Chapter 5 Culture, Management Style, and Business Systems 145 At the extreme are the French, who even ban the use of English terms. The French Ministry of Finance issued a directive that all official French civil service correspon-dence must avoid common English-language business words such as start-up and e-mail; instead, jeune pousse (literally, “a young plant”) and courrier e´lectronique are recommended. The solution to the problem is to have country-specific websites, like those of IBM and Marriott. Dell Computer, for example, makes its Premier Pages websites built for its busi-ness clients, available in 12 languages. A host of companies specialize in website transla-tions; in addition, software programs are available to translate the company message into another language. However, cultural and linguistic correctness remains a problem with machine translation. If not properly done, English phrases are likely to be translated in a way that will embarrass or even damage a company. One way to avoid this issue is to prepare the original source material in easy-to-translate English, devoid of complicated phrases, idioms, or slang. Unfortunately, no machine translation is available that can man-age all the nuances of language or syntax. It would be ideal if every representative of your company spoke fluently the language of and understood the culture of your foreign customers or business associates; but that is an impossible goal for most companies. However, there is no reason why every person who accesses a company’s website should not be able to communicate in his or her own language if a company wants to be truly global. Finally, e-mail use and usage rates by managers are also affected by culture. That is, businesspeople in high-context cultures do not use the medium to the same extent as those in low-context cultures. Indeed, the structure of the Japanese language has at least hindered the diffusion of Internet technologies in that country.41 Moreover, businesspeople in Hong Kong behave less cooperatively in negotiations using e-mail than in face-to-face encoun-ters. 42 Much of the contextual information so important in high-context cultures simply cannot be signaled via the computer. The breezy informality and haste that seem to characterize American business rela-tionships appear to be American exclusives that businesspeople from other countries not only fail to share but also fail to appreciate. A German executive commented that he was taken aback when employees of his Indiana client called him by his first name. He noted, “In Germany you don’t do that until you know someone for 10 years—and never if you are at a lower rank.” This apparent informality, however, does not indicate a lack of commitment to the job. Comparing British and American business managers, an English executive commented about the American manager’s compelling involvement in business: “At a cocktail party or a dinner, the American is still on duty.” Even though Northern Europeans seem to have picked up some American attitudes in recent years, do not count on them being “Americanized.” As one writer says, “While using first names in business encounters is regarded as an American vice in many coun-tries, nowhere is it found more offensive than in France,” where formality still reigns. Those who work side by side for years still address one another with formal pronouns. France is higher on Hofstede’s Power Distance Index (PDI) than the United States, and such differences can lead to cultural misunderstandings. For example, the formalities of French business practices as opposed to Americans’ casual manners are symbols of the French need to show rank and Americans’ tendency to downplay it. Thus, the French are dubbed snobbish by Americans, while the French consider Americans crude and unsophisticated. Formality and Tempo 41Hodgson, Sano, and Graham, Doing Business with the New Japan. 42Guang Yang and John L. Graham, “The Impact of Computer-Mediated Communications on the Process and Outcomes of Buyer–Seller Negotiations,” working paper, University of California, Irvine, 2012. Carol Hymowitz, “As U.S. Companies Go Global, Managers Must Bridge Gaps”, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 15, 2000 Business Week, Bloomberg L.P., 1977
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