INDIVIDUAL CULTURAL VARIABLES:Acceptable Dress, Manners

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PROCESS OF PREPARING EFFECTIVE BUSINESS MESSAGES >>

Lesson 14

INDIVIDUAL CULTURAL VARIABLES

Food

It may be a good idea prior to visiting your host country to visit various ethnic restaurants in your home

country.Then you'll have an initialidea as to the kinds of foods available:how they are served, fixed or

eaten.

Perceptions of Food

a. Are you aware of the eatinghabits of your hosts?

b. Are there table conventions you should be aware of?

c. Are there foods youmight finddisagreeable?

Individual Cultural Variables

Acceptable Dress

It is better to ask about the mode of dressfor an occasion in your hostcountry than to risk making an

embarrassingmistake.

It most American businesses menwear the business suitwhereas women wear dressed or tailored suits.

SomeBritish people might stillwear the bowler along with a dark suit and carry an umbrella.

In Middle East long cottoncoat are acceptable.

Perception of Dress

a. How much skin may be exposed in both an informal and in a formal situation?

b. Are certain colors disturbing?

c. Will western attire be accepted?

Individual Cultural Variables

Manners

Knowingmanner is also very important.Children shake your hand in Germany, hug you in Italy, andoften

stay in the background in Pakistan/India. In fact, the ritual of the greeting and the farewell is more formal

manycountries with children andadults. You avoid gifts of red roses in Germany or whitechrysanthemums

in France, Belgium andJapan.

Be prepared to sit close together in Asia. In Saudi Arabiasons

Defer to their fathers. At the heart of their system is the family.

Perceptions of Manners

a. What is the protocol regarding the introduction of persons in a businesssituation?

b. What are the "rules" of gift giving?

Individual Cultural Variables

Decision Making

Patience above all is needed in intercultural communication, in doingbusiness with othercountries.

Americansare typecast as moving tooquickly in asking for a decision. Give more thought to inductive

communication.

American are accused of being brusk, curt, impolite; we wish to get to the point fast, "Gettingdown to

business" is a trait of the western culture. TheGermans, Singaporeans, Swiss,Dutch, and Scandinaviansare

similar, quickly getting to the issue. Chinese,Pakistani, French, andBritish prefer morepleasuring social

amenities.

In Japan, decision time is held back as group consensus moves toward a decision.

Individual Cultural Variables

Ringiprocess(stamps of approval by many people on a proposal)

Your understanding of the decision process add to your success in dealing with a foreignenvironment.

Perceptions of decision making

a. Is the pattern for making decisionsconsistent from one company to another?

b. Is placement of the major decision makerconsistent in meetingsituations?

c. Is an inductive or a deductive pattern of decision making preferred?

Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

Verbal

A kind of verbal sparring occurs when strangers meet each seeking to determine which topicsare acceptable

and uncontroversial the tone of voice of one'sinitial words can influence you initial perception of whether

the meeting is positive or negative`see you later' can mean the same day to Asian workers or some

indefinitetime in the future to Americans

Arabs are loud and someJapanese use littlevolume

Cantonesedemand more volume to suggest changes in wordmeaning

Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

A. Accept cultural differences

1. studying your own culture

2. Learn about other culturesthrough books, articles, videos,and other resources.

3. encourages employees to discusstheir culture'scustoms

4. Avoid being judgmental

5. Create a formal forum to teach employees about the customers of all cultures represented in the firm

reader'sforum.

6. Train employees to see andovercome ethnocentric stereotyping.

Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

B. improve oral and writtencommunications

1. define the terms people need to know on the job

2. emphasize major points withrepetition and reap.

3. Use familiar words wheneverpossible.

4. Be concise.

5. Don't cover too muchinformation at one time.

6. Adjust your message to employees' education level.

7. Be specific and explicit using descriptive words,exact measurements, andexamples whenpossible.

8. Give the reason for askingemployees to follow a certainprocedure and explain what willhappen if the

procedure is not followed.

9. Use written summaries andvisual aids (when appropriate) to clarify your points.

10.Demonstrate and encourage the right way to complete a task, use a tool, and so on.

11. Reduce language barriers:Train managers in the language of their employees, trainemployees in the

language of most customers and of most people in the company, askbilingual employees to serve as

translators,print important health andsafety instructions in as many languages as necessary.

C. Access how well you've beenunderstood

1. Research the nonverbal reactions of other cultures; then be alert to facial expressionsand other

nonverbalsigns that indicate confusion or embarrassment.

2. probe forcomprehension.

3. Encourage employees to askquestions in private and in writing.

4. Observe how employees use the information you've provided,and review any misunderstood points.

D. Offer feedback to improvecommunication

1. Focus on the positive by explainingthat should be done rather than what shouldn't be done.

2. Discuss a person's behaviorsand the situation, rather than making a judgment about the person.

3. Be supportive as you offerfeedback, and reassureindividuals that theirskills and contributionare

important

A Kind of verbal sparring occurswhen We judge people to a great extent by their voice. Some native

languagesdemand many tonal variations, giving the impression to a nonnative of loudness, evenarrogance.

Nonverbal

A Myriad of nonverbal symbolsexist for every culture, even in subcultures. Knowing the major desirable

andundesirable cues helpsknowing both intended andunintended communication errors.

OralTeam reports on a Country's Variables that May affect Business and communication. Appoint

severalteams within the class. Each time is responsible for selecting a single country and thenorally

reporting the class some of that country's national environmental variablesthat may affect businessand

communication. A possible outline might include the following points:

PROCESS OF PREPARING EFFECTIVE BUSINESSMESSAGES

While preparing a written or an oral businessmessage, you need to plan, organize, compose, edit andrevise

it.The message must also be proofread and corrected before it is mailed. Apart from the steps mentioned

above the writer must take care of seven C qualities and also of legal aspect. Careful preparation of

communication is important, even if the writer / speaker has the modern technology. Thebasic planning

stepsare as follows:

FivePlanning Steps

Before writing a message, the followingsteps are necessary for effective communication.

1. Define the purpose of the message.

2. Analyze your audience readers or listeners.

3. Choose the ideas to include.

4. Collect all the facts to back up these ideas.

5. Outline organize yourmessage.

1. Define the purpose of the message.

i. General Purpose

To inform, to persuade, to collaborate withyour audience

This deters the amount of audienceparticipation and amount of controlyour have over yourmessage.

to inform: youcontrol is high you informyou need with interaction. Audience absoure or reject

the information

to persuade: you require a moderate amount of participation / moderate amount of control.

to collaborate: withaudience you need maximumparticipation / you control is minimal.

Specificpurpose

Thatpurpose you be clear and straightforward.

To achieve this are your self what you want to achieve / accomplishwith your message and what your

audience should think after receiving the message.

Is you purpose realistic

Is this the right time?

Is the right person delivering the message?

Is your purpose acceptable to you organization?

2. Analyze your audience readers or listeners.

It is very important to write the message to the recipient's views andneeds. You might or might

nothave met the recipient. It is better to visualize the individual. Try to picture that person business or

professionalperson or labourer, superior (boss)colleague, or subordinate, man or woman, new or longtime

customer, young, middle-aged, or eldery client. Also, consider the person'seducational level, attitudes,and

so on. If the message is formany people, try to findsome common characteristics. In allcommunications,

the areas must be considered on which the recipient is likely to be wellinformed or uniformed, pleased or

displeased, positive, negative, or neutral, interested or uninterested andunreceptive.

As yourself some key question aboutyour audience

1. Who are they?

2. What is their probable reactor to your message.

3. How much do they alreadyknow about the subject?

4. what is their relationship to your

Audience profile

1. Who is your primary audience?

2. How big is youraudience?

3. What is your audience's composition?

4. What is your audience's level of understanding?

5. What is your audience's probable reaction?

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