Understanding Latin America

Question

What is the reason that personal relationships are essential when doing business with Hispanics? What other cultures around the world follow the same criteria? Give examples.

Why does the Latino culture clash with the North-American culture? Is the Latino a wrong culture?

What is the concept of TIME for Latinos? What does it represent? How does it link to the U.S. time?

What is the role of non-verbal communication in Latin Americans relations? Give examples.

In general, what is the perception of Latin American culture?

Answer 1

In general, personal relationships are essential in several countries not only in Latin America. Most of the "Latin" based cultures -Italians, Frenchs, Spaniards, etc- value relationships way over non-Latin based cultures.

The same applies to the concept and value of time, in the USA, we value time way more than almost any other place on earth, which is a great thing because increases efficiency.

There is not only ONE Latin American culture, this statement is wrong. In fact, most of the countries are TOTALLY different in how they deal with business and also day to day life.