Impact of Cultural Differences on India-Australia Business

This report examines the cultural differences between India and Australia from a business perspective. It highlights disparities in working hours, work culture relationships, equal employment opportunities, and the dignity of labor. The report emphasizes the impact of these differences on communication, decision-making, and overall business interactions. It explores how globalization and intercultural business have increased the need for cross-cultural communication skills. The report analyzes how cultural nuances affect business conduct, including time management, communication styles, and employee expectations. It discusses the implications of these differences for businesses operating in both countries, emphasizing the importance of understanding cultural values, norms, and communication patterns to foster successful business relationships. The report also touches upon the influence of cultural factors on employee behavior, work-life balance, and the need for adapting to diverse cultural contexts to improve business outcomes.

Management

Question: Discuss the key cultural differences from a business perspective between an Asia-Pacific and
India and Australia. Identify and interpret the ways these affect how business is conducted.
Every Country has different and the method of conducting the business also varies from each other. It
differs from state to state as well as country to country. There are cultural values and cultural
differences that creates different patterns of doing the business (Minkov & Blagoev, 2012). In this
report, there is a study about the cultural differences between India and Australia from Business
perspective. Some of the key differences are:
 Working Hours- Working hours means the hours put by an employee in a day in an organization
and it varies from country to country. There are people in Australia who works for eight hours in
a day but in case of India, people work for ten to twelve hours in a day (Kumari, 2010). The
major difference in work culture is that Australia has a fair work culture and people there have a
good balance between their work life and personal life as in India there is a completely different
scenario ("Culture, Diversity, Interculturality and Cultural Competence: Knowledge and
importance of the concepts in Social Work perspective", 2019).
 Work Culture relationships with Managers- People in Australia have cordial relationship with
their managers or boss in comparison to India. Australian bosses encourage the culture of flat
organization where there is a more of informal communication and they call each other by
names irrespective of their positions. There is nothing weird In Australia if boss behave in an
over- friendly way. Get a coffee or bear with boss is so normal but In India, organizations have
adopted a formal method and hierarchical organization engagement is adopted but again it
depends on the overall work culture of the organization. According to the research done by
Geert Hofstede and collaborators, they have concluded that Australia has a Low Power Distance
culture in comparison to India as they have adopted High Power distance culture.
 Equal Employment opportunity- As there are a lot of jobs, there are more sense of respect as
well as appreciation for Australian employers and their work culture. In Australia, opinion of
employees gets considered without being judgmental. Australians have a good attitude and they
appreciate qualities of the people. In India, employees are mostly judgmental in sometimes
because of their traditional perception related to color, caste, creed, sexual orientation and
gender (Jackson, 2015).
 Dignity of Labor- In Australia, people have a nice perception about work and according to them,
no work is small, and any person can do any work to earn livelihood fascinates Australians. At

the end of every task, the review and feedback are all about the performance. Australian have a
lot of respect, dignity for its labor but in Indian work culture takes it in other way. Australian
culture knows to respect every individual and even cleaner and plumber in Australia earn more
than an IT professional.
 Deliver results, keep promises and be on time- The Australian work culture is very good in its
own way and there is a very proper professional code of conduct that is mandatory all over.
Some other differences in culture are:
Particulars India Australia
Time Important Factor Non- Important Factor
Colleague Relationship Only Professional conduct at
work
Personal and Professional conduct
at work
Break Routine Short Breaks Long Breaks
Office Environment Focuses on Physical as well as
mental health
Focuses only on Physical health
Behavior Equal Behavior with everyone Behavior according to the position
The impact of the culture on business is so high. It gets influenced by communication as per the culture
and such factors matters because there is an increasing global interaction between people belong to
different culture. Culture has been defined in many ways like the values, behavior, perception shared by
group of people that is dynamic in nature (Jackson, 2014). There is a highly increasing intercultural
business all around the globe and understanding other culture has become a big challenge as well as
learning skills so that it become easy to adapt culture of others. India is a traditional country and is also
integrated with rest of the world because of globalization so it become really important for the
workforce of the country to become proficient with cross- cultural communication skills. It helps them to
work within the country as well as outside the country (MacNab & Worthley, 2012). It is important to
adapt this skill for not only people belong to Indian culture but also for the people belong to other
cultures like Australia as they might come to work in India. This cross- cultural adaptation is really very
important as it is important for both the Indian as well as Australian workforce. The most important skill
for any workforce is to create the ability in a quick way and work in a cooperative culture. It is important

for every person to behave in a sensitive way to other local traditions and culture. If any business wants
to be successful in global marketplace then it is necessary to work upon such areas like communication,
culture, etiquettes, people management skills and conflict resolution across country. In case of the
business aspect for India and Australia, if an organization wants to be successful then it is important to
understand the cultural differences and development of cross- cultural sensitivity for these differences
(Tian Guang, 2012). It is also necessary to understand the do’s and don’ts of a culture, all the cultural
beliefs, norms, customs and underlying values. In simple terms, it’s a mandate for the current workforce
involved in intercultural business to develop the knowledge about cross- cultural business
communication. There is a high rise between the India- Australia business, so it is a requirement for the
workforce of both the nations to learn, understand and adapt cross cultural communication to become
successful. Communication between people of different culture can be done with the help od written or
verbal language. Even in non- verbal communication, there is a big culture difference that can be seen in
communication. For completely understanding the interest of Australians in India or interest of Indians
in Australia, it means to be very critical to look over the complete knowledge of cultural, social,
psychological and communication context where the intercultural business exists (Intercultural
communication, 2010). There are many Indian executives that never has any exposure to the other
cultures, so for them it is really difficult to adjust in such different environment. Communication is the
most important factor when it comes to cultural differences between India and Australia because it
varies how people belong from different culture reacts in a situation. Sometimes there is a difference in
providing greetings and it may cause offence in terms of intercultural business and might taken as a rude
behavior. The main issue that influence cross- cultural business are: the cultural differences, linguistic
issues and prior experience in other culture. All these factors impact intercultural business interactions
(Bendassolli, 2016).
Many researches have been done on intercultural issues in business and intercultural communication is
a major concern when it comes to Australia- India. There is an increase in the interaction between
Australia and India and it is necessary to create a complete framework for understanding and filling the
gap between the culture of both the countries. With the help of this framework, it become so easy to
draw meaningful conclusions that can be used in Australian- Indian businesses to get success in the
business relationship. Communication patterns between Australia and India are very different and this
is an important business context because Australian businesses are setting up their offices in India as
well as collaborating with Indian businesses and same goes with India (Denov & C. Shevell, 2018).

In earlier times, Indians used to work with people belong to different countries in a big number and
there were vast opportunities but again it was limited because of cross-cultural issues. There are many
misinterpretations, frustration, missed deadlines and misunderstanding because of the cultural
differences and it create hinderances in a successful conversation (St. Amant, 2007). In a business,
people perceive and assume different things when there is a lack of knowledge about other’s culture. It
is important to know about their cultural values because somewhere those cultural traits impact the
behavior and way of thinking. Even in decision making, the differences because of the culture are clearly
visible as people belong to different culture are not able to understand the thoughts of each other and
they can never come on a common point (Calo, 2016). In Australia- India business, there is an excessive
communication issue and this gab requires exploration with the intercultural business interactions that
can be increase with passage of time between the two countries. Australia and US are known for high
individualistic culture and it only happens, when countries become more affluent. Because of the boom
in outsourcing, Indian employees are changing and converting their mindset. There is an observation
among Indian workforce as they are now highly educated and working for multinational IT companies
and it result in high affluence among the employees. Salaries for IT people have raised as per the global
pay standards. As we know Indians have usually regarded thriftiness and inexpensiveness, the overall
spread of bounty in the wake of snappy fiscal advancement is trying these characteristics (Jackson,
2015). They are provided with recognition and rewards, birthday rewards, marriage allowances, sign- on
bonuses and foreign holiday. This is resulting in high attrition rates as well as increasing materialistic
characteristics of a society (Gautam, 2013).
Australian are comparatively informal and direct as when it comes to asking question and answers, they
will bombard all the questions directly. In case of Indian, firstly they warm up the person and behave in
a very respectful way and focused toward the business. Indian people hesitate before saying something
and even in making quick and prompt decision. They resect the thoughts and values of others while
Australians are more of impromptu and they just say it and ask question in the first instance without
even understanding the state of another person. Such cultural issues play a major role while doing
business (Xie & Paik, 2018).
Business environment can be examined as per the across four type of population.
 Australians doing business in India but living in Australia.
 Australian working and living in India.
 Indian doing business with Australia and living in India
 Indians working and living in Australia.

All people working in other country face issues related to miscommunication while working across
different culture of different countries. There is a requirement of practical recommendation in order to
improve the efficiency if India- Australia business terms and create strategies to enhance Australian
firm’s competitiveness in the expanding and growing Indian Market. Removing tis cultural gaps also
helps in the business relation and exchange if business between both the countries. It can also result in
the improvement in economies of India and Australia in long run.
India is starting at now a capacity to be managed in the re-appropriating market, and a huge player in
the item and organizations adventures anyway there is barely any accurate research starting at now
being grasped that investigates the complexities of intercultural business associations, for instance,
factors that add to powerful encounters and factors that add to problematic and shelled encounters.
Australian and Indian associations stay to benefit by endeavored such research and improving working
relations among people from the two countries (Jingxia, 2012).

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