the social behavior practiced in
the countertrade country in order to effective communication and negotiation. According
to Geert Hosftedes cultural dimension, there are two characteristics of people, which
isindividualism and collectivism. It distinguished by how humanfundamentally live their
lives socially. According to RebeccaLeFebvreand Volker Franke, decision-making is an
activity which considered beingpractice inhuman behavior because people from divergent
cultures have problems and opportunities may require making choices from different
alternatives. Individualism culture emphasizes on individual achievements and rights
(Oscar A.R, 2012).When individualist comes across communication, they speak what is
in their mind honestly (Phatak, Bhagat & Kashlak, 2009). For instance, United States is
one of the countries that practices individualism. In contrast, collectivism means the
4

social pattern that is closely linked individuals who see themselves as belonging to
groups and see the goals of group more prioritized than personal goals (Phatak, Bhagat &
Kashlak, 2009). However, relationship seems to be more important than task, so direct
confrontation is usually avoid by collectivists to maintain the harmony and wealth in the
group (Brett Rutledge,2011). China and Japan mostly practices collectivism, instead of
saying no, they will use expressions or phrases to hint disagreement (Oscar A.R.,2012).
Looking into Asian cultures versus Australian cultures, researcher found that Asians tend
to have less cooperation with foreigners. Adversely, Australians which are individualistic
will equally accept to cooperate with either groups (RebeccaLeFebvre and Volker
Franke,2013). For a real case in 2006, Google was established operation in China, but
Chinese has more collectivism mind-set and most of the employees feel uncomfortable
with the company policy which requires employee to allocated 20 percents of their
working time to develop independent project as Google is a freewheeling style
management company. Beside, a Chinese executive was hired by Google in order to
govern the relationship of Google with the China government. Hence, after knowing the
Chinese executive gave free iPods to the official departments of government, Google
fired the executive. This action was viewed to be bribery in individualism cultures but not
in collectivism cultures as collectivist thinks maintaining guan xi is more important.
Due to the disparate communications, Google had withdrawn from China since 2010.
Besides, time orientation in Hosftedes dimension also affects the way of negotiation. The
types of time orientation include long-term orientation and short-term orientation which
means fostering of virtues oriented towards future rewards and related to the past and
present respectively (Phatak, Bhagat & Kashlak, 2009). In order to win a negotiation,
negotiators may allocate different amount of time to devote based on time orientation
preference in one's culture. For short-term orientation, time is considering money and
preferring quick result. But, long-term relationship refer to sustained effort towards slow
results, they will invest time to negotiating process in order to gain long-term relationship
(Jeswald W.S,2005). There was a case in mid-1990, a contract between Dabhol Power
Companys subsidiary ENRON which is an electricity supplier and Maharashtra state
government in India. The contract was ultimately cancelled on the grounds because of
fast track procedures and concluded in unseemly haste. India public assumed that
5

government failed to protect interest of public because the process of negotiation too
quick. On the other hand, Enrons Rebecca Mark defended that they were concerned
about time, because time is money for them (Business Week, 1997).
(1906 words)

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