1

DRAFT: Katan, David (1999) “Business is Business?: Communicating across Business

Cultures”, La didattica delle lingue di specialità: problemi e difficultà traduttive, (ed)
C. Taylor Torsello, Edizioni Università di Trieste, pp. 109-125.

Business is Business?:
Communicating across business Cultures

1.1. European Business Language needs

.

1.2. Business is business: the Role of the interpreter.

In the business environment, the interpreter is at a crossroads. When there are

language problems, the interpreter is rarely the preferred choice. Hagen (1994)
notes that "Companies are cynical about the use of university trained interpreters",
and a recent University of Nottingham research report (Arijoki, 1993: 14) echoes
the same idea:

[business] respondents were very much in favour of independence from

interpreters.

In short, the interpreter is the least desirable alternative in international business

communication. Apart from costs, there are two basic reasons. First, there is a
general feeling that if you can establish relationships and conduct business in your
own language and culture, this can be equally well done in a foreign language and
culture - as long as you have the language. After all, business is business/gli affairi
sono affairi.
As a result, European companies are increasingly either employing managerial
level staff with English as a sine qua non or budgeting for second language needs
through internal training courses. Le Generali, for example, spends about 300
million lire a year from its own training budget (covering all areas of insurance in-
service taining) on business English courses.
As Hagen's survey shows (1993: 57), these examples fit the pattern thoughout
Europe.

XXXX
need a statistic or quote showing that companies are increasing training (in
English)
XXXX
English is clearly the first second language, though, as the survey includes the
second language use in Britain, the pre-eminence of English itself is less apparent: 1

English 42%
German 34%
French 31%
Italian 11%

1The most important 2nd languages used in 5 representative regions in Europe: England,
Denmark, Holland, Germany, and Spain. The percents amont to more than one hundred because
respondents indicated all foreign languages used in the company - not just the most important.
 2

So, the Tower of Babel from a language point of view does not really exist as
nearly half of the regions surveyed communicate in English at an international
level, and almost all communicate in either English, French or German. Yet,
something greater (to misquote Genesis (11.7)) has confused their language to
create a communication Tower of Babel.
International business communication is still more a case of international
communication breakdown and failure. According to a survey by Frank, quoted by
XXXX 50%-75% of international ventures (joint ventures and mergers) fail
through problems in communication. According to an unpublished study, cited by
Harper (1993: NEED p.) more than 50% of managers involved in French/German
mergers noted that conflicts in work relationship were not due to technical
problems but to cultural differences in work and management production.

1.3. Business Communication and Culture

When people do business, they often think that they can leave culture at the
door. This may inded happen for a short period when business is strictly technical
business, and people (their opinions or interests are not involved). However, culture
cannot be entirely forgotten.
Scarpa (forthcoming) notes that not even computer manuals cansimply be
translated. When individuals are involved in a negotiation, for example, different
companies will have different ways of doing things, There are, in fact, as we have
already mentioned cultural differences at work: corporate cultures. As The
Economist notes in an article entitled 'The Trouble with Mergers' (10/09/94):

Corporate marriages are hard to resist, but rarely turn out happily. [...] Even
complimentary firms can have different cultures, which makes them tricky.

However, as Schneider (1991) notes, though people, and The Economist in

particular, may acknowledge the importance of corporate culture in international
business communication:

There are serious doubts about the possibility of developing corporate cultures to
provide integrative glue for international companies.

Geert Hofstede (1991: 236, 239) conducted one of the largest research studies
on this very point. He investigated the degree to which the IBM glue affected office
practices compared to national ways of doing things. The results of his survey,
covering 116000 IBM staff from over forty countries show that:

CHECK
The national culture impact on organisations is profound and affects on both
business and government [and] managers chronically underestimate cultural
factors in the case of mergers and acquisitions.

This message, that business is affected by culture, has yet to filter through to the
business community at large. At this point, though, it is as well to define culture.

2.1. What is Culture?

In the 1920s, Malinowski (1938: 301) realised that the following literal
translation from Trobriand into English made little or no sense:
 3

We paddle in place, we turn we see companion of ours, he runs rear-wood behind

their sea-arm Pilolu."

As it stands, the statement means little or nothing to an English audience,

theough the translation is, at a lexico-grammatical level, correct. As he says:

Now, if the listener, whom we suppose acquainted with the language, but
unacquainted with the culture of this statement, he would first have to be informed
about the situation in which these words were spoken. He would need to have
placed them in their proper setting of native culture.

When the listener is able to place the words within their proper setting of culture
s/he will realise that this is no statement of fact, but is (1938: 310):

[...] a boastful reference to competitive activities, to ceremonial overseas

expeditions, to a complex of sentiments, ambitions and ideas.

As an anthropologist, he knew what he meant by the word 'culture', yet it has

been notoriously difficult to define. By 1952, American anthropologists Kroeber
and Kluckhohn had compiled a list of 164 definitions. Their lengthy (165th)
contribution was as follows:

Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit pd [check] and for behaviour
acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of
human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of
culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and
especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be
considered as products of action, on the other, as conditioning elements of future
action.

By 1967, Seeleye begins his book (1967: 6), entitled "Teaching Culture", with
the following:

I know of no way to better ensure having nothing productive happen than for a
language department to begin its approach to culture by a theoretical concern for
defining the term.

And more recently, Trompenaars (1993: 22) , an international consultant and

writer on cross-cultural management at the Centre for International Business
Studies in the Netherlands, admits that:

In fifteen years I have seldom encountered two or more groups or individuals with
identical suggestions regarding the concept of culture.

Finally, according to the 10 volume Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics

(Asher, 1994: 2001) we have further confirmation that:

Despite a century of efforts to define culture adequately, there was in the early
1990's no agreement among anthropologists regarding its nature.

However, there is a way to overcome this impasse, which can also accommodate
the following opposing beliefs: business is business wherever you are, and business
is culture wherever you are. The solution to this paradox is to treat "business" and
"culture" not as things but as systems with a number of interrelated and strictly
hierarchical levels.
 4

2.1. A Model of Culture

We will introduce a model which has been developed in Neurolinguistic

Programming (NLP). According to this model of biological systems, each level
2

progressively influences the meaning of the signs (whether they be words or

actions) at any other lower level.
At the most superficial level 'culture' is very visible, and in itself not particulrly
important. At this level, business can indeed be just business, whereas, at the
deepest level, culture is invisible, but extremely important. In this adapted NLP
model there are 5 principal levels, with strategies bing divided between visible
conscious and invisible unconscious:

VISIBLE/CONSCIOUS

INVISIBLE
UNCONSCIOUS
identity
values
strategies
strategies
behaviour
environment

Many other authors have constructed a similar model of culture. In the 1950s,
Hall (1990) noted that there is an iceberg effect. The outer layer, which is visible is
only a minimal part of what culture is; the rest is hidden, or implicit. However, as
he points out, there is a layer which is sometimes above and sometimes below the
conscious water-line. Hofstede (1991: 9) talks about the culture as a multi-layered
onion, and discusses two principle levels: visible and invisible. Trompenaars (1993:
18) suggests that culture is composed of having three layers.
For now, we should look at a more detailed division of culture, and see how
each level affects communication in the professional environment.

2.2.1 Environment: where, when

This level of culture provides the immediate context within which

communication can take place. It may be a meeting room, a medical congress, a
technical manual or a fax. The context in an international business environment
will not vary greatly, but the contents or discussions, and how the environment is
presented will be culture-dependent.
The layout of an office, for example, has implications in all cultures, but the
implications will be culture-bound, and indeed whether or not one has an office is
an indication of one's corporate identity. The criteria, though, are culture-bound. In
an open plan office, for example, the 'window people' (Mead, 1990: 149) would be
regarded as having a better position in the West. In Japan, however:
2NLP has adapted the ides of logical levels from Gregory Bateson, who in turn took the idea
from Bertrand Russell's concept of 'Logical Typing'. See O'Connor & Seymour (1993).NEED
PAGES
 5

[...] the employee moved to a window desk is being discreetly told that his or her
services are no longer crucial, and that if he or she should decide to find some
other job in preference to fruitless hours spent staring out of the window, this
would not be regretted.

Leaving the office door open at work is another, usually unconscious, behavior
with a number of alternative metamessages. If you are American, it will mean "I'm
open for business". A closed office door, on the other hand, signifies privacy, and
may well be viewed negatively. If, on the other hand, the office door is closed in
Germany, the signal is "everything is in order, and it's business as usual." An open
door here, suggests disorder, untidiness, and maybe disrespect (Kramsch 1993:
209).

2.2.2. Behviour: what?

What is done, i.e. "the business" can indeed be a plain and simple transaction at
this level. This is particularly true when relations, the establishment of rapport is
not in the mutual interest of either party. This may well be the case, for example,
when a client is buying a standard component, and is comparing prices by fax; or a
technician is explaining the technical specifications of a machine.
This is the WYSIWYG level of culture. There are no hidden assumptions behind
the communication. Information is being passed. This is what Brown and Yule
(1983) call transactional language., and Edward Hall (1990) termed "technical
culture". There are precise technical facts which can be explained and there is a
technically right way of doing things.
It is at this level that the business community is most aware, and notices the
shortcomings of an interpreter. An interpreter without the technical language of, for
example aviation insurance, will clearly be in difficulty.
However, what is done or not done, written or not written, said or not said in a
particular environment is always circumscribed by rules of appropriacy, manners
and, more recently, political correctness. What is appropriate, good manners or
politically correct is never universal but culture-bound.
For example, when we meet our counterpart from another country for the first
time, the environment may be shared (location, job title, professional training) but
the expected behaviour may well be very different. The expected address may be
with first names (Call me Chuck), surnames, professional titles or via the
presentation of business cards - depending on the culture.

2.2.3 Conscious Strategies

Address terms and other rituals, though complicated, can be learnt. And there
are many valid guide books to expected business behaviour, many of which give
lists of "Do's" and "Don'ts". These can be valuable for short term communication
and compliment Berlitz style survival phrase books.
The Mcdonalds fast-food chain have tecnically unravelled another
conversational routine "the service counter genre". This routine is usually carried
out unconsciously, and most people are unconscious of the fact there is indeed a
"routine". It is, as Hall says an out-of-awareness behaviour pattern. Once the
routine is understood, it can be tought. Below is a short sample of what McDonalds'
staff learn to do and say every time they meet a customer (Hampden-Turner &
Trompenaas, 1993: 42-3):
 6

Greeting the customer Yes No

1. There is a smile ____ ___
2. It is a sincere greeting ____ ___
3. There is eye contact ____ ___

Assembling the order...

1. The order is assembled in the proper
sequence ____ ___
2. Grill slips are handed first ____ ___
3. Drinks are poured in the proper sequence ____ ___
4. Proper amount of ice ____ ___

Asking for & Receiving Payment

1. The amount of the order is stated clearly
and loud enough to hear ____ ___
2. The denomination received is clearly stated ____ ___
3. The change is counted out loud ____ ___
4. Change is counted efficiently ____ ___
5. Large bills are laid on the till until
the change is given ____ ___

Thanking the customer & asking for repeat business

1. There is always a thank you ____ ___
2. The thank you is sincere ____ ___
3. There is eye contact ____ ___
4. Return business was asked for ____ ___

As the McDonalds' example shows, unconscious strategies can be made

conscious, and a business person too can learn appropriate sets of practices.
However, like the reductive model above, these routines are inflexible, unnatural,
and can never cover every situation. What actually stimulates a native speaker to
communicate using a particular strategy as governed by what Hall calls the
"informal culture".

2.2.4. Values

What a person, and his or her culture values, is part of the informal culture. At
this level, 'culture' is completely 'out-of-awareness' and relates to deep-seated
values and beliefs which guide the accepted behaviours (as shown by the Logical
Level model). It is at this level that cross-cultural communication is at its most
delicate.
Each action is perceived according to what is valued. As Hofstede aptly puts it
(1991: 8): "values are feelings with an arrow on it: they have a plus and a minus
side." The values with a plus sign are what motivate us. Anthropologists believe
that that individuals all have to face the same universal problems. The responses or
solutions favoured by each group of people become the dimensions or orientations
through which society filters and makes sense of experience.
Many authors (and disciplines) have come up with a taxonomy of cultural
orientations. Florence Kluckhohn (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961: 10-20), who
 7

coined the term 'value orientation' suggests that there are five basic problems
3

common to all human groups. They are as follows:

1. What is the character of innate human behaviour?

Human Nature Orientation
2. What is the relation of man to nature (and supernature)?
Man-Nature Orientation
3. What is the temporal focus of human life?
Time Orientation
4. What is the modality of human activity?
Activity Orientation
5. What is the modality of man's relationship to other men?
Relational Orientation

For each of these questions there are three possible responses that constitute
culture's (dominant or variant) value orientations. Her definition of value
orientation is as follows:

Value orientations are complex but definitely patterned (rank-ordered) principles,

resulting from the transactional interplay of three analytically distinguishable
elements of the evaluative process [...] which give order and direction to the ever-
flowing stream of human acts and thoughts as these relate to the solution of
'common human' problems.

It should be pointed out that every culture and every individual will, in theory,
have access to every orientation, but will, in fact, tend to favour the use of one
orientation over the others, and conversely will have difficulty in comprehending
the other orientations.
So, although business people communicate and relate with other people
throughout the world, each individual interaction may 'naturally' be seen as
communication between people, or 'naturally' as communication about business. If
two business men, for example, are discussing a possible purchase, the folowing
conversation could be misinterpreted:

A: "I hope we can discuss the business today and finalise proposals".
B: "We suggest you change hotel- you'll be more comfortable and can relax
better there...".

The meaning of this communication exchange will depend on the cultural

orientations of the interlocutors, and consequently - what they value. 'A' is oriented
towards "time" as a constraint and separates "task" and "relationship", i.e. business
and pleasure don't mix. If the business goes well, then (according to 'A') one can
begin to trust the client and develop a relationship, which is understood to be a very
personal and individual matter.
'A' therefore interprets 'B's' suggestion to take time to relax and enjoy himself as
a sign that there is no business to be transacted:

3She also mentions a sixth common human problem, man's conception of space,
but admits that the orientations "have not been worked out sufficiently well to be
included" (Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck, 1961: 10).
 8

Culture A Culture B

We suggest
you change hotel -
you'll be more
comfortable and
I hope we can can relax better
discuss business there

Environment

Behaviour

Strategies

Busines is AS IF
MEANING Values Relationships
business. Values
Beliefs ensure business
IN CULTURE 1
Time is money Beliefs Time is relative

However, 'B' has a different cluster of orientations; he values relationship as a

means from which business can start. "Time" is also perceived as a relative variable
- it is not a constraint. Hence, the message being sent is that business is very much
at the centre, but should only be developed if it can be guaranteed through a
personal relationship.
A negotiation strategy, therefore, for 'B' will tend to start from the very indirect,
circling around towards the direct. 'A's' strategy, on the other hand is to outline the
points on the agenda, and "get down to business" as quickly as possible.
If the business people are not aware of alternative ways of understanding business
communication then these and all other discussions are going to cause at least elements
of frustration, if not total breakdown, as happened between Richard Nixon and Prime
Minister Sato of Japan.
President Nixon was in Japan to discuss trade and the Okinawan islands with Prime
Minister Sato. In the middle of negotiations he had conceded the islands to Japan. He
therefore asked that Japan might provide some concessions regarding import quotas to
the United States. The interpreter duly translated the request, and Sato’s reply was:
zensho shimasu, which was literally interpreted as "I will deal with the matter in a
forward-looking manner."
Nixon later discovered that Sato had done absolutely nothing to stem the flow of
imports into America. As Kondo (1990: 59) writes : "Nixon felt betrayed and thought
all Japanese politicians liars and utterly untrustworthy." Nixon's response was then to
inflict as much political and economic damage as he could on Japan.
Sato's intention was, however, entirely honourable. He wanted to underline the fact
that Nixon was an honoured guest, and therefore was being offered a diplomatic 'no'.
A fellow Japanese, on the other hand, would have correctly interpreted the indirect
nature of Sato's sensho shimasu.

2.2.5. Identity
 9

This is the final, and most important level of culture. A person is at once an
individual and will also identify with a variety of groups. These groups can be
labelled as cultures. An idea of the variety of cultures one can be a member of is
given below:

• Gender (male/female)
• Ethnic (British, American, Black English, Afro-American)
• Religious (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish)
• National (Italian, British)
• Geographical (North/South; Alpine/plains)
• Regional (Venetian, Mancunian),
• Professional (legal, human resources, EDP)
• Age (teenage, 30 something, Senior Citizen)
• Class (High autonomy, Low autonomy)

Each 'identity' will entail a different set of values and beliefs, thus enabling
certain strategic patterns resulting in visible behaviour - though some clusters or
orientations will remain constant.

3.1 The Future

From the above, it should be clear that there is a great need for either the
business community when speaking in lingua franca to learn about culture and to
obtain the mediating skills necessary to understand another's intention, or to employ
the services, not of an interpreter but a cultural mediator. 4

The business community is, in fact, beginning to realise this need, as cross-
cultural courses and seminars begin to become the norm, and cross-cultural books
become required reading for all those involved in international communication.
Recently, and rather belatedly, the Department of Trade and Industry has also
produced a series of 4 sixteen page handbooks distributed free to companies to
heighten the awareness of the cultural factor in international business. One of the
four guides is entitled 'Translating and Interpreting', and focuses on the need for a
professional culturally aware interpreter for successful business.
With regard to the interpreter's role there needs to be a sea-change. The
interpreter should no longer be seen as a walking generalist translator of facts, or as
an ignorant intruder, but as a specialist in negotiating understanding between
cultures (whether business or national). This new role, according to Ritchie (1981:
244), among others, would cover some of the functions of a "community
psychologist, who is engaged in therapeutic intervention".
Richard Brislin (1981) also makes specific suggestions regarding increasing the
role of the interpreter. His specific suggestions regarding 'speculative strategies'
5

(slightly adapted here) revolve around the interpreter as chair or referee:

1. the interpreter works with all parties before the event to be interpreted. This
means, for example, going through any texts to check for any possible cross-
cultural problems;
2. interpreters to be given explicit permission to stop a conference if they feel a
misunderstanding is causing difficulty;

4this term is used by Bochner, ibid..

5For further reading on the role of the cultura mediator, see Katan 1996 and forthcoming)
 1
0

3. Interpreters to prepare materials for cross-cultural meetings for participants to

read, including desirable behaviour, and intercultural communication points.

These suggestions point to a new identity for the interpreter: a cultural mediator.
However, and very importantly, as Kondo (1990: 59-65) points out in his article
which discusses the Nixon interpreting fiasco, and entitled: "What Conference
Interpreters Should not be Expected to Do", this cannot happen overnight.
In the meantime, and more importantly, those embarking on a profession which
necessarily involves communicating across cultures must acquire a conscious set of
cross-cultural strategies and mediating skills which will enable them to do what
they really want, which is, of course, business.

Bibliography

Arijoki, C. (1993) "Foreign Language Awareness in the Business Community", in

Language and Culture Bridges to International Trade, Proceedings of the 5th
ENCoDe International Seminar, Lancaster Business School, University of of
Central Lancashire: 13-33.

Asher (1994)
Brislin, R. (1981) Cross-Cultural Encounters, Allyn and Bacon, M.A.

Castellaro, B.(1996), Head of language training "Le Assicurazioni Generali",

personal communication.

Frank, G. (1990) 'Mergers and Acquisitions: Competitive Advantages and Cultural

Fit', in European Management Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1 March NEED p. nos

Hagen (1993) "The Foreign Language Needs of European SMEs: An Empirical

Approach", in Language and Culture Bridges to International Trade, Proceedings
of the 5th ENCoDe International Seminar, Lancaster Business School, University
of of Central Lancashire 50-60.

Hagen, S. (1994) personal communication

Harper, J. (1993) 'Cross-National Mergers and Joint Ventures: The Cross Cultural
Issues and the Role of Training', 75-82: 76, ENCoDe.

Hofstede, G. (1991)

Kondo, M. (1990) The Interpreters' Newsletter, No. 3. pp. 59-65.

Kroeber and Kluckhohn, F. (1952)

Malinowski, Bronislaw (1938) "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive

Languages", The Meaning of Meaning; A Study of the Influence of Language upon
Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, Ogden and Richard, Fifth edition,
Harcourt, Brace, New York: 296-336.

O'Connor, Joseph and John Seymour (1993) Introducing Neuro Linguistic

Programming, Aquarian Press, London.
 1
1

Pentucci and Falciasecca, 1992

Ritchie, J. E. (1981) 'Tama Tu, Tama Ora: Mediational Styles in Maori Culture' in
Bochner. S. (ed) (1981) The Mediating Person: Bridges between Cultures,
Schenkman, Cambridge, 221-245: 244.
Schneider, S. C. (1991) 'National versus Corporate Culture: implications for human
resource management' in Vernon-Wortzel, H. & L.H. Wortzel (eds.) Global
Strategic Management: the essentials. 2nd edition, John Wiley, London.

Seeleye, N. (1967)

Trompenaars F. (1993)