Another aspect of nonverbal communication is personal space，which is the comfortable amount of distance between you and someone you are talking to．In the United States，the customary distance apart adopted by parties in a business discussion is five to eight feet．In Latin America，it is three to five feet．Consequently，many North Americans unconsciously feel that Latin Americans are invading their personal space and they may back away from them during the conversation. In return， the Latin American may interpret such backing away as unfriendliness．The result can be a regrettable lack of understanding between businesspeople from different cultures．

Apart from language， values also merit international managers attention．Values are shared beliefs or group norms that have been internalized by individuals．

Differences in cultural values affect the way planning is executed，decisions are made，strategy is implemented，and personnel are  evaluated．Therefore，a manager must be careful not to assume that success in one market can ensure success somewhere else. Take for example ,WalMart had difficulty in Asia  when it tried to transfer its winning business formula from home，for it does’n t realize that basketball sets and garden games are not much use to people living in town blocks in the most densely populated place on earth，and Hong Kongers do not have the space to store the bulk purchases that WalMart’s American customers find so attracting．Procter and Gamble’s(P&G)is not immune from these problems．When Mooney，a Japanese company，introduced a disposable diaper with reusable parts，the saving-conscious Japanese accepted the product immediately．As a result．P&G’s marketing share for disposable diapers dropped from 90 percent to 1 0 percent almost overnight． P&G regained share by adapting its product to Japanese value by producing with a smaller，

thinner diaper．

Another example is the experience of the Disneyland concept．While it worked well in Tokyo，it had a tougher time in Paris．One of the main reasons was that while the Japanese are fond of American pop culture, the Europeans are quite content with their own cultural heritage．

Each culture makes a clear statement concerning good taste，as expressed in the arts and in the particular symbolism of colors，form ，and music．What is and what is not acceptable may vary dramatically even in highly similar markets．Color is often used as a mechanism for brand identification， feature reinforcement，and differentiation． In different markets， colors have different symbol values．Black，for instance，is considered the color of mourning in the United States and Europe，whereas white has the same symbolic meaning in Japan and most of the Far East．A British bank was interested in expanding its operation to Singapore and wanted to use blue and green as its identification colors．It later learned that green is associated with death in that country．The bank had to change the green into an acceptable shade．

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