Intercultural Communication inBusiness Ventures Illustrated by TwoCase Studies

The information and communications revolution has hastened the process of globalizationin today's world of business. Consequently, businesses, even small and mid-sized companies,are confronted with cultural diversity when these companies become internationally active.Yet only few businesses are well prepared for a culturally diverse global market. Indeed,many business ventures fail not for a want of superior products and/or services, but due to alack of intercultural competence. Disregarding the cultural component in a businesstransaction can and will lead to mistakes due to cultural misunderstandings which are theresult of miscommunication. Because not much intercultural research exists for GermanAmerican business ventures, this paper focuses on two German corporations, Buderus andBayer, who are actively engaged on the American market to determine how they are copingwith the cultural differences and measures they have adopted to surmount the cultural gap....