Case Study: Southern Candle's Tour De France

1.0 Introduction

In 21st century, the internationalisation and globalisation of businesses is becoming increasingly important to business prosperity and goal achievement. According to Geert Hofstede, “Culture” is the mindset for categorization of people from one group to another. In this report, differences in culture between the U.S. and France is analysed based on the case "European Negotiations - Southern Candle 's Tour De France".

2.0 Identification of Problems/Issues

Issues are differentiated into intercultural, intercultural verbal communication and intercultural nonverbal communication issues.

2.1 Intercultural Issues

• Due to Mrs Dubois’s fluency in French, which is gained through her stay in Quebec, Canada for 5 years, she accompanied Mr Picard to France as a translator.

• Mrs. Dubois shared with Mr. Durand about her experiences in Canada

• Mr. Picard was surprised for spending two hours on lunch.

• Mr. Picard was the only one who took off his jacket in the conference room, he did this

It is constructed on the basis of four anthropological problem areas which then translated into 4 dimensions which are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism and masculinity-femininity.

3.1 Strengths

It is suggested that Hofstede’s model enables comparisons of cultural values. Mead (1999) commented that Hofstede’s model is detail in cultural values and it gives insight into other cultures. Cross-cultural communication requires being aware of cultural differences because what may be considered perfectly acceptable can be offensive in another. All levels of communications are affected by cultural dimensions. Also, there were numerous researches on cultural values carried out based on Hofstede’s model with similar findings. Therefore, it can be concluded that the model has been trialled and confirmed

3.2