Analyzing Intercultural Competence in Business: Ben's Case Study

This case study examines intercultural competence in business through the experiences of Ben Schmidt, a retired military professional hired by a German software company to represent them in Persian Gulf countries. The analysis identifies Ben's missteps in understanding and respecting the local culture, particularly his failure to adapt his communication and business strategies to the norms of the Gulf region. It explores relevant theories of intercultural communication, such as Hofstede's cultural dimensions and Communication Accommodation Theory, to provide a framework for understanding these challenges. The study concludes with practical advice for Ben, emphasizing the importance of cultural sensitivity, language skills, and building relationships based on trust and mutual understanding to achieve business success in a cross-cultural environment. Desklib offers a range of similar resources for students.

Intercultural
Competence
In
Business

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
What Ben do wrong?...................................................................................................................1
What could you have said to help Ben better understand this cultural problem?........................2
Theories of Intercultural Communication....................................................................................3
Advice to Ben .............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Intercultural is refer to those communities which which help to deep understanding and
respect all different types of cultures. This focus on the mutual exchange of ideas and cultural
norms and policy which create and developed relationship with the person. It help to do
communication between two different cultures and it is symbolic, interpretive, transactional and
contextual process of different cultures people to creates share meanings (Alvarez, 2019). This
essay is based on case study in which Ben Schmidt is retired military who has experiences in
middle east and now they hired a large German computer software company to represent in
number of Persian Gulf countries. In this essay it includes that where Ben go wrong and how it
help Ben to understand the cross-cultural problem. Further, It also consist of theories of cross
cultural and recommend advise to Ben regarding intercultural for doing their activity.
MAIN BODY
What Ben do wrong?
Culture has huge impact on person life opinions, judgements, interaction and feelings
which help person to communicate with different religions person. This help person to dealing,
cooperation and business procedure which create big effect on overall business connections. The
members of different particular group are expected to maintain their customs, ignoring in cross
cultural comprehension which have prohibited for an individuals from picking up the required
knowledge which prevent their cooperation (Bartel-Radic and Binet, 2020). The importance of
culture must be increased which have an impact on the result of investigations for showing that
how different ethnicities can impact enterprises activities. This has a outcome of Hofstede's
research that Ben who migrant from Middle East, who correspond to various culture practices
from their other foreigners. The Ben did not examine the people's traditions and values of
Persian Gulf Countries. They directly continues their business as they run their business in
Middle East. There are two different areas which continue their unique traditions and ideas
which clear the situations. The material which have require to do comparison of intellectual
identification of business strategies in Middle East and abroad. Middle East is only know for
highly effective in their business, like Ben's case study that other cultures have view comparable
positiveness as a disrespect. Ben has not yet taken an attempt which come about to understand
the the people culture of different country because he is not belong to that country, he need to
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examine their everyone simply their workers. If Ben wants to do business in Gulf countries
which help to developed the connections which is essential but Ben has not yet taken to get
acquainted with people (Luo and Chan, 2022). Due to this fact, Gulf lacking which have work
management help person have to adopt the techniques which accomplished the obligation, it is
very known for business management. It is responsible for managers for guiding the right
direction of their employees in the organization which help employees to do work effectively and
they able to complete the task before the deadlines. In Middle East culture it is according high
goal-oriented than Gulf culture which is most important concerned with communities or people.
What could you have said to help Ben better understand this cultural problem?
When person move to different country then they faced cross culture issues because it is
very common that person have adopt the culture where they live so, when they move different
country then they need to know about the culture of that country. This is very big issues which is
need to quickly resolved enough in reference to business context to remain the competitive in the
market. The supervisors needs to include their personnel in everyday activities rather than it just
providing the information and orders. The people have different countries so they have different
languages for communication and it might be very difficulty and challenging for the person. This
is very important people to learn and adopt the new languages which help them to communicate
with people of Persian Gulf country (Pikhart, 2018). If it is poorly managed, then it creates cross-
cultural misunderstandings problem is developed. It may also impact on the managers
reputation. Ben need to understand the how Persian Gulf culture works and how nation's culture
is affect by wide range of variables which includes it's population, religions and ideals. Then, it
has been developed and became more complex through time which has result for an individuals
becoming conscious and cooperating. The rich and elegant culture is also known for Golf culture
and it is has intention for underlying the remarks and actions which is not clearly stated, instead
of this it has been shown by given information. Further, Gulfs are used for collaborating in
different groups which help them to addressed their problem is such way that it help to
communicate easily with the Gulf countries people. Now, Ben should prepared a team to take on
the variety of task available at the company. Additionally, when they communicating with their
people then they used high range of pitch instead of low pitch fir their high context civilizations
are ones where in contextual signals (Pikhart, 2018). This is indicators for making gestural which
are used in to covey the communication standards because due to different phases of people's it
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has involvement rules and regulations which are clearly stated. In this, Ben can trust the culture
which should be built before any business transactions which can be conducted because of this,
Ben has great connection with Gulf which have promotes openness and effectively and
effectiveness in their business dealing.
Theories of Intercultural Communication
Intercultural communication is refers to the idea which is know how to communicate
within different parts of world. By understanding the theories, which help to people to
understand how the norms are prevalent in adapting to the new cultures. The two theories of
intercultural communication theories are Hofstede's theory and Communication accommodation
theory which help Ben to run their business smoothly in Gulf country(Poulov and Cerna, 2018).
In Hofstede's theory there is five dimension of cultures which are power distance, uncertainty
avoidance, individualism , masculinity and long-term orientation. It is framework for cross-
cultural which help person to communicate and developed for the society's culture on the values
for its members and these values help Ben to understand the culture behaviour which is using for
making structures which is derived from the factors which is analysed. In Communication
adoption theory, it is frame work which has both interpersonal and intergroup communication.
This seeks to explain and predict why, when and how people adjust with their communication
behaviour during the social interaction and what social consequences which ave result from
those adjustments (hang and Zhou, 2019). This also includes the 4 principles which Ben need to
developed in their business so, that they effectively run their business.
Advice to Ben
It is advice to Ben that when they want to established their business in new country then
they should consider all important things which help them to understand the new culture and
religions of new country. The Ben need to follow theories of intercultural communication which
help them to understand the people culture of Gulfs country so that it become easy to established
and run their business smoothly in Gulf market (Saurwein, Pauzenberger and Xu, 2019). If
Ben, understand the culture of Gulf country then it ha abilities to attract the person and they can
easily influence the person and they can capture huge customer support in the market. If Ben
don't adopt and learn the communication theory then, it faced may problem while running their
business that they don't able to influence their people to sell their products in market. This is very
important for business that management must have communication skills and they must know
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about the different languages so, that they easily communicate with different people in the
market. This become necessary for Ben that they must know about the people taste and
preference which help Ben, to satisfied the needs and wants of their customers in market (Ursu,
2018). This directly impact on business of Ben's that they increased their sale of their business
and it can developed and grow their business in market.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from this report that intercultural communication is have huge impact on
the business which can directly affect on their process. It become very essential that if people
want to expand their business in new country then they must examine the people culture and
their religions which help them to communicate the people easily. If people don't examine the
new country regions and culture then they don't able to communicate the person and they don't
able to run their business because communication is the first thing which help person to
communicate with other and it directly impact on the business performance level and it increased
the sales of their business.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Alvarez, X.P., 2019, October. The virtual collaborative work and the development of
intercultural competences in university student's: The case of Virtual Global Teams.
In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Technological Ecosystems
for Enhancing Multiculturality (pp. 738-744).
Bartel-Radic, A. and Binet, M.E., 2020. Does International Mobility Really Increase Students’
Intercultural Competence?. Cross-cultural Challenges in International Management,
pp.209-226.
Luo, J. and Chan, C.K.Y., 2022. Qualitative methods to assess intercultural competence in higher
education research: A systematic review with practical implications. Educational
Research Review, p.100476.
Pikhart, M., 2018, August. Technology enhanced learning experience in intercultural business
communication course: a case study. In International Symposium on Emerging
Technologies for Education (pp. 41-45). Springer, Cham.
Pikhart, M., 2018, September. Multilingual and intercultural competence for ICT: accessing and
assessing electronic information in the global world. In International Conference on
Multimedia and Network Information System (pp. 273-278). Springer, Cham.
Poulova, P. and Cerna, M., 2018, April. Development of intercultural competences of students in
engineering disciplines. In 2018 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference
(EDUCON) (pp. 1283-1290). IEEE.
Saurwein, L., Pauzenberger, C. and Xu, F.H., 2019. Are internationalisation strategies and
intercultural competence a fitted glove?: A case study of part-time management
students’ learning experience through intercultural dialogue. In Educational Approaches
to Internationalization through Intercultural Dialogue (pp. 195-208). Routledge.
Ursu, O., 2018. THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN ACQUIRING INTERCULTURAL
COMPETENCE. A BUSINESS ENGLISH TEACHING PERSPECTIVE. Studii de
Ştiintă şi Cultură, 14(4).
hang, X. and Zhou, M., 2019. Interventions to promote learners’ intercultural competence: A
meta-analysis. International journal of intercultural relations, 71, pp.31-47.
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