Have you ever thought about living in a foreign country? Of course! Who doesn't want to go float around in Venice or cruise around in the Caribbean? Now, once you are there, have you considered getting a job or doing business while you are there? Have you ever considered how doing business with Caesar might be different than doing business with Mandela? Let's take a look. Business transcends time and cultures, but the way it is practiced depends on where and when. No matter where or when, as a business person you MUST be aware of your hosts business customs. For example, my grandma is from South Africa, so let's take a look at what has become the "do's" and "do not's" of South African business. First and foremost, how should you look? You will expected to dress well in public. In South Africa, you don't typically present gifts as a part of your exchanges. However, if you decide to make that gesture, DO NOT present gifts with your left hand! P.S. - If you are in a hurry you better be careful. South Africans take a casual approach to business and they are in no rush.
Now, let's say you are on the road to Damascus and you realize that you have forgotten your pen and paper to make and sign a contract with a fellow businessman. Is that going to be a problem? Lucky for you, everything will be okay. In many ancient civilizations, individuals had personal seals that they would stamp into clay in order to finalize a contract. The art of creating these seals is a form of folk knowledge in and of itself. They are beautiful seals, some like stamps and others that you would roll into a clay tablet to be used as your signature. http://www.bible-history.com/sketches/ancient/seals.html I wasn't able to find anything on this, but something that really interested me is if these seals and stamps were passed down the family line or if each individual created their own. I will do a little more research on that to see which was the common practice.
As cultures and civilizations show us, business customs are unique to each place in each time. Do we go to school to learn about these customs? Nope. We just grow up seeing and observing these practices and it becomes a part of who we are. But, if we ever hope to be successful in an international business venture, we had better educate ourselves about how they do it "over there".
As an international relations major, I really enjoyed your post, Scott. If you want another really interesting website to go to about doing business in different countries, go to http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/doing-business-in.html It has tips for countries from all over the world, from Argentina to Zimbabwe. For instance, in China, even though the country is communist and restricts religion, Confucianism has heavily influenced how a person does business. The belief revolves around the concept of harmonious relationships. Therefore, respect for your business associates, whether they are (professionally speaking) above of below you, is extremely important. Of course, respect is important in America and every other country in the world, and Americans often show their respect for someone when they first meet them by firmly shaking their hand. However in China, shaking hands firmly is condoned because a firm handshake will usually be interpreted as agressive. Although knowing how to shake someone's hand is a part of folk knowledge, we need to always be aware of how other cultures view our knowledge of something in a completley different way
ReplyDeleteSorry I removed the first comment, Scott. I tried to go back and highlight the link, but I wasn't able to figure it out, so I went back and just posted the exact same thing. Haha, you think knowing how to make a link work would be folk knowledge in our society in this day and age. My bad
ReplyDeleteMarc, I was also especially interested in your post, as I was an expat living in Tokyo, Japan for 6 years of my life. My dad encountered many of the problems you were talking about in adjusting to the mannerisms and nuances of a japanese businessman. For example, the Japanese have a very hard time saying no, so when you are trying to close a deal it is very hard to figure out if it is actually in their best interests because they always try to be very polite and never are upfront with you. This kind of knowledge is gained, as you said, through experience. It was very helpful that my dad spent two years as a missionary in Japan, because he dealt with people who had the same issue with getting baptized. He said the easy part was getting them baptized, the hard part was keeping them active, usually they just get baptized because they don't want to disappoint the missionaries. My dad gained this folk knowledge of Japanese peoples' behavior and was able to apply it successfully to his business abroad in Japan.
ReplyDeleteI've never really considered how business was conducted in the past before. I did read once that in ancient Israel they would record transactions on tablets, describing what was sold and signing their names at the bottom. I think this shows that even then they felt a need to ensure that they had proof of the transaction, like receipts today, just in case you made a deal with an unscrupulous person who later demanded more money. Speaking of which, I wonder how long the need for lawyers has existed... we know there were some in the Book of Mormon, at least, and even then they seem to have had a bad reputation among some people
ReplyDeleteOne of my first thoughts was, "Oh, business, this is father-tongue stuff." On second thought, though, I realized that what we are really talking about is at a level of knowledge deeper than language. You can say everything perfectly, technically speaking, and still botch a business deal if your nonverbal communication breaks down. That would actually be an interesting form of folk knowledge to look into - how do we learn and teach the nonverbal signals of communication unique to our culture and how can we learn a foreign nonverbal language?
ReplyDeleteThat is a very interesting form of folk knowledge, one I'm rather sure I would not be good at learning. I suppose I'm a little like the Japanese with not wanting to disappoint people as Andrew said, but I don't think I would want to force people to buy things either. I think it is neat how different cultures have different ways of making business transactions. And, remember, people from other cultures have to do the same things to know how to sell things to us in America. Although I'm sure it's relatively easy compared to other cultures. With many Americans you would just need to convince that they want the item since we tend to spend our money more easily than most other cultures do. I recently went to Washington D.C. and laughed as a particular vendor sold something to a member of our group and told him that he would give him free items if our group member convinced others to by things from the vendor. When we returned to the bus, almost everyone had matching headphones from the vendor.
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