...The Influence of Culture on Business in India and the Middle East Columbia Southern University Abstract The paper presents an overview and analysis of impact of culture on doing business in India and the Middle East. The topics addressed include (a) background, (b) cultural characteristics of India and the Middle East and a (c) conclusion. The Influence of Culture on Business in India and the Middle East The paper presents an overview and analysis of impact of culture on doing business in India and the Middle East. The topics addressed include (a) background, (b) cultural characteristics of India and the Middle East and a (c) conclusion. Background In the Classification of Cultures Model, India and the Middle East share many cultural similarities. They live under a clan or tribe concept, where family is the highest priority and establishing relationships is put ahead of task accomplishment. Time must be spent developing a relationship with the decision makers or those who can provide access to the decision maker and they use a nonlinear approach to relationships and problem solving (Schuster & Copeland, 2006). Understanding these cultural aspects will promote successful business activities. Analysis of Indian Culture India is a patient country with a high tolerance for the unexpected and punctuality is not a high priority (Hofstede Centre, n.d.). Companies typically follow the hierarchical system and decisions are made at the top, which is often time consuming...
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...relationship with Israel designates the foreign policy of the United States in regards to the rest of the Middle East. This thereby impacts foreign policy throughout the world. “The centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security.” (Mearsheimer and Walt, 1) The United States did not take an overly "sympathetic" position on the Zionist movement until the second decade of the 1900s. One main reason for their new support was the establishment in 1914 of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs. On September 21, 1922, the United States Congress passed the Lodge-Fish resolution, which lent the support of the United States for Zionists to establish a homeland in Palestine. In May of 1942 at the Biltimore Conference, the Zionists made the declaration that Palestine needed to be recognized as a "Jewish Commonwealth." (Oren, 442) The end of the Second World War brought about two changes in the Middle East. The first of these changes was the decolonization of the Middle Eastern states; Britain and France withdrew from some of their colonies early on, but remained in others for more years to come. The second of these changes was the involvement of the Middle East in the Cold War. “The most controversial of all withdrawals, Brown 2 however, was that from Palestine:...
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...marketed a range of distance learning management courses which they marketed internationally through agents. A client that successfully completed a training course would receive a Merry certificate. In the mid-1990s John Razor of Merry investigated the possibility of entering the Middle East. Research had shown that there were potential opportunities for distance learning management programmes, particularly in the Gulf States. By chance he met Yabmob Nig, the managing director of a small management consultancy firm based in Dubai called Ala-Meer Ltd. Ala-Meer was owned by two partners, Yabmob Nig and a silent partner who took no part in the management of the business. The silent partner, a local Dubai businessman, was necessary because Yabmob Nig was an expatriate from India and so could not be sole director of the business. Yabmob and John had a series of meetings and developed a good rapport. It was not thought necessary to draw up a detailed contract at this stage and so a brief memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed. The main terms of the MOU were as follows: Client numbers grew rapidly and everyone was pleased with the market development. Merry was dispatching a large volume of material to the Middle East and Merry staff were conducting seminars in the region on a regular basis. This was the honeymoon period for the business relationship, as both parties had a common objective – to grow sales. A high degree of trust existed between the parties at this stage. At the end of the...
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...chose to write about this topic based on a personal experience I had with a male Saudi Arabian Officer that was my classmate during BOLC (Basic Officer Leadership Course). Due to my lack of cultural knowledge, I found myself struggling to communicate with him until I took the time out to learn about their cultural differences. Country Information Saudi Arabia, formally known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a desert country, encompassing most of the Arabian Peninsula. The country is positioned between the Red Sea in the west and the Arabian Gulf in the east. It is bounded on the north by Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait, and on the south by the Yemeni Republics (north and south), and on the east by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman (“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Brief,” n.d., para 1). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is approximately 1,960,582 sq. km and occupies an area about the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River. Riyadh is the capital city of Saudi Arabia. The name originated from the Arabic word meaning a place of gardens and trees ("rawdah"). Tthe city is located in the Riyadah province, one of the country’s 13 provinces, and is situated in the central portions of both the country and the larger Arabian Peninsula (Tschangho, 2015). Saudi nationals constitute about two-thirds of the city's population. Among the non-Saudi population, Asians (among whom Indians and Pakistanis...
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...Esperanza Herrera Professor See MGMT 430 18 October 2015 YouTube Assignment “The Walk From “No” to “Yes” The video “The Walk From “No” to “Yes,” by William Ury, Mr. Ury explains the difficulties in negotiation. William Ury uses his personal stories to demonstrate to the audience that even in the hardest negotiation there is always a way to find peace and reaching an agreement. In a negotiation there are usually two sides fighting each other, rarely do those party realize that there is another party that can be involve in the argument the “third party”. Ury’s views of negotiation can be apply into daily life by using the “going to the balcony” theory, rethink and reframe your options in hand, thinking about others point of view. William Ury began his speech by telling the story of a Middle Eastern man that willed his three sons seventeen camels. The sons were to split the camels accordingly, the first son was to get one half of the camels, the second son was to get one third of the camels and the last the third son was to get one ninth of the camels. Since the seventeen camels could not be split evenly, the three sons went to ask an elderly lady for advice, but she was unable to help them. The elderly lady decided to give them one of her camels, now the three sons had eighteen camels. They split the camels accordingly the first son got nine camels, the second son got six and the youngest got two camels. They then had one camel leaf-over they decided to give it back to...
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...I recommend that we prepare our delegates for the cultural norms of doing business in the Middle East and assign our representatives with this in mind. Summarily, this is because the prevalence of Islam in the region has resulted in different values assuming primacy and neglecting to educate our team on the cultural norms may result in an impression of ethnocentrism. Moreover, to avoid the appearance of paternalism I recommend that we also provide translators rather than rely on our customer’s English. At the meeting we discussed the successful bid for the contract and our flight to the initial meeting onsite. This raised a number of interesting questions regarding how we should conduct ourselves to minimise misunderstandings. If the negotiating team does not account for cultural differences in conducting business in the region the firm runs the risk of losing the contract to a competitor. Considerations must be given to the host’s religious sensibilities. Islam has implications for the systemic treatment of the business process, including what operational activities are permissible. The delegates must also be prepared for the following main differences to Australian culture as illustrated in the diagram below (Hofstede, 2012): context sensitivity in communication, autocratic leadership, the prevalence of collectivism and ‘face’, long term orientation compared to western cultures at circa 50 (Baron, 2008), and high levels of uncertainty avoidance, yet curiously a relatively elastic...
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...over time to enable the international relations not to be affected by adverse global developments. Ensuring a stable state of political affairs in Egypt shall be imperative in ensuring the relations do not deteriorate. The training that Canada appropriates for Egyptian diplomats should be given more emphasis. Egyptian borders should be rendered impervious to the ISIS onslaught. Table of Contents Introduction 4 Issues Affecting Business Relations between Canada and Egypt 4 Mutual Respect, Mutual Benefit 4 Common Interests 4 Changes over the Past Decade 5 Disarmament 5 La Francophonie 5 Other Areas of Cooperation 6 2025 Outlook 6 La Francophonie 6 Cultural Exchange 6 Recommendations 7 Political Stability 7 Middle East Tensions 7 Conclusion 7 References 8 Appendix 9 Introduction: How the Relationship between Canada and Egypt has developed, the Current Situation, and Expected further Developments (2005 – 2015) International relations between Canada and Egypt were forged during the construction of the Suez Canal, when Canada intervened to help solve a crisis in 1956 (Government of Canada, 2012). Both countries...
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...The Future of the Middle East We often think of the Middle East as a volatile region, but for a time experts saw the region as relatively stable. Entrenched authoritarian regimes were seen as pillars of the region that rested on their coercive apparatus as well as rentierism to maintain their rule. Thus, it came as a shock to experts when the Arab Spring bulldozed regimes that had been in power for as long as forty years. The hope of the Arab Spring was to eradicate the despotic rulers of the Middle East and replace them with democratic institutions. However, this hope has not been realized as civil war, failures of newly democratic institutions and unscathed monarchies continue to plague the region. Still, the Arab Spring is in its infant stage. The outcomes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria remain to be seen while it appears that the monarchies of the region are stronger than ever. The future of the Middle East will be divided between the monarchies and the republics. The monarchies will most likely keep the status quo (with the help of the United States) while the republics will shape the future of democracy in the region. While it is impossible to predict the future of the Middle East due to a number of factors including the Arab-Israeli and Kurdish conflicts and the drying of oil wells, most experts on the Middle East would agree with the notion that monarchies will continue to remain unscathed in comparison to their non-monarchical neighbors. However, these same people...
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...Cross-Cultural Communication Paper Arab World v/s Bulgaria MBA 501 – Business Communications and Research Methods Cross-Cultural Communication Paper December 5, 2011 Arab World is rather heterogeneous group of nations and tribes who live in 22 states, counts more than 350 million people spread on bigger than Europe territory with very long distances - 7800 km. from East to West (United Nation Website, 2008). However based on common religion, origin and cultural roots many authors talk for "Arabs" making assumptions and conclusions. On the other hand different historical paths, isolation between remote groups and stage of development are the most probable reason for discrepancies and controversies found in the sources when the same topics are discussed. That is why this paper focuses on group of Arabic nations usually called Middle East and "Arabs" means Middle-East-Arabs in this paper. By contrast, Bulgarians are small nation situated in South-Eastern Europe what some authors and international authorities consider as Central Europe. Living in country in transition period and the will of younger generation to move towards Western stile are reasons for occurrence of somewhat of mixed business practices. The younger the staff is and the bigger the company is - the more western oriented the practices are, especially in the local branches of big multinational corporations. Even though geographically close situated and shared common history, for several centuries these...
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...NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN UNIVERSITY COLLEGR DUBLIN Cross Cultural Management FT-UCD BBSMKT-22 Chen Lihuan 2950 words CT0203124 UCD ID: 14207863 Case 1. Question 1A) Figure 1.0 Hofstede’s Five Cultural Deminsions for Germany, UK, USA and Japan. (Data from Geert-hofstede.com,n.d) Figure 1.0 is a bar chart that presents the full data of all four cultures. (Germany, UK, USA, and Japan) Other than two dimensions (Individualism and uncertainty avoidance) that have been discussed in the case, the rest of the three dimensions will be discussed in following article. Masculinity Masculinity shows whether the society is driven by competition or quality of life (Geert-hofstede.com, n.d). According to figure 1.0, all four cultures are masculine culture. USA scored at the lowest of 62, followed by Germany and UK at the score of 66. The highest score in Masculinity is Japan, at 95. Although Japan has an extremely high score at Masculinity dimension, due to its collectivism, there are not much intense competitions between individuals. Power Distance Power distance is referring to how people within the society react to unequal power distribution. The higher the score is, the higher acceptability for unequal power distribution by the society will...
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...N A L A F F A I R S M A N A G E M E N T R E P O R T THE MIDDLE EAST CONFECTIONERY MARKET: OPPORTUNITIES FOR U.S. CONFECTIONERY EXPORTS Prepared by Bryant Christie Inc. for the National Confectioners Association January 30, 2009 Seattle Telephone: 206 292 6340 Sacramento Telephone: 916 492 7062 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY…………………………………………………………… ……..1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………4 BACKGROUND ……………………………………………………………………4 METHODOLOGY ……….…………………………………………………………4 REPORT FORMAT …………………………………………………………………4 GENERAL MARKET ENVIRONMENT…………………………………………………… 5 MARKET FOR CONFECTIONERY IN THE MIDDLE EAST……………………………….7 CONSUMPTION TRENDS…………………………..………..……………………. .8 COMPETITION ..……………………………..…………………………...……………..13 MULTINATIONAL PRODUCERS…………………………………………………...14 LOCAL PRODUCERS……………………………………………………………...14 CONFECTIONERY IMPORTS….…………………………………………………...16 DISTRIBUTION……………………………………………………………………… …18 RETAIL……..……….......…………………………………………….……….…19 CONVENIENCE STORES …....……………………………………………. ……...22 HOTEL, RESTAURANT AND CAFETERIA …..……….……………………………23 COLD STORAGE….. ....…………………………………………………….. ……24 MARKET ACCESS ..………………………………………………………….…………..24 LABELING …..…………………………………………………………………..26 CONCLUSIONS……………………………..………………………….……………. ….27 APPENDICES RETAIL PRICES FOR LEADING CONFECTIONERY BRANDS U.S. AND COMPETITOR CONFECTIONERY EXPORTS TO THE MIDDLE EAST CONTACTS Middle East Confectionery Market:: Opportunities for U.S. Confectionery Exports January 30...
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...I N T E R N A T I O N A L A F F A I R S M A N A G E M E N T R E P O R T THE MIDDLE EAST CONFECTIONERY MARKET: OPPORTUNITIES FOR U.S. CONFECTIONERY EXPORTS Prepared by Bryant Christie Inc. for the National Confectioners Association January 30, 2009 Seattle Telephone: 206 292 6340 Sacramento Telephone: 916 492 7062 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY…………………………………………………………… ……..1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………4 BACKGROUND ……………………………………………………………………4 METHODOLOGY ……….…………………………………………………………4 REPORT FORMAT …………………………………………………………………4 GENERAL MARKET ENVIRONMENT…………………………………………………… 5 MARKET FOR CONFECTIONERY IN THE MIDDLE EAST……………………………….7 CONSUMPTION TRENDS…………………………..………..……………………. .8 COMPETITION ..……………………………..…………………………...……………..13 MULTINATIONAL PRODUCERS…………………………………………………...14 LOCAL PRODUCERS……………………………………………………………...14 CONFECTIONERY IMPORTS….…………………………………………………...16 DISTRIBUTION……………………………………………………………………… …18 RETAIL……..……….......…………………………………………….……….…19 CONVENIENCE STORES …....……………………………………………. ……...22 HOTEL, RESTAURANT AND CAFETERIA …..……….……………………………23 COLD STORAGE….. ....…………………………………………………….. ……24 MARKET ACCESS ..………………………………………………………….…………..24 LABELING …..…………………………………………………………………..26 CONCLUSIONS……………………………..………………………….……………. ….27 APPENDICES RETAIL PRICES FOR LEADING CONFECTIONERY BRANDS U.S. AND COMPETITOR CONFECTIONERY EXPORTS TO THE MIDDLE EAST CONTACTS Middle East Confectionery Market:: Opportunities for U.S. Confectionery Exports January 30, 2009...
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...CASE SUMMARY This case is about a compensation negotiation between Ayoub Companies (AC) which is one of the largest, privately owned companies in the Middle East with Andrew Yard for a high-level executive position in the company. The company faces the urgency to find a leader for the business had intensified. Situations become awkward when Andrew feels insulted because the company give him monetary incentive like offering a signing bonus to join the company quickly than the originally planned. In this case, it provides the opportunity how we can analyze negotiation strategy and the importance of intelligence and the effective interpersonal communication during a negotiation. We should remember that money can’t make a person motivated to do their work. CHRONOLOGY KEY ISSUE The key issue in this case is the monetary incentive that has been negotiated by Rogers with Andrew Yard. CASE DISCUSSION 1. Effective interpersonal communication skill is the most important thing than money to make this negotiation work. Without effective interpersonal communication, we cannot convince the other party to accept the offer that we have made. 2. Andrew Yard feels insulting with the surprise bonus offered by Rogers because it seems to imply that it takes a bunch of money to get him to join the company quickly and he think that money will not make him motivated to do his works. 3. If I’m at Rogers place, I will answer “ Sorry Sir because makes you feel insulted. My intention...
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...product increase dramatically. Large Cotton supply, where other countries supplies of cotton are scares due to the 2010 Cotton Crisis, turkey produces around 900 000 tons of cotton annually placing themselves 6th in the world. This means that whilst other areas are still trying to recover from the effects Turkey found an increase in demand of work. Turkey is a first world country with lots of schooling and freedom, their workers are much less likely to be exploited than other countries in the middle east who are not as well developed. Also, the Turkish textile industry is known for good reputation for producing quality garments with excellent attention to detail, and as Marks and Spencer is expected to produce good quality long lasting garments it is in their favour to use a Turkish supplier for their clothing so they can produce the quality of garment their customer base anticipates. However, there are some disadvantages to using a Turkish supplier. Such as, communication barriers – negotiations may...
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...The Pros and the Cons of Middle East Policies Name of Student Institution. The Pros and the Cons of Middle East Policies Background The international politics and relations are currently being dominated by the issue of the Middle East and the US relationship. It is, therefore, important to look at the factors that have resulted in a fragile relationship between the world superpower and the Middle East. For decades, the Middle East has been dealing with power struggles, Israeli-Palestinian border conflict, and the Arab-Israeli war. Some states in the region are pushing for constitutional monarchies or liberal democracies. My essay will examine the underlying animosity between these nations. It will also look at the pros and con of the American policies towards the Middle East and the ways it has succeeded. Hypothesis The USA is doing enough in its dealings with the Middle East. Analysis There has been an ongoing debate regarding the question of what the US’s foreign policies are towards the Middle East. Two main defense strategy objectives were resulting from the Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guidance between the year 1994 and 1999 (Reveron et al., 2014). This period was prior to President Bush Jr. Administration and has since then become more relevant. The primary objective was to deter another world war or an extreme enmity like the one portrayed between the former Soviet Union towards America. A new region strategy has therefore been put in place to prevent a hostile power from...
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