Analysis of Intercultural Business Case: Mark's Communication Failures

This case study examines Mark's intercultural communication failures in a business context, specifically focusing on his interactions with Indian employees. The analysis begins by identifying Mark's misunderstandings of Indian organizational culture, highlighting the significance of high-context communication, as defined by Edward Hall, and the importance of understanding cultural dimensions. The study then employs Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory and Trompenaars Cultural Dimensions to explain Mark's challenges, emphasizing differences in power distance, individualism, and long-term orientation between the US and India. The study further provides practical advice for Mark, recommending strategies to improve communication, build trust, and foster better working relationships with his Indian employees. These strategies include respecting cultural nuances, building relationships before setting objectives, providing detailed information, and encouraging group collaboration. The conclusion underscores the importance of understanding cultural differences for effective cross-cultural communication and successful business operations.

INTERCULTURAL
BUSINESS CASE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Intercultural communication is a kind of exchange of information between people with
significantly different cultures. In this exchange of meaningful message take place between
members of different cultural group. Case study chosen for this assignment is Case 1.
MAIN BODY
 Where did mark Go Wrong?
Mark did not understand the type of culture that Indian organizations follow. Before
building trust and communicating with people it is important to understand cultural information
of that country. According to Anthropologist Edward Hall’s intercultural communication there
are two types of culture: high context and low context culture. India is a high context cultural
country where people are required to provide enough background information in order to
understand a message or a task. Major area where Mark was wrong was, He did not understand
the type of culture as it is extremely important to understand culture for intercultural
communication.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions can also be used to explain where did Mark go wrong and as
per this theory He did failed to understand Hofstede’s Dimensions of India. According to this
theory India has high level of inequality of power, India follows masculinity dimension but has
long term orientation index (Bennett, 2017). Whereas America has different dimensions that
affects the type of communication based on which trust and communication within two
individuals from different culture depends upon.
Mark also failed to understand the type of culture which helps people in working together. As
per Trompenaars Cultural Dimensions mark failed to understand employees of India because of
which he was facing difficulties in working together with them (Thatcher, Amant and Sides,
2017). Mark failed to understand that there is a lot of difference between working culture,
communication culture and countries culture of India and America. Failure of understanding this
cultural difference was Mark’s major problem.
 Ways in which Mark can understand this cross-cultural problem in a better manner and
Intercultural theories to explain it and support discussion
There are many ways in which Mark can understand this cross-cultural problem and resolve this
issue faced by him in communicating and working with Indian employees. Mark can understand
this cultural problem using three different theories: intercultural communication theory,
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Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory and Trompenaars Cultural Dimensions. Understanding
of all the above theories can help mark to understand in this problem in a better manner and
resolving and working With Indian Employees in a much better manner (Anderson Meli and
Koshy, 2017).
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory: Using this theory Mark can understand difference in
culture of America and India. This difference will help him in understand the way in which
business is done in different countries. There are three major factors in which India and US are
different that are Power distance index, individualism and long-term orientation and rest of the
others are quite similar or it can also be said that there is not much different in other two factors
(Webb and Vaughn, 2019). According to this theory power distance index of India is much
higher than of US which helps in understanding that power and inequality difference is easily
accepted in India as compared to US. Individualism is much higher in US as compared to India
i.e. in India greater importance is given to well-beings and goals of a group. Lastly, Indian
focuses on long-term orientation i.e. their main focus is on future because of which they delay
short term success. This dimensional theory will help mark to understand cultural difference
between both the countries.
Figure 1 Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions of America and India
Anthropologist Edward Hall’s Intercultural communication theory: As per this theory there are
two main contexts of cultures. With the help of this theory mark can understand difference in
context of culture of US and India. There are two different types of cultural communications:
high context cultural communication and low context cultural communication. With the help of
this theory mark can understand that India is a high context cultural theory (Holliday, Kullman
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and Hyde, 2016). In this culture a message delivered cannot be understood without explaining all
the background information related to it. In this culture communication is based on following
tendencies such as: relationship is slowly built upon trust; non-verbal elements are significant
when interacting with anyone. In this multiple source of information is used for learning. Using
this theory mark can understand the way in which he can communicate with employees of Indian
company. This will also help him to build trust and communicate with Indian employees in a
much different manner. this will also help in understand where he is going wrong and what his
employees demand or expect from him.
Trompenaars Cultural Dimensions: this theory can help Mark to understand different types of
culture that can help an employee to work more efficiently with people of different culture
(Holmes, Dooly and O'Regan, eds., 2017). It is one of the best theories that can help a manager
to communicate with their employees of different culture. As per this theory Indian employees
are particularism, communitarianism, neutral, diffusion, achievement, synchronous time and
have external control. Understanding these cultures will help Mark to understand Indian
employees working and way through which he can communicate with them.
 Advice for Mark
Based on above analysis it, here are few advices that can help Mark to strength
communication with his Indian employees and build trust among them. These advices will help
mark to strength his relationship and communication with Indian employees. Using all the three
theories explained above here are few advices that can be used by Mark to strengthen his
relationship and trust with his employees which will eventually improve his communication with
his employees:
He can call out come specific rules that will be required to be followed by each and everyone
including himself and will focus on respecting each and every individual need so that they can
respect his decision making. Understand his employee’s true emotions as most of them wone
express their emotions publicly. Focus on building relationship with his employees before setting
objectives or providing them with work. Avoid using titles and focus on providing detailed
information of each and evert topic or agenda. Rather than setting goals, Mark should provide
feedback to their employees so that they can understand their mistake and bring correction within
themselves. Allow people to complete their work individually by collecting information from
multiple sources so that they can complete their provided task in a better manner. Encourage
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bureaucracy and respect the organizational structure or ranking. Let employee work in a group to
achieve goals or objectives of a group as most of the employees focus on goals of a group rather
than achieving their individual goals. Do not interfere in other work and provide them with all
the basic required information so that they can complete their tasks accordingly.
CONCLUSION
From the above business case study, it has been summarized that there are various kinds of
cultural difference within countries because of which various kinds of cultural differences are
created which further affects working environment, way of communicating and working of that
particular country. So, understanding cultural difference between two countries can help an
individual to work and communicate with different cultural difference people.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Anderson-Meli, L. and Koshy, S., 2017. Intercultural Communication Theories and Public
Relations Practice.
Bennett, M.J., 2017. Developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. The International
Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication. pp.1-10.
Holliday, A., Kullman, J. and Hyde, M., 2016. Intercultural communication: An advanced
resource book for students. Routledge.
Holmes, P., Dooly, M. and O'Regan, J. eds., 2017. Intercultural Dialogue: Questions of
research, theory, and practice. Routledge.
Oetzel, J.G., 2017. Effective intercultural workgroup communication theory. The International
Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, pp.1-5.
Thatcher, B., Amant, K.S. and Sides, C.H., 2017. Teaching Intercultural Rhetoric and Technical
Communication: Theories, Curriculum, Pedagogies and Practice. Routledge.
Webb, N.G. and Vaughn, M.S., 2019. Teaching the Communication Course: Intercultural
Communication. Journal of Communication Pedagogy. 2(1). p.11.
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