Companies contemplating doing businesses in other countries need to be aware of cultural differences which can hinder clear communication. This will impact company success.
For this report, your first step is to make up a fictional company. Be sure to think about what products/services the fictional company offers. Imagine that your company’s president (your boss) wants to explore the possibility of expanding one of the company’s products/services into a new country. She has asked you to research and write a formal report about the cultural factors that would surround this expansion.
Your boss is allowing you to select the country that the company is to expand into. Make sure to select a country that is culturally different than Canada. When planning your report, consider what your company’s president would need to know about the culture and potential communication problems before trying to do business in the new country. In your report, you need to provide sufficient information so that the president can start the process of expansion.
What sort of information might you want to collect?
Refer to Module 3 – Communicating Across Cultures in your textbook for ideas.
Watch this brief video interview titled So You Think You Understand Asian Business for inspiration (non-authoritative resource). http://knowledge.insead.edu/economics-finance/so-you-think-you-understand-asian-business-2368
Some ideas to consider as you prepare to research and write for your report:
• What other North American companies in your industry have had some success expanding into the country you chose?
• What did these companies learn from their experiences?
• Does the country have a high-context or low-context culture? What does that mean for business meetings and negotiations?
• What values, beliefs and practices could influence business communication?
• What differences exist with non-verbal communication such as body language, time and other symbols?
• What about oral communication, specifically conversational style?

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