NATIONAL CULTURAL VARIABLES

 NATIONAL CULTURAL VARIABLES:

An entire country may have a series of cultural norms/standards; individual ethnic/tribal groups within that country may accept most of those norms as well as adding their own.

The National Cultural Variables are following

Ø      Education

Ø      Regulation

Ø      Economics

Ø      Politics

Ø      Social norms

Ø      Language

Education

You should be aware of the fact about the education level of the person which you are speaking. So communication lot depends upon education.

The following charts shows the education levels of Chinese, Asian and U.S Mangers

So you see the ratio of education levels in manager in different parts of world….!

Education Levels of Chinese, Asian and U.S Mangers
Highest level of education	Chinese %	Asian %	U.S %
Less than high school	5.4	2.5	0.1
High school graduate	31.8	12.4	3.2
Some college	34.6	19.4	16.9
Undergraduate degree	27.6	65.4	79.8
Post graduate degree	0.7	25.0	30.0

Laws and Regulations

In both the under-developed and developed nations, various government regulations affect business communications and sale of products.

The type of product to be advertised-for instance, “Cigarette” is restricted in Europe; also money spent on advertising is limited. Other countries such as France, Mexico and the province of Quebec also have restriction on the use of foreign languages in advertisements.

Economics

Availabity of capital and transportation and the standard of living per capita vary from nation to nation.

The opportunity to borrow money, the rate of inflation (price raise), and the exchange rates influence business and a country’s ability to communicate concerning that business.

For example in Pakistan the competitors usually set their own prices.

In contrast IEEE set their own standard for different computer equipments

Politics

Politics also effect our communication when we are doing business with our company can result even in personal harm. Even concepts of democracy will vary as interpreted in Korea, the Philippines, or Great Britain. Indeed, the sweeping political changes in Eastern Europe and its altered concepts of government will effect future business relations. Even the events Tiananmen square affected individual and business contacts with china; more changes will certainly occur in the future.

All such events affect communication, understanding of a country, and a company’s willingness to do business in an unclear political environment.

Religion

Religion in different areas of the world can effect the business and communications.

Recent statistics have shown some religious have totally changed the style of business and even the structure of that specific country. e.g.

In Afghanistan, Chechnya, Arabia, Iraq etc

In various ways national environmental constraints, education, law and regulations, economics, politics and religion effect a nation’s social norms.

Also family boundaries may exist between persons, based on caste, class, age. So aware of a nation’s social norms.

Language

Every body knows that knowing the language of a country is the most significant contribute to improved communication, on personal and business level.

Your communication is good when both sender and receiver have same language.

An important constraint that under girds all the preceding is language. English is a world language and to a major extent the language of business. But, you know some basic vocabulary of your host country. Each language has it is own sentence patterns and vocabulary. Thus, writing and speaking in a second language are more prone to errors.

It is an easy take to find support for this assertion: language problems are often core to communication misunderstandings.