The Blog for Culture Vultures

Does Cultural Awareness training work?

Will investing in such training really offer any sort of ROI and help your staff?

Being able to communicate and collaborate across cultures is crucial for many of today’s professions; engineers included.

However, a Japanese-led research team suggests that the intercultural communication skills being taught to today’s engineers are not fit for purpose.

Has globalisation led to a homogenity of culture when it comes to product, marketing, sales and service?

Or have our cultural differences actually become more acute?

On our blog we love to look at different takes on cultural differences. Understanding culture and how it impacts your business isnt just about dos and dont's. It is SO much more and this little piece on culture and security highlights nicely how culture impacts pretty much everything we do from handshakes to security fences.

Global Real Estate advisor Jones Lang LaSalle have carried out some research into the difficulties that can be encountered by western companies when they enter the Indian market. The result? Cultural differences are a major obstacle.

Do you travel abroad for work? Want to make sure you're holding your fork correctly, saying the right things and giving a good impression? Then check out these ten apps for international etiquette.

Based on my experiences of organising business meetings in Ghana, of which I wrote about in yesterday's blog post, I am going to elaborate on business etiquette in general, with the hope to give a few more insights, explanations and tips for doing business in Ghana.

“There’s no food for a lazy man”; a common saying displayed all over Accra, and one heard too. In Ghana there are many proverbs to illustrate the values of Ghanaian people, and this one just stood out today (first day here!).

Active listening is a communication skill crucial to doing cross-cultural business.

As a skill, it requires the listener to become attuned with the speaker in order to confirm what they have heard and moreover, to confirm the understanding of both parties.

This active engagement may differ across cultures...

Good news. The European luxury goods sector will continue to grow over the next five years thanks to emerging markets. So what does this mean in terms of business, language, culture and translation? How can luxury brands capitalise?

Different perspectives = different priorities. This is true of anything in life and especially in global business.

A report undertaken by Ipsos called "Culture at Work" throws some interesting light on intercultural skills in the international workplace.

Doing business internationally and/or outside your own country is exciting and much of the time fruitful.

However, international business is not always a bed of roses as American companies starting up in Germany seem to be finding out.

One of the best aspects of my work is getting to know how different industries work internally, and especially what their take is on training their employees. Being able to meet different HR, L&D and Training Managers and speak to them about their work is eye opening. In my last visit to Paris, a certain company really grabbed my attention in terms of their proactivity and dedication to training.