Control of Foreign Operations Question - Cultural & Awareness (Please Help)

Question

I'm confused about the idea/concept of, control of foreign operations, can one explain please? When would a company would have to learn more about a country's culture, of say for example, a company that has branch plants that are managed by local people, as well as business foreign dealings who are handling it domestically, please explain if you can, thank you.

Answer 1

Culture is what we have subconsciously acquired, what we are used to, and what we have learned to navigate no matter how much we agree or disagree with it, because these patterns, norms, and behaviors are recognized, reinforced, and rewarded by the group, and non-compliance is often frowned upon or punished. Since values, beliefs, norms, customs, assumptions, perceptions, and recognized, reinforced, and rewarded types of behavior vary tremendously from one national culture to another, intercultural awareness, cross-cultural competence, and country-specific knowledge is indispensable. Interculturalists such as Edward T. Hall, Geert Hofstede, Richard D. Lewis, Erin Meyer, and many more have described so-called cultural dimensions to describe these differences. Some of them are low- vs. high-context communication, monochronic vs polychronic, low vs high power distance, low vs high uncertainty avoidance, expressive vs restraint, performance vs ascription, individualism vs collectivism, long- vs short-term orientation, task vs relationship orientation, and many more. These dimensions determine why we behave and communicate in a certain way, which shows in so many areas of business, such as presenting, persuading, negotiating, agreeing and disagreeing, giving feedback, complaints, reporting, leadership, decision making, building trust and relationships, meetings, scheduling, correspondence, and so on. Therefore, intercultural awareness, cross-cultural communication skills, and country-specific knowledge are crucial for any international business with branches, subsidiaries, and plants in different countries. Nevertheless, many businesses opt to skip intercultural training, save the money, and delve right into international business thinking that they will do just fine in a global world where many aspects of business are the same everywhere. However, this has cost many companies dearly, even the large corporations of this planet that should have known better. DaimlerChrysler is an example of a disastrous failed merger due to a lack of intercultural training and cross-cultural competence. At the time of the merger, in May 1998, Chrysler was worth $35bn. Nine years later, when the failure of the merger was announced in May 2007, the private equity group Cerberus bought Chrysler for a mere $7.4bn. Chrysler saved hundreds of thousands of Dollars in training to facilitate the merger, which eventually cost them more than $27bn in equity loss. This is one of the biggest and most famous failed international mergers and of epic proportions, but the alleged saving of training, which might only be in the thousands for much smaller companies, are missed opportunities and a guarantee for disaster and failure. International mergers and other business ventures, big and small, fail because both sides are not sufficiently informed and experienced in dealing with unfamiliar values, beliefs, norms, assumptions, communication patterns, behavioral habits, and world views to make the cooperation work.