The effect of some cultural variables on international business

Abstract：Culture is multidimensional，consisting of a number of common elements that are interdependent．The differences in culture have an important impact on many aspects of a multinational company activity．This paper will mainly discuss the effect of some of the cultural variables，such as language，values，aesthetics，and education，on international business.

  By analyzing a set of dynamic variables of culture，this paper reaches the conclusion that there is a link between successful global business and cultural awareness and sensitivity．

Key words： cultural variable   effect  international business

1.Introduction

Culture is rooted and nurtured in one of countries’ history and custom. It plays a vital role in kinds of fields, especially with the booming science of and technology. It gives an individual an anchoring point, an identity，as well as codes of conduct. Of more than 160 definitions of culture，most agree on some basic principles，but there is a lot of variation on the details. Culture is also multidimensional，consisting of a number of common elements that are interdependent．The differences in culture have an important impact on many aspects of a multinational company’s activity．This paper will mainly discuss the effect of some of the cultural variables，such as language，values，aesthetics，and education，on international business.

2.culture and language

As for culture, there’re many different definitions. Generally speaking, there’re two kinds of understanding of culture from narrow sense and wide sense. According to Samovar and Porter (1994), culture wide sense refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Sir Edward B. Tylor’s definition of culture in narrow sense (1871)"Culture . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by (a human)as a member of society."

  With this definition in mind, we come to the relationship between language and culture: language is a social phenomenon and a part of culture; language and culture are influential to each other.

Language is influenced by culture all its way from creation to development. It is in human’s cultural activities where language is created. Histories have proved that separation and unity of cultures will influence the separation and unity of languages and variance of languages is mostly caused by the change of cultures.

Language is the gist of the development of culture and symbol of the existence of culture. ^4. There will be culture if there is no language. Douglas White pointed out in his book that: “All culture depend on symbols. It is the creation and application of symbols that help the creation and existence of culture”. Symbols mentioned by White refer to human language. Language can record many things including material culture, system culture and spiritual culture. They can record and express all human activities and experience in production, invention and education so that we can have knowledge of history and pass all experiences on to next generation. Knowledge and experience promote the advancement of human and help human walk from primitive society to cultivated state.

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