To Study the Relationship between Cultural and Linguistic Competence

Infusing Cultural and Linguistic Competence into International Business

 

Cultural difference among countries plays a crucial role in international business. Understanding culture differences, improving intercultural competence are highly critical to the success of companies engaged in international business (Hoopes and David, 1983). This report sets out to summarize three stages of business relationship development with Romanian local firms, and then the report arms to analysis the cultural and linguistic requirements of cooperating with Romanian firms in order to ensure establishing and maintaining long term and stable business relationship.

 

Culture is a combination of various elements, such as social structure, values, beliefs, behaviors, languages, customs and attitudes, which distinguishes one society from another (Charles and Hill, 2002). On one aspect, culture of a country determines the rules and strategies of firms how to operate in this country. On the other aspect, it determines how the international personals communicate and interact with the local business partners (Javidan, 2006).

 

The business relationship development with Romanian local firms can be divided into three stages, which are enhancing mutual understanding of given culture and companies, conduct effective business negotiation and transaction, establish long term business partnership. The first stage aims to familiar with the overall information of local culture, acquire production competence and qualification information of the target firms through further research and open communication with the identified firms. The target of the second stage is to build mutual trust partnership. Finally, in the third stage, the objective of mutual benefits of the company and local partner will be realized. In each stage, there are some key factors that affect the business relationship development.

 

In the first stage, the key factor is open communication. Relationship is the basis of international business. Therefore, open communication is the best way to get overall profile and understanding of each other in order to build mutual trust before business negotiation. The second stage, successful negotiation and transaction, to a great extent, depend on well building social bonds and connections in Romania. Building social bonds in Romanian can be divided into two parts: building cooperate ties with local firms, building social bonds with local governments. On one hand, before negotiation and transaction, it is particularly beneficial to development relationships with the target local firms in Romania. Business is always personal that interpersonal relationship with the senior executives and personals of local firms always determines the process and achievements of negotiation and transaction. On the other hand, the social bonds with local governments determine the policies and strategies to the success of cooperation relationship with local firms. In many countries, including Romania, the governance is always bureaucratic (Cleaveland, 1979). As a result, establishing friendly and stable ties with local governments can avoid miring in a lot of red tape. In the third, business relationship establishment, the critical factor is maintaining partnership loyalty and identity. Based on mutual benefits, respect and trustfulness, the company and the local business partner will recognize the values and culture of each other. Cultural identity and adaptation is the key to long term partnership in international business (Swift, 2008)

 

In order to establish and maintain long term business partnership with the Romanian local firms, the company and its personals should have a cultural and linguistic competence.

 

Primarily, abundant knowledge and deep understanding of the social characteristics and structure of Romanian are the basic requirements. The overall social framework determines the roles of individuals in the society, the stratification of the society, and individual’s mobility within the society (Dan and Brain, 2000). It is extremely essential to understand the regional, racial, political, economic and idea difference between Romanian and home countries. Therefore, the international personals should respect the local laws, attitudes, and customs in order to build well interpersonal relationships before conducting business cooperation (Helen, 1994).

 

Second, improving linguistic competence is particularly beneficial to international business. Language served as one of the most powerful tools and bridges of communication, always determines the process and results in conducting business negotiation and transactions with local firms (Kanter and Mand, 1994). It requires the personals who are involved in the international business should have bilingual and even multilingual competence (Erramilli, 1996). In Romania, the first language is Romanian, which used by 91% of the population. Secondly are Hungarian and German. The foreign languages used by most people are French and English. Therefore, the personals should improve their multilingual ability in order to ensure successful development of international business (Avrahan, 2000).

 

Besides, the personals should not only need linguistic competence, but also need to strengthen their cross-cultural communication skills. When conducting business negotiation and transaction with people from different cultures or different countries, we need to communicate with them to build mutual respect and trust. In Romania, people are always appeared to be shy and reserved, and they are tough negotiators and indirect communicators; thus it is extremely essential to international business participants to remain patient and build some flexibility when in business negotiation and transaction (Avrahan, 2000).

 

Furthermore, during the international business negotiation and transaction, maintaining proper business etiquette is required to all the international business participants (Annad and Delio, 1997). In a given culture, the business etiquette always reflects personals’ values and attitudes to the local culture. These values and attitudes encompass the behaviors, feelings, ideas, time, age, education and status (Bridgewater and Egan, 2002). Therefore, the international business participants are required to learn and adapt this Romanian business etiquette.

 

For the reason of cultural differences, cultural conflicts are ubiquitous in international business relationship establishing and maintaining (Michael, 1994). Facing with the challenge of cultural difference, the international business participants should strengthen their cultural adaption ability and multilingual competence in order to promote the development of international business. 
References:

Books:

1. Bridgewater S. and Egan C., (2002), International Marketing Relationships. Palgrave, Basingstoke.

2. Cleaveland A. A., Craven J. and Danfelser M., (1979), Universals of Culture, Centre for Global Perspectives in Education, New York.

3. Charles W. L and Hill, (2002), International Business, New York, McGraw-Hill Press.

4. Dan M. and Brain T., (2000), International Business, 2^nd edition, New York, Oxford University Press.

5. Helen D., (1994), International Management: Managing Across Borders and Cultures, USA, HarperCollins College Publishers

6. Hoopes and David S, (1983), Global Guide to International Business, USA, Davids 7. Michael L., (1994), International Trade: Regional and Global Issues, USA, ST. Martin’s Press.

8. Swift J. S., (2008), Foreign Language Competence and International Business: A Cultural Approach, Cambridge Academic Ltd, Cambridge.

 

Journals:

1. Annad J. and Delio A., (1997), “Location Specificity and the Transferability of Downstream Assets to Foreign Subsidiaries”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol 28(3), pp579-603

2. Avrahan S., (2000), “Determinants of Entry Strategies of U.S. Companies into Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.” Thunderbird International Business Review, Vol. 42 (6), pp. 651-676

3. Erramilli M. K, (1996), “Nationality and Subsidiary Ownership Patterns in Multinational Corporations”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol 27(2), pp225-248

4.  Javidan, M., House, R.J., Dorfman, P.W., Hanges, P.J. and Sully de Luque, M. (2006), “Conceptualizing and Measuring Cultures and Their Consequences: a Comparative Review of GLOBE’s and Hofstede’s Approaches”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 37 (6), pp. 897-914

5.  Kanter R and Mand Corn R. I, (1994), “Do Cultural Differences Make a Business Difference? Contextual Factors Affecting Cross-cultural Relationship Success” Journal of Management Development, Vol. 13 (2), pp. 5-23