Articles
For your benefit, we offer an extensive library of interesting articles on international business strategies and cross-cultural interactions.
To read any of the articles, simply click on its title. Below is only a subset of what's available, so please check out our newsletter archive for a complete list!
Global Business Fundamentals
Ten Steps to Prepare for Global Business Interactions
At long last, here is a structured approach to conducting business in a foreign country and culture. For each required step, the article explains how to approach it and what you will gain from taking it. Frequent international examples illustrate the key concepts.
International Business: The Cost of Not Being Prepared
Companies have lost huge amounts of money because they engaged in international business without proper preparation. This article analyzes some examples and investigates root causes of poor cost effectiveness in foreign engagements.
Organizational vs. National Culture
Most business leaders believe that if managed right, the culture of their company or organization will be so powerful that influences of national culture become secondary. Not so. This article shows the real picture.
Religion and Global Business
How do religion and faith affect the ways in which we do business? More importantly in international business, how do others' faith and beliefs impact you? This article discusses a few vital questions around religion and global business.
Negotiation
International Negotiation: How Do I Get Ready?
There is hardly a better opportunity to foster your success when conducting business on a global scale than to thoroughly prepare for cross-cultural negotiations. Even experienced negotiators struggle if they are unfamiliar with country and culture. This article discusses principal differences and approaches, and makes suggestions how to prepare well for your upcoming international negotiation.
Negotiation Essentials
Are you one of those who does not really like having to negotiate? If so, this article may be for you: it discusses basics that are easy to leverage, don't take much time, and apply to personal and business situations alike.
Global Decision Making
Ever found yourself running in circles when trying to get another party to make a decision? What's the best approach: talk to the key decision maker, or try to influence many who may have some input into the final call? As this article discusses, there is no universal answer here.
Juice and Cake? (The Power of Integrative Negotiation)
This article discusses differences between integrative and distributive negotiation strategies and points to the benefits of 'win-win' as an integrative negotiation approach that helps in getting past roadblocks.
Win-Win Myths (International Negotiation)
Win-Win is a widely-promoted collaborative negotiation strategy. It requires both sides to look for solutions that create mutual benefit and works well - if both indeed collaborate. This article discusses how alternative strategies may be more promising when dealing with competitive counterparts in different regions of the world.
Business Relationship Management
Business Relationships
We all know that having a network of relationships to tap into can be helpful. How helpful? That depends on the cultural context—to a much greater degree than you might think. This article discusses the role relationships play in different cultures.
Global Virtual Teams
Nowadays, it is the norm for professionals to work with colleagues who could be anywhere in the world. Being in charge of such a Global Virtual Team requires a rare combination of talents: great leadership skills together with the ability to manage high degrees of complexity. This article gives a few suggestions that may help you master the challenge.
Multicultural Leadership
We all recognize great leadership when we see it. But what is it that constitutes great leadership? This article identifies different concepts of leadership across cultures and gives recommendations for leaders working in a multicultural environment.
Multicultural Team Development
Teams with members from several different cultural backgrounds commonly present a steep leadership challenge as they initially lack a common framework of how things are supposed to be done. This article discusses how leaders can guide their multicultural team through the team development process.
Effective International Project Leadership
International project work, especially in a co-development environment where teams across different countries collaborate and at least to some degree also compete with each other, requires skilled leadership. This article discusses the six leadership behaviors successful international project leaders commonly share.
Client-Vendor Relationships
How should you treat your client? With great respect and deference? The same way you treat everyone else? Surprisingly, as this article discusses, people around the world may have very different concepts in mind when it comes to this question.
Managing International Subcontractors
Whether in offshore manufacturing or IT outsourcing, many businesses decide to engage with foreign subcontractors. These engagements often go poorly, or fail altogether, because of misaligned expecations and/or poor relationship management. This article discusses a few crucial aspects.
Global Contract Practices
Contracts matter, right? How much? This article discusses the differing views business people around the world may have of how relevant a contract is, and how detailed it is supposed to be.
Protecting Intellectual Property across Borders
Mitigating the risks of IP theft is one of the most pressing issues for most companies doing business at a global scale. This article discusses the issue and lists a few best practices.
Working across Cultures
Communicating across Language Barriers
One of the toughest challenges when doing global business is the fact that the players' native languages are usually different. While English has become the 'lingua franca' of today's globalization, limited command of the language and differences in grammer, vocabulary and pronunciation make misunderstandings frequent. This article presents strategies designed to mitigate this risk.
Global Email Etiquette
We all have to deal with an ever-increasing number of emails, so some etiquette rules should go without saying. But looking beyond these, is there anything I need to pay attention to when sending emails internationally? This article gives a number of suggestions.
Small Talk across Cultures
Small talk is important as it connects people and nurtures relationships. How important? Depends on the culture(s) involved. This article discusses aspects that matter.
Saving Face
The importance of saving face in certain countries, including most in Asia, is hard to overestimate. This article discusses reasons, caveats, and recommended behaviors.
On Avoiding Uncertainty
This article explains how people in some cultures, for example the United States, are generally tolerant of uncertainty and may even enjoy taking great risks, while others may be avoiding uncertainty to a large degree. Using Japan as an example, a culture where uncertainty is strongly avoided, this article discusses how this characteristic affects projects and how it can foster a strong quality orientation.
Status and Respect
How people establish authority and what earns them the respect of others depends significantly on the cultural context. Identical behavior may stimulate a reputation of being a great leader in one country and being a jerk in another. This article takes a closer look at attitudes in status-oriented cultures, for instance in Latin America, Southern Europe, and Asia.
Other Global Business Subjects
China's Culture Drives Its Economic Success
Reviewing China's phenomenal economic progress, this article analyzes some of the driving forces that are founded within its culture. It finds that influences such as its business focus and long-term orientation combined with a group centeredness and strong work ethics of its people had a significant impact on the country's progress.