CULTURAL SENSITIVITY IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

Being a manager is being responsible for every action that the business will take,
having a good character and mindset on handling the business or company is one of
most important that every manager must have to make the business or companies
successful and profitable in different ways. In our society today, different business
industries believe that we are now in a global world where in adaption to the needs of
local markets is important. Most of managers today have contact with their counterparts
or business partner or member in other countries, especially those companies that have
businesses not only in the Philippines and as a manager, understanding and respecting
the foreign culture is necessary especially when dealing and trading within international
market because it can affect the status, performance and markets of businesses in a
way that you communicate and interact with other people from different countries
worldwide. Actually, there’s a lot of factors that makes the country contradict with the
other one such as religious patterns and socio-cultural factors, so companies in every
countries must make an adjustments to such new or different environments for some
reasons such as your business is out of the line on the beliefs and tradition of other
country, maybe your target market is not enough familiar with your products, or even the
ingredients of your product is not allowed in other countries for religious purposes and
sometimes there are some nations consumes more on food than necessity and some
are not. Thus, if you are a manager you must understand and respect foreign culture for
you to know on how you handle your business within such country, if a manager is not
aware with other country’s culture, it might be a source of cultural misunderstanding and
can affect the businesses or companies.
Culture plays an important role on everyone’s life; it makes them connected and
sometimes apart as a fact that emotions and beliefs are attached to it. Without
understanding and respecting other’s culture will might cause cultural misunderstanding
and differences in their relationships that could make a bad impact on everyone’s life or
businesses, the way he or she behave or belief that’s why it is very important to all
foreign people or managers to do research when travelling from one country to another
o that they will be prepared on interacting on people around them. There are some
people that are culturally sensitive, and some are not that’s why it is essential to every
individual especially to foreign managers to deeply understand and must respect the
culture of the country where in he is living or travelling to avoid miscommunication.
Foreign managers should try to adapt the traditions, behavior, and lifestyle of other
country, it will give them a lot of experiences and knowledge where in they can use on
expanding or creating new or old businesses or companies and also for them to achieve
their goals. If they have an understanding on other country’s culture, probably they will
know how to interact, how to communicate and how to live on such country with
different culture. Lastly, it makes the company competitive if the managers have an
understanding the other country’s culture that giving them that ability to negotiate and
interact with other people worldwide.
Cross cultural training will be able to help the business managers to enhance
their skills and abilities on coping up with different environment. It will improve the level
of personal cultural awareness and perspective of the busines managers on the
different culture of people. This type of training is the most important factor to all
managers because it will make them excellent and knowledgeable on interacting and
communicating with other people from different environment.