Strands of the North American Free Trade Agreement: Business culture, meeting styles and the borderlands in Monterrey, Mexico

In this increasingly global world, business culture is something which needs to be addressed. The North American Free Trade Agreement was signed between countries which are very different, culturally, economically and politically. There are also differences within each country which need to be understood before effective business communication can take place. The borderlands theory holds that culture does not end at a political border but instead mixes together in a region which contains both countries. This dissertation establishes how Monterrey, a major industrial center in the northeast region of Mexico, is culturally unique from both the rest of Mexico and the Texas borderland area of the United States.; I addressed these issues through completing research in a factory in Monterrey. Extensive observations of the factory system and various forms of communication within the company were essential to my analysis and were complimented by surveys and interviews. In this way the corporate culture of this factory has been used as an example of that of all of Monterrey. The primary focus was on corporate contact between Texans and people from Monterrey and therefore used to establish the problems in inter-cultural communication between these groups.