International Business Communication Report: AstraZeneca and China

This report analyzes AstraZeneca's international business communication strategies, specifically focusing on its potential expansion into China. It begins with an introduction to Chinese culture, highlighting key aspects relevant to business operations. The report then explores the success and failure factors of joint ventures, crucial for AstraZeneca's entry into the Chinese market, and delves into cultural sensitivity, comparing working cultures in China and the UK. Hofstede's cultural dimension theory is applied to understand cultural behaviors within the organization. Intercultural communication theories are discussed to address potential communication challenges. The report concludes with recommendations and business communication solutions, emphasizing effective communication, cultural respect, and equal opportunities. It provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities AstraZeneca may face in international business communication within the Chinese context, offering valuable insights for successful expansion.

International Business
Communications

Table of Content
◦ Introduction
◦ Introduction Chinese culture
◦ Success and Failure factors of joint ventures
◦ Cultural sensitivity in China
◦ Hofstede's cultural dimension theory
◦ Intercultural communication theory
◦ Recommendations and business communication solutions
◦ Conclusion
◦ References

Introduction
International business communication is defined as the process of sharing the information and
ideas in between individuals in order to connect with different organizations globally.
AstraZeneca is the chosen organization for this presentation. It is a British multinational
company headquartered in Cambridge, England. This report is about the culture of China, how
the company will enter in such a different culture, what are success and failure measures of joint
ventures and what challenges will it going to face while expanding globally.

Introduction of culture of China
Chinese culture is the East Asian dominant and
world's oldest culture originated thousands of
years ago. Music, art, religion, literatures and
many more are considered as important
components to this culture. The culture values
of honest, loyalty, wisdom and harmony

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If AstraZeneca wants to expand its business in China, it will face following major challenges:
•Language Barrier: It is important to consider the type of languages spoken in the country where
you are going to open your new branch.
•Culture Barrier: Each country have its own culture and rituals. China has Buddhism, Islam and
others as major religion whereas, British culture has Christian in majority

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•Managing Global Teams: This is a important factor for any company to maintain the
overall information of its employees and workers.
•Religion: This is the most challenging factor as it may be the reason of clash in between
countries.

Success and Failure factors of joint
ventures
Joint venture includes the combination of two or
more business entities for the creation of a new
enterprise to earn more profit. As it have benefits
such as shared expenses, earn more profit,
popularity in another country and many more, it
also have some risk factors as they combined their
businesses on the basis of legal agreement

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Success factors
•Plan carefully: The organizations working in a joint venture, should plan their operations very
carefully.
•Communicate: It is an essential key to build healthy relationship. It should be clear that everyone
would understand about the joint venture agreement.

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Failure factors
•Cultural clashes: It may be major reason for the failure of a joint venture as different company
have its own culture
•Failure of promises: As two or more companies are combining together, they have to follow
some rules and regulations, they have to make some promises by signing agreements.

Cultural sensitivity in China
China follows a hard-working culture with non socialistic nature. This is the major reason why it
will tough for any other country's company to adjust in China(Zhang and Xiang, 2021). Similarly,
culture of U.K. is very different from that of China.

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Some major differences of working culture in both countries are
following:
•Business language of China is Mandarin whereas English is
business language of U.K.
•Business meetings are compulsory and face to face in case of
China which should be in confident manner whereas in U.K.,
most of meetings are via phone calls or emails.

Hofstede's cultural dimension theory
This model will be helpful to understand how society culture will affect its members.
Organizations use this model to understand the cultural behaviour of employees within
organization.