Cultural Stereotype
The role of interpersonal communication in business in the light of cross-cultural relationships with the representatives of different cultural environments lies within the scope of this essay. It is important to rely to the cultural stereotypes which are commonly recognized all over the world. Charles Mitchell (2000) considers the notion of cultural stereotype as the way of human interaction within different social groups. Stereotype consists of the cultural mores of a society and in the majority of cases, it is narrowed to the particular region. The core objective of the stereotype is formulation of the standardized image of a particular group in order to assign to it a number of specific characteristics, directed for simplifying the expected group behavior characteristics identification.
It is obvious that all the stereotypes have their exceptions and cannot cover all the areas of human activities, because each person is individual with his or her own values in their lives and approaches towards the standard life situations. At the same time, it is important to put an emphasis on the fact that the core factor of success in the effective cross-cultural communication is the ability to avoid the slavish adherence to the commonly recognized stereotypes. In addition, the behavior of the individual may be evaluated in accordance to ones’ individual features and in the light of the cultural context of a particular environment and personality.
There is a general trend of the cultural traits stereotyping, which is mainly applied to the large social groups or even to the entire societies. At the same time, on the level of one-to-one communication, this trend may fail and the personal characteristics won’t follow the prescribed type of behavior. It is obvious that everyone in the process of cross-cultural interrelation applies the stereotypes to understand the patterns of the behavior of the business partners and to predict their further activity. At the same time, it is important to pay additional attention to the fact that the business partner also considers You in the light of the commonly applied stereotypes, inherent to Your nation (Mitchell, 2000).
Mitchell has made a statement that the stereotype itself is not a negative tool for the cross-cultural communication improvement, because the process of forming the stereotype implies the deep analysis of the core features of the foreign culture and that is why it makes the managing of the cross-cultural complexities occurrence possible. The important feature of stereotypes, which has been also outlined by Mitchell, is their ability to be evolved. That, in turn, means that the stereotypes may be applied for the Cultural Revolution tracing both in the cases when the culture has been stereotyped and when the stereotype has formed the culture and its traditions. Thus, the behavior of the business partners should be considered in the light of their cultural traditions and that is why practical application of the existing stereotypes may be used as the pattern of the traditional behavior of the representatives of some particular countries.
Cross-cultural Differences
The next issue to be taken into account is the cross-cultural differences on the examples of particular countries. The importance of this aspect may be supported by the fact that people in the business world often forget about taking the concept of regional differences into account while forming the business strategy for a particular country or while planning the negotiation process or meeting with the representatives of the foreign countries.
It is important to pay additional attention to the fact that the core aspects of the cross-cultural differences imply the subtle and not-so-subtle differences within the frames of the culture and nation. In practice, the aspects of etiquette and cuisine do not limit these differences, because they also imply the psychological aspects of the national behavior. Language is an obvious aspect of the cross-cultural difference, but it also implies such factors as religion, psychology, time and philosophy of a particular nation. Business may be considered as one more specific ethnical feature of the country, which outlines its core values in the light of human relations and economic aspect of the collaboration with people (Walker, 2003).
That is why the failure to take into account the set of cross-cultural differences while starting the collaboration with the representatives of the foreign countries, who are living in the different cultural environments, can be highly-priced for the business entity, its image and efficiency of its activity in a whole.
To conclude it is important to pay additional attention to the fact that evaluation of the individual due to ones’ belonging to the minority group or due to ones’ gender and racial characteristics cannot be considered as an ethical one and as an economically effective approach towards human resource management.
In order to be successful, companies should apply the approach which implies the evaluation of the real achievements, skills and abilities of the individual while making the decision concerning ones’ career development. It is important to make an emphasis that the cross-cultural interrelation in the multinational social group should take in account all aspects of the human behavior and should remind the experience of the previous generations in the racism, gender issues and other types of discrimination and their outcomes.
