中国矿业大学2011～2012学年第1学期2009级英语专业《跨文化商务交际》考试班级商务英语09-6 姓名向文昭学号 12095133 分数_________Case 11.There are many underlying cultural issues in international business activities. In this case, the Belgian firm Appliances Unlimited established subsidiary in Mexico, because of different culture background, many problems appears. I will analyze these problems in several ways.Uncertainty avoidance difference is an important cause of the appearance of difficulties. Since Joe V an West, an American, who prefers to avoid any uncertainty in his work, he tries to gain a clear idea of how the things are gonging on. After the call from his friend, he first talked to several people at head- quarters, including the president for International to get detailed information about the position to get well prepared for the job. When V an West arrived, he met with all the major players at the plant. He listened carefully and asked lots of questions about production, marketing, and sales. He sent e-mails to headquarters as well as had lengthy conversations on the phone with executives there. He went to Brussels twice to discuss the plans for the plant in Mexico. A few weeks ago V an West received a phone call from the production manager of the American subsidiary which manufactures washing machines. The production manager voiced concern over the quality and the delivery schedule of the washing machine parts and the number of defective parts had increased considerably over the last three months, and five times the parts had been delivered late enough to affect production schedules for the washing machines. After he knew this problem, he tried to avoid uncertainty, so he had talked to Hernandez about the issue, but Hernandez did not seem to think it was a big deal. Just the same, he promised to look into it. Even with Hernandez's reassurance V an West was concerned and he started checking a bit on his own.While Hernandez is a typical Mexican, he has a strong tolerance toward uncertainty. When V an West talked to Hernandez about the issue, Hernandez did notseem to think it was a big deal and he just promised to look into it. When V an West talked to Hernandez about the difficulties with some of the new machines and the reasons they had broken down several times and the issue that some of the newer employees were different and not as dedicated as the long-time employee. Hernandez brushed the issue with the washing machine parts aside. He thought that Duarte Gonzales was exaggerating the problems. In his opinion, there surely had been some problems in the past, but there was nothing to worry about. Things would be just fine. And he said to V an West “Take it easy; everything will be fine. Just don't worry. Leave it to me. I know how to take care of things.”Hernandez can accept things as they are, tolerate uncertain things, and he doesn’t try to avoid uncertainty in his work.This difference is a big obstacle between V an West and Hernandez, so it is hard for them to communicate well, to cooperate well, to handle these issues in the plant well and to manage the plant well.Relationship is emphasized in many cultures, Mexicans attach great importance to relationship. They believe that good relationship with people especially those work partners, will help them a lot with their career. So they are good at building relationship with people, and building relationship with those partners is a practice in business. In this case, when Joe V an West, President of Appliances Unlimited in Mexico arrived, Antonio Hernandez, the Vice President for Manufacturing, wanted to build good relationship with V an West in order that in their work there would be more convenience and they could cooperate well to manage the plant well. So he had been wonderful in helping V an West’s family get settled. Hernandez and his wife had introduced V an West and his wife to one of the best clubs in the city, as well as many influential families in business and politics. The two women had become good friends. Mrs. Hernandez had helped with the everyday orientation, which consisted of things like shopping, schools, and house- hold personnel. Mrs. V an West was grateful for all the assistance. Because Hernandez had the concept of building good relationship with related persons, he thought V an West would have this kind of need. So he and his wife had introduced V an West and his wife to one of the best clubs in the city, as well as many influential families in business and politics, so that V an West might have more advantages in his job. This is a favor that Hernandez did for V an West to show his kindness to build good relationship.But V an West doesn’t emphasize relationship very much.In this culture he didn’t know how to behave. When he knew those problems Gonzales told him, and he wasincreasingly concerned about his nonchalant attitude towards day-to-day affairs at the plant. He did not know how to best approach Hernandez. Their close social contacts made it difficult to criticize his performance. So it is difficult for V an West and Hernandez to communicate freely, thus, the y can’t make the plant operate well.Hierarchy in Mexican culture also contributes to the problems. Frank Jones, the technician, had little direct contact with the workers. Whenever he had to talk to employees, he would go through the Vice President for Manufacturing. If Hernandez was not available, he would talk to Gonzalez. This kind of people who have hierarchical culture, prefer to communicate with people in the same class with him rather than people in lower class or upper class. As a result, the communication in a company or an organization will be limited and obstructed. In this plant, Frank Jones, the technician, as upper class person, had little direct contact with the lower class workers. Whenever he had to talk to employees, he would go through the Vice President for Manufacturing. If Hernandez was not available, he would talk to Gonzalez. In this way, the administrators didn’t know the exact situation of their plant, to solve these problems is out of the question.Hernandez holds high context culture, while V an West holds low context culture in communication. V an West prefers to speak out when he meet with problems, and he will say it in a direct way, and give detailed information. Hernandez on the contrary, doesn’t like to speak out what he mee ts with. He is implicative and inner going, he doesn’t give detailed information when he says something, he just gives an out line of it. In the case, when there appeared problems in the plant, Van West talk to him, he just say “Take it easy; everything wi ll be fine. Just don't worry. Leave it to me. I know how to take care of things.” But he didn’t say how would he solve these problems, he didn’t mention the detailed solutions to them. He didn’t want othe rs to know what he was thinking in his mind. It even made V an West increasingly concern about his nonchalant attitude towards day-to-day affairs at the plant. This difference makes it difficult for them to understand each other clearly. Therefore, they can’t solve those problems well.Hernandez is a monochronic person, while V an West is a polychronic person. V an West, a polychronic person has a detailed time schedule, he puts things in order and prefers to do one thing at a time. He will do his work only in working time, but in his private time only his private things. Hernandez, a monochronic person, usuallydoesn’t have fixed time schedule, he often uses time in a flexible way. V an West phoned Hernandez to talk about the issues in the plant, but he was out to lunch and would not be back until the next day. As V an West was walking back to his office, it occurred to him that Hernandez was gone frequently, and he didn’t like this style. He thought Hernandez should distinguish work and private life apart. Different time senses put an obstacle in their work.2.Van west should get to know the Mexico culture, especially the business culture. He should not only learn the language, he also had to earn the backstage of the culture and their cultural backgrounds, their values etc. On the other hand, he should try to adapt to the culture. Just as the famous saying goes, do as the Romans do. Then he will feel much comfortable with the surroundings.3.As we know, Mexico is a hierarchical society. The superiors have much power distance to the subordinates. As to addressing to Mr. Hernandez, he has found that Mr. Hernandez is not very concerned with his job, he has to power and duty to point out his weakness. With regard to addressing to the workers, he should try to make a harmonious atmosphere and make the employees feel like a family, because Mexico is a collective culture. Mexican value group belonging.4.For a company, the positive change is necessary. However, the employees have a negative attitude towards the new system. Van West can explain the new technology program in detail. Then he can tell advantage of the new technology to them in order to win the trust of the employees. As for hierarchy, the worker in the company are lower status so they should listen to the leaders’ orders and obey the orders to s tay in the company.Case 2In this case, there are many cultural conflicts between Japanese and Americans. And these cultural conflicts lead to many obstacles in their cooperation. Firstly, I want to analyze the High Context Culture and Low Context Culture. American culture is a typical low context culture, while Japanese culture is a typical high context culture. People who hold high context tend to prefer indirect verbal interaction, and understand meanings embedded at many socio-cultural levels, and rely more on context and felling, and employ spiral logic. But people who hold low context tend to prefer direct verbal interaction, and understand meaning at one level only, and they rely more o n logic. They communicate in highly structured messages, provide details, stress literal meanings, and give authority to written information. The negotiations had been very difficult and took much longer than executives from Health Snacks had anticipated. The Japanese were slow and in their approach to the negotiation. Everything seemed to take a long time, and once the Japanese side had made up its mind on a point, it was difficult to agree on any changes. Everything had to go back and be re-discussed by Japanese executives. When Mr. Carter objected to Mr. Ota’s going to be promoted to President of the joint venture.He first informed Mr. Sony directly that he objected to Mr. Ota. At the same time, he proposed Mr. Katsuki for the position and gave his reasons for his choice. This was the evidence for his low context culture. And then he became aware of the culture difference in Japanese culture, so he changed to adjust to it. He carefully worded his opposition to Mr. Ota and his suggestion of Mr. Katsuki. Only after he was convinced that the message was tactful, courteous, and constructive and had gone through several revisions, did he send it off. He was, therefore, rather surprised when he received a letter from Mr. Sony totally rejecting his suggestions. Mr. Sony was polite but made it quite clear that Toka Foods had carefully considered all options and that Mr. Ota was the right person, and Mr. Katsuki was out of the question. He further explained that a promotion for Mr. Katsuki would be totally unacceptable and would ruin Mr. Katsuki's career. In his letter, Mr. Sony gave no explanation as to why the appointment of Mr. Katsuki would ruin his career. This is the illustration of Japanese high context culture.Seniority is highly emphasized in Japanese culture. In Japanese culture, people don’t evaluate persons mainly by his ability or performance, but by his or her Seniority. In this case, in order to speed up the process and provide technical details, Health Snacks had initially sent an engineer from production and one from packaging: both in their early thirties with no international experience. The two engineers took detailed reports, diagrams, and illustrations with them. They knew the technology inside out, but the Japanese thought they were too young, they were not qualified to sign the agreement. So the Japanese, while asking many questions, did not move towards any' agreement. What is more apparent is that Mr. Carter proposed Mr. Katsuki for the position of the president of the joint venture and gave his reasons for his choice. Mr. Katsuki was 48 years old and had been with Toka Foods during his entire career. Currently, Mr. Katsuki was the marketing director for the joint venture. He had made quite an impression at Health Snacks headquarters in Chicago. He spoke excellent English and seemed to have the characteristics and the energy for moving the joint venture forward. Mr. Katsuki seemed to be straightforward in his communication and very dynamic compared to many of the other Japanese Mr. Carter had met. But because Mr. Katsuki was just 48 years old, he didn’t have enough seniority. As a result, he could not be nominated as the president of the joint venture.Americans and Japanese prefer different channels of communication. Health Snacks had tried to solve the problems via electronic communication, faxes and e-mails. They even had organized a teleconference to meet "face-to- face" so that each side could hear the other's viewpoint, but Japanese wanted to communicate face to face on the table. They thought it was more reliable. After much soul-searching, Ron Carter decided it was time to fly to Nagoya and face the problems head-on.Japanese culture is a hierarchical culture. Health Snacks had initially sent an engineer from production and one from packaging: both in their early thirties with no international experience. The two engineers took detailed reports, diagrams, and illustrations with them. They knew the technology inside out, but the Japanese, while asking many questions, did not move towards any' agreement. In their opinion these two young men were not high level administrators, so they didn’t have the right to make decision. When the two engineers from HealthSnacks could not answer questions relating to projections of production and sales, the Japanese became impatient. The two engineers found the talks tiring, and sitting across from a team of eight Japanese managers was intimidating and exhausting. Furthermore, the Japanese repeatedly asked the same questions. It was only after the President of the International Division at Health Snacks, Tim Davis, participated in the negotiations that progress was made. He visited several times, and an agreement was finally signed. While American culture is not hierarchical, they sent the two engineers to provide detailed information of the technology, and they were given to sign the agreement. But they were not aware of the difference in Japan, therefore, conflict appeared.To sum up, it is important to learn the local culture when we do business with another country or people from another culture, if not, conflicts will appear. And we should get well prepared for what we are going to do. We should learn how to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds.。