Cross Cultural Communication: Challenges and Strategies for Expanding Business in China

This essay discusses the challenges faced by Mary in expanding her business in China due to cultural differences and provides strategies to overcome them. It analyses the cultural dimensions of China and Australia using Hofstede's model and recommends developing a positive relationship, team-oriented approach, and proposing business related to Chinese cuisine to attract Chinese businessmen.

Running head: ESSAY 0
ESSAY

ESSAY 1
When any of the business expands to the international country, one of the major factors that act
as the challenge for the business is culture. Different countries have different culture and thus
these culture acts as the base for the business environment and the way the business runs in the
countries. Culture can be defined as the set of values, attitude and beliefs of the people that are
taught because of the society and the other people in the group (Kinloch and Metge, 2014). This
is the essay that examines the efforts that needs to be made by Mary in order to meet the Chinese
business man. This is because she belongs to Australia and wants to expand her business in
China. As there are many cultural differences thus it is required to analyse the same and behave
accordingly in order to make the deals successful.
Culture of any of the place can easily be identified by hofstede cultural dimension. It is the tool
that involves various aspects in which the place or the country is being scored and the cultural
dimension are being analysed. It is the best tool to compare the culture of the two countries and
also helps in making the business strategies as per the different culture. In this case, China is the
country whose dimension needs to be analysed. The first dimension of this tool is power distance
(Kreuz and Roberts, 2017). It is the dimension that deals with the fact that the individuals in the
society are not equal. This is the dimension that talks about the attitude of the culture towards the
inequalities that are present in the society. As far as China is considered, it has been analysed
that the scoring of China is 80in this context. This suggests that the people in China accept the
power distance and the inequalities between the subordinates and the superiors. Australia is very
different from china because Australia scores 30 in the same (Zhao and Tam, 2015). Mary has to
develop the understanding of this culture of China and their businessmen and approach
accordingly. The next dimension is about individualism. It is the factor that describes about the
degree of the interdependence the people have on each other in the society. The societies with
individualistic nature believe in looking after themselves and their close family while the people
with collectivist nature have opposite agenda and beliefs. China is the country having the score
20 in this which makes it highly collectivist in nature. On the other hand, with the score of 90,
Australia is the country with highly individualistic thinking. Here also, the dimension clashes
between Australia and China thus creates cross cultural communication issues.

ESSAY 2
Next is the dimension of masculinity that refers to the characteristics of the society and the
factors that motivates the society to work. The societies with high masculinity nature believe in
competition, achievement and success while the society with feminist characteristics believes in
quality of life (Mazanec, 2015). China scores 66 and Australia scores 61 in this context. This
suggests that there is slight difference and both the societies are masculine in characters. This
suggests that the people gets motivate when they feel competition and they wants to have success
at cost of losing their quality of life. Another important dimension that is included by Hofstede in
its model is uncertainty avoidance. It is the aspect that focuses in the ways in which the society
deals with the unknown future. The scoring in this aspect is related to the extent to which the
society or the people of the country feel threatened of the unambiguous situations in the future.
With the score 30, Chinese are comfortable with the uncertainties are flexible enough to change
as per the situations. The Chinese language is also full of ambiguous meanings. It has been
analysed that Australia is the country that scores 51 in this context. This suggests that they are in
the middle of the situation and the society in Australia may or may not be threatened from the
uncertanities.it depends the situations and the individualistic nature of the organisations or the
person (Bhakta, 2016). The next dimension is related to the type of approach followed by the
companies and the society. The long terms orientations the approach where the society believes
in linking with the past and historical beliefs for facing the challenges in present and future while
the societies with short term orientation believes in dealing with the things that runs for shirt
term and do not relate the past and the present. The score of china that is 87 suggests that the
society in China is very much focused on their long term orientation and also believes in
following their traditional practices and rules and regulation for present and future issues. They
think about the future and keep the futuristic approach to work (Minkov, 2017). On the other
hand Australians believe in short term approach and thus believes in getting quick results. The
last one is the dimension of indulgence that deals with the extent to which the people tries to
control their desires. China is the society that is considered as Restrained because of the low
score that is 24. Societies with a low score in this dimension have an affinity to suspicion and
pessimism. Also, in contrast to Indulgent societies, restrained societies do not put much stress on
relaxation time and control the fulfilment of their desires. People with this orientation have the
insight that their actions are controlled by communal norms and feel that coddling themselves is
rather wrong.

ESSAY 3
As per the discussion above, it has been analysed that there are four dimensions in which the
Australian culture is very different from the Chinese culture and thus Mary has to take initiatives
to deal with these differences as lot of cross culture miscommunication can emerged out of the
interaction of a Chinese businessman to the Australian businessman (Zhao, Kwon and Yang,
2016). The major miscommunication can be because of the language. Language always is the
biggest issue when cross cultural communication comes in picture. It has been realised that
Chinese is the language that is full of ambiguity in its meaning and thus Mary not only have to
learn the language but also have to learn about the perception of the Chinese people. Cross
cultural communication issues also develops when the people have different approaches towards
their work (Deresky, 2017). As Chinese people have long term orientation while Australian have
short term orientation and thus Mary have to make the things accordingly. She has to show the
business long term objectives to the Chinese business man rather than short term goals.
As far as Chinese business etiquettes are considered it has been observed that Chinese business
men are very much concerned about the way people greet and the way the meeting starts. It has
been recommended to Mary that she should prepare everything and develop a plan before
conduction of the meetings (Islam, 2017). It is required to learn some of the words in Chinese as
it is appreciated by the Chinese business people. As discussed in the power distance section that
Chinese has unequal power distribution and it is accepted by the people there while Mary is from
the country where the power distance score is very low that is in Australia. Thus, it is required by
Mary to develop that understating and at the time of meeting it is required by her to enter as per
the hierarchical position with her colleagues. Another major thing that needs to be considered is
to create an impression (Triandis, 2018).

ESSAY 4
Recommendations:
The Chinese people believe in building relationship with the clients and this Mary should try to
develop a positive and trust worthy relationship with the Chinese people. It has been also been
observed that the society of Chinese people are collectivist in nature and thus Mary, who belongs
to the society with individualistic nature have to develop the strategies and the activities that
involves the team and the goals of the business proposal should provide the mutual concern for
the business and the employees (Weller, 2018). The first meeting for the business should be
initiated with short conversation and many meetings should be conducted after the first meeting
to ensure that the relationship can be developed and maintained so that the deal can be finalised
easily (Luthans and Doh, 2018). As Mary is in Food business thus, she has to propose the
business in such a way so that it is portrayed as related to the Chinese cuisine. This is the only
strategy to attract the Chinese businessman as they may look for localisation in the food
materials. Thus, it has been recommended to Mary that she should follow the above discussed
practices in order to have successful meeting.
This discussion concludes that cross cultural communication cannot be maintained so easily and
thus individuals like Mary has to make the efforts in order to make face these challenges by
understating the basis of another culture that differs from pace to place.
References:
Bhakta, V., Lee, A., Kaye, W., Blanchard, C., Trivedi, H., Galceran, A. And Steinberg, H., 2016,
January. Supply chain management: customer service & hofstede's cultural dimensions in china,
japan, & the usa. In Allied Academies International Conference. Academy of Legal, Ethical and
Regulatory Issues. Proceedings (Vol. 20, No. 1, p. 1). Jordan Whitney Enterprises, Inc.
Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson
Education India.

ESSAY 5
Islam, T., 2017. Practices of Cross-Cultural Etiquette and Communication in Global Business-A
Conceptual Analysis on Managing Corporate Expansion: A Review Study. J Bus Fin Aff, 6(280),
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Kinloch, P. And Metge, J., 2014. Talking past each other: problems of cross cultural
communication. Victoria University Press.
Kreuz, R.J. and Roberts, R.M., 2017. Getting Through: The Pleasures and Perils of Cross-
Cultural Communication. MIT Press.
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Triandis, H.C., 2018. Individualism and collectivism. Routledge. Oxon.
Weller, R.P., 2018. Alternate civilities: Democracy and culture in China and Taiwan. Routledge.
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