Cultural miscalculations can be a costly mistake for global businesses. Businesses need to develop a better understanding of how culture affects global business. For example, if a sales manager refuses the offer of a cup of coffee in Saudi Arabia, negotiations would immediately halt as this is considered very rude. Here are some other examples of cultural miscalculations:
An airline offering service to Brazil advertised that it had comfortable “rendezvous lounges” in its business class section, without realizing that the word rendezvous in Portuguese refers to a room for illicit sexual encounters.
Chicken entrepreneur Frank Perdue decided to translate one of his very successful advertising slogans into Spanish, but the translated slogan didn’t produce the desired results. The slogan “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish as “It takes a virile man to make a chicken affectionate.”
The American Dairy Association’s wildly successful ad campaign “Got Milk?” had the unfortunate translation “Are you lactating?” when used in Mexico.
Pepsi’s famous “Come alive with Pepsi” slogan translates to “Come out of the grave with Pepsi” in German–hardly a positive marketing message!
Lands’ End entered the British market using their basic catalog, written in American English. Unfortunately, many of the names for items are different in the United Kingdom; for instance, suspenders are garters and men’s suspenders are braces. Their entry flopped until they had the catalog reworked into British English. When preparing documents or materials for a different cultural market, be sure to have them translated by someone whose native language is the one in use in the market in question.
Instructions
Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.
Review the additional resources before attempting the assignment.
Navigate to the threaded discussion and respond to the following:
Define a cultural miscalculation in your own words.
Describe a global cultural miscalculation that has occurred in your business or one that you have found on the Internet.
How could better management prevent the cultural miscalculation from happening in the first place?
How have globalization and technology affected the likelihood of cultural miscalculations in business relationships and communications?
Assignment should be 275 words in length, include two academic sources, from above, that are properly cited.
