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Success in Intercultural Environments
Business students in today's society are under a consistent amount of pressure. If college classroom work is not enough then the lagging economy for jobs when we graduate and the ever evolving business environment should be sufficient. The business world has no boundaries anymore. The accessibility to better business anywhere in the world is here. If a student today wants to be successful in this environment they need to learn how to communicate on a different basis than before. Different social norms exist in every continent and we need to be accepting of this, and learn how to take advantage.
In order to understand what people are saying when they speak the origin of the language needs to be known; the culture is what makes the language. Edward Sapir (1921) a structural linguist defined language as a "non instinctive, acquired, cultural function" representing a "socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs." In the past as well as today linguists believe that language is construct of social, professional, and organizational communities, past, present, and future (Boiarsky 1995). In and around the world different cultures have different social norms. "Saving face" is a social norm for people of the Middle East (Boiarsky 1995). This is when people of the same identity bend the truth in order to save embarrassment. Asians have a few customs to know. They are more personal and informal before making business relations. First, becoming friends before making business transactions is necessary. An American traveling to Asia might spend a few days traveling before even speaking of business. Then before the Chinese make new business they need to know "kwan s ...