A Discourse Approach To Analyzing Identified Cultural Differences In International Business

With the rapid globalization of the world economy, there has been a constant growth in international business. As a matter of fact, economic cooperation between people of different cultural backgrounds is becoming more and more common and transnational business relationships have been greatly promoted. Because of this trend, it is a necessity to improve cultural understanding, to overcome cultural clashes, and to strengthen cultural transmission and cooperation so as to impel the advancement of international business.Focusing on specific international business cases under the influence of various cultural factors, this paper will elaborate on identified cultural differences in the course of intercultural business in terms of discourse approach. By analyzing the origins of these differences, the paper generalizes about the effects and puts forward effective approaches to improve intercultural understanding and transcultural communication in the course of international business. This, in turn, will fulfill the ultimate goal of promoting business relationship among different cultures.The paper is divided into five parts, starting with an overview of globalization and intercultural communication, focusing mainly on the cultural factors that have great influences on international business. It attempts to give a definition and the understanding of culture, and lists some key cultural factors and their embodiments in international business. Then two main theories adopted to analyze cultural differences in international business are introduced. One is stereotyping theory that embodies different basic cultural factors. The other is discourse analysis which is used to analyze concrete cases in practice representing cultural differences in international business. After presenting these methods of analysis, various patterns of cultural differences put forwardby Hofstede (1998) are discussed with concrete business discourse as cases to support the idea. Questions and outcomes are raised later, and counter measures are presented. As a conclusion, this paper makes an outlook of the prospect of global business, and the importance and need to understand international business culture.