Suchergebnisse

While the world of business may revolve around numbers, such as production and sales figures or profit and loss, no business is possible without people. In fact, all business transactions revolve around people. And when people interact, they need to communicate with one another. One could, thus, postulate that in essence no business is possible without communication. That is why an understanding of communication is critical to an understanding of business. And who better to explain what communication is and how it functions than some of the leading experts in the field of human communication w

The information and communications revolution has hastened the process of globalization in today's world of business. Consequently, businesses, even small and mid-sized companies, are confronted with cultural diversity when these companies become internationally active. Yet only few businesses are well prepared for a culturally diverse global market. Indeed, many business ventures fail not for a want of superior products and/or services, but due to a lack of intercultural competence. Disregarding the cultural component in a business transaction can and will lead to mistakes due to cultural misunderstandings which are the result of miscommunication. Because not much intercultural research exists for German American business ventures, this paper focuses on two German corporations, Buderus and Bayer, who are actively engaged on the American market to determine how they are coping with the cultural differences and measures they have adopted to surmount the cultural gap.