Analyzing International Business Communication for Tesco in Ireland

This report delves into the intricacies of international business communication, using Tesco's potential expansion into Ireland as a case study. It begins with an introduction to international business and communication, emphasizing the significance of cross-border trade and the role of effective communication in global business. The report then provides an overview of Ireland, highlighting its economic and infrastructural advantages for businesses. It applies Hofstede's cultural dimension model to compare the UK and Ireland, analyzing power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence. Cultural sensitivity is examined, focusing on the importance of understanding Irish culture, language, and traditions. The report identifies potential communication barriers, including linguistic and psychological challenges. Finally, it suggests communication strategies for Tesco to overcome these barriers and successfully establish its presence in Ireland. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and recommendations for effective international business communication.

International Business
Communications

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
International business and communication ................................................................................3
Introduction of Ireland................................................................................................................4
Hofstede Cultural dimension model ...........................................................................................4
Cultural Sensitivity......................................................................................................................6
Communication Barrier...............................................................................................................7
Communication Strategies..........................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
An International business and Communication is the study of essential business
principles which helps in understanding an international business environment. It includes
concepts of economics and finances which play important role in business world and other
international business affairs such as international negotiations, policies, labour laws,
intercultural communication and business strategies. An international business pertains to
commercialism of goods or services and exchange of technology, information, expertise across
national boarders with the view to setup cross boarder transaction and inception of business
between two or more countries (Blewitt, Parsons and Shane, 2018). For initiating a new
business setup at different country an organisation needs to adopt various methods like,
franchising, joint venture, licensing etc. A business communication in international businesses is
consider one of the most essential tool for an organisation to make easy presence at global stage.
This report will cover the moving of a UK based company named Tesco to another country
Romania with the view to initiate its own production therein. This report will illustrate all the
practical and legal aspects of moving a business production from one country to another
including international business communication .
TASK
International business and communication
International business signifies cross border trade activity in relation to commercializing
goods or services. The present contemporary world has set its foot in 21st century where cross
border trading is not new. Businesses around the world are operating beyond their domestic
borders. Every giant business organisation is seeking to expand business as well as market by
establishing business setup at different locations across the world. A business person always
seeks potential market in order to expand present business. Considering the current competition
in business world, many giant and successfully established business organisation are looking for
developing countries for expanding their business by capturing local market and resources. There
are many international institutions for international trade being constituted for promoting and
coordinating international trade. There are treaties and conventions which are to make business
resolutions in the form of charter which provides essential directions and procedure to
commence business at international stage (Bolten, 2020). Thus, globalisation is forcing

potential business organisation to set their foot in potential market across the world. To
established or shifting a production unit at different location or country, a strong political,
economical and trade relation the primary requirement between nations. An effective
international business communications between two nations is mandatory in order to established
effective business relation. Intercultural communication is essential to understand the domestic
nature of market (Clavijo-Olmos, 2022). A strong command in cultural communication between
two or more nations remove barriers in cross border trade or business. With the use of advance
technology the global community can easily communicate with each other to adopt and
understand the culture and create coordination to avoid any dispute. Therefore, digital media
platform have high potential for initiating smooth and effective, professional and inter culture for
businesses.
Introduction of Ireland
Ireland is the second largest continent after Britain situated at the Westernmost edge of
Europe. Ireland is famous for its green fields. It is a constitutional democratic country consists of
an elected parliament which is a supreme legal authority and president is the head of the state. In
terms of economy and infrastructure Ireland has a modern location and contains all the essential
resources which are required for a business including strong transport network which makes easy
access to European Market together with international supply chain. Ireland is an active member
of the European Union single market which makes it fastest growing economy including
sustainable public finances. Ireland also provides best educations which produces the great
talent which ultimately benefits for business growth by sourcing skills of talented candidates in a
business. Ireland is an attractive source for business environment as it provides many advantages
to the companies who seeks to make diversification of their business. It fosters the growth and
support the business activities to encourage innovation and new idea in a country. They have
involves less legal compliances and business friendly culture opens the door of opportunities for
business of other countries (Gabay, 2019) . The cost involves in carrying out business activities
can create significant hurdles for some businesses because labour cost are too expensive in
Ireland which may increase the actual cost of product.
Hofstede Cultural dimension model
It is a tool which is used for assessing the main facets for cross cultural communication.
The outcomes of these mode enables to understand the effects of culture on society at large and

established the values and behaviour of a nation. This model has classified the understanding of
culture into six different categories or dimensions of two countries including their cross culture
communication. The model will highlight the cultural dimension on United Kingdom and
Ireland. Following are the models of hofstede:
Power distance Index: In this, the assessment is made on the prevailing inequality and its
acceptability in society. It signifies the degree of inequality and prepares an inference about its
existence. Countries are given power distance index score which represents the culture of the
society wherein, the society members who do not support the uneven power distribution and
believes in equal distribution of powers shared among the community members. The United
Kingdom has attain the lowest power distance index score which is 35. The organisational
cultural in United Kingdom seems even this reflects that the lower and upper level management
is nearly equal. Whereas , the power distance index score of Ireland is a 28 which clearly
illustrates the low tolerance of equality between Irish community. Ireland is a society which as
per the Hofstede cultural dimension model and the PDI score believes on the belief that
inequality in a society should be eradicate (Hartley and Elowitz, 2020). Ireland has the legacy of
high context culture and the particularly the village culture in a Ireland is very collectivist
culture, different communities has a good understanding and they tend to help and support each
other. This makes the Irish a friendly country to live, move and establish a business.
Individualism vs. Collectivism: This approach is important to understand the cultural
behaviour and expectation to fulfil their demand. Collectivism helps the company to build brand
loyalty among the large base of consumers. Whereas individualism only focus on the need of
single person. Ireland has a score of 70 in relation to a collectivistic society. Loyalty with their
consumers are the paramount objective of the country. The people living in Romania gives
greater importance to societal rules and regulations.
Masculinity vs. femininity: The masculine dimensions plays significant role in dominating the
society by providing them quality and caring life. It is a great sign of their success and motivates
the people to invest their country where masculine are managed majority of work and focused on
creating equality, solidarity and flexibility in working culture. Ireland has scored of 68, which
helps in adding value to an organisation and resolve the dispute among the individuals.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index: A business environment plays significant role in achieving the
organisational goal. A stressful and dynamic business environment can affect the overall

performance of an organisation. It has lower score in Ireland which is 35, which means the
business model is based on innovative and creative ideas to deal with the problems.
Indulgence Vs Restraint: Indulgence identifies as a tool through which society allows human
being to enjoy and involve in various activities. Whereas Restraint stops the society from
enjoying the society and bound them with the strict rules and regulations. Ireland is having high
score of 65 and follows a culture of indulgence (Gomez-Trujillo and Gonzalez-Perez, 2020) .
People are highly engaged in enjoying the life, fun and fulfil all their desires. Here, an individual
have optimistic approach and positive attitude towards each other.
Cultural Sensitivity
Each country has unique and diversified culture that makes them different from others.
Different culture, language, custom and tradition are referred as cultural sensitivity. The people
see their culture as more superior and above all. People are closely resemble to their tradition
and very protective towards their language and values. Ireland is a native speaker of Irish
language and have dominating social culture that is defines as the real beauty of all corners of the
world. The Irish have rich heritage and English as their second language helps them to convince
the group of people while expanding their business in the developing countries. These people are
well known as conversationalist and very polite towards the other people. There are few
countries in the Ireland which only used Irish language such as Gaeltacht whereas business and
official meeting are generally conducted in English language. It is fastest growing country and
have very good economic record in terms of investment and overall growth of the nation. The
foreign investors are attractive towards their cultural behaviour and effective economic plans and
policies. It is a most well known for its unique identity which divides into Republic of Ireland
and Northern Ireland. Currently, Ireland have two famous communities that are divided into
Catholics and Protestants. The rural Irish are more conservative and follows their religious
beliefs. In order to expand their business in a developing countries, UK is required to conduct
effective research and development plans so, that they can easily understand their cultural
behaviour and language. The supermarket chain business of UK is well- known for its quality
foods and services to meet the need and demand of its consumers. Therefore, it is very important
for every businesses to respect and value the tradition and culture of every nation to survive in
their nation.

Communication Barrier
It is a kind of hindrance that prevents the person from accepting the conveyed message and
interpret that in a wrongful manner. It may cause confusion and conflict among the members.
The communication barriers has various drawbacks especially at workplace. It reduces the
overall performance of an individual. In context to international business, the communication
barriers is one of the crucial factor that creates barrier in achieving the organisational goal. For
making expansion of business in developing countries like Ireland, the communication barrier
must be taken into consideration so, that it will not create problem while in expanding a business
in Ireland (Mao and Mao, 2021). However, UK and Ireland has different geographical
boundaries, language, tradition, custom and culture that makes them different from each other.
The UK company still finds some communication barriers that are mentioned below:
Linguistic barrier: To ensure better communication among the people and consumer, it must be
communicated in the same manner which can be easily understood to others. For instance: When
two counties like US and UK, has same language which is English that may helps them to build
strong relation with other countries whereas the Irish language spoken in rural areas may hinder
the organisation to expand their business because people living in that area are incapable to
understand their views and language. The linguistic gap may create problems for Tesco to meet
their ultimate objective of growth and success in the country like Ireland.
Psychological barrier: This is one of the crucial factor that creates difference between two
counties because they have different prospective, ideology, opinions that finds difficulty in
making interaction with the people of other nation. For Instance: Those who are living in Ireland
has their own religious beliefs and taste that may enhance the psychological barrier to understand
the organisational structure and employees. The Tesco have their own goals and objective of
expansion of business which is not necessary meet to the cultural of the Ireland (Yagiela and
Meert, 2019). It also increase the dissatisfaction among the employees because people coming
from different nation have their own thoughts and opinions that may cause conflicts and dispute
among them.
There are various other factors that plays significant role in enhancing the communication barrier
such as emotional barriers, interpersonal dispute among employees, gender issues etc.

Communication Strategies
An organisation is framed many policies and strategies to compete with other organisation.
These strategies helps them to overcome barriers and expanding a business in other countries.
The cultural and communicational barrier always troubled them to operate their business in
developing nation. However, it is important for them to use communication strategy to make
effective communication with the consumers, stakeholders and employees etc. It will help them
to make strong relation with the people for marketing, public relations and effective internal
communication etc. Therefore, expansion of UK business in Ireland can mitigate the
communication barrier by formulating following strategy which includes:
Digital communication strategy: After globalisation and emergence of new technology,
international business is highly converted into digital mode which make it, very easy to interact
with large group of people by using social media and other platforms. A communication barrier
arises due to difference in language and cultural behaviour can be reduce through using different
channels of communication in Ireland (Sahadevan and Sumangala, 2021) . The visual
representation of product in their language helps them to aware about the products and will
definitely grab the attention of the potential buyer in Ireland.
Internal communication strategy: This barrier can be mitigate through communication in
many ways. An organisation of UK must use the E mail strategy to convey message to both the
parties so that information must be clear and in concise form. The information transferred from
one nation to another in their own language can be easily translated in the Irish language for
employees to make effective communication between them.
Non verbal communication strategy: The other communication strategy includes use of correct
tone, body language, facial expression etc. helps to communicate easily and it avoids
miscommunication among the people. It may help an organisation of UK to reduce the cultural
barriers through communicating in Irish language so that they can easily impress the consumers
with their products and services and make expansion of organisation. Body language and use of
impressive tone can succeed in the internation business.
CONCLUSION
From this above report, it has been concluded that the well known retailer supermarket
chain Tesco, is a famous brand of UK. An organisation aimed to expand their business in the

Ireland to achieve the growth of their business in the International market. Ireland has very good
economy and best place to make expansion of their business. But, there are certain challenges
has been faced by the Tesco due to different culture, tradition and Irish language leads to
ineffective communication among the members and consumers. Therefore, it is quite important
for them to strategies the plans and policies to overcome the language barriers. In order to
mitigate such barriers, UK is suggested to use digital mode of communication to reduce the
language barrier between the parties.

REFERENCES
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