Bulgaria vs. Germany: Business Culture Contrasts
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Cross-Cultural Communication Research Paper
Bulgaria vs. Germany: Business Culture Contrasts
December 05, 2011
Each country and its inhabitants have their own specific way of communicating with one other. It involves greeting, laughing, smiling, and basically every kind of human behavior. This specific behavior we simply call – culture. The culture reflects in every aspect of people’s everyday life, even at our workplace or business. It is not surprising, that business culture reflects many aspects of the culture itself. Indeed, national culture often serves as a model for companies’ culture. Thinking of business and business culture no one can skip one of the leading economies in the world – Germany. Comparing the Bulgarian and German culture and business relations is a very exciting topic. It is very interesting how both countries’ cultures are influenced from the history they had for the last 60 years, creating different and contrasting business environment. The typical inhabitants both have different context culture: “Otto Mustermann” for Germany has a low-context and “Bai Ganyo” for Bulgaria has a high-context culture.
Having a look at all the economical and statistical charts, these two countries always diverge as black and white from one another. But what are the basic geographical and demographic differences between Bulgaria and Germany? As a matter of fact Germany’s area is three times bigger than the Bulgaria’s one and it has eleven times more population (81.7 million in 2010), which means really a lot of people to do business and to communicate with. The lowest salary in Germany is eight times higher than the one in Bulgaria and the rank “ease of doing business” for Germany is much better than the Bulgarian one. Comparing countries’ indexes and facts it looks like nothing is better in Bulgaria than in Germany!? Having a deep look in the culture of both countries may show another results.
THE CULTURE IS DEEPLY ROOTED IN HISTORY
If there
Cross-Cultural Communication Research Paper
Bulgaria vs. Germany: Business Culture Contrasts
December 05, 2011
Each country and its inhabitants have their own specific way of communicating with one other. It involves greeting, laughing, smiling, and basically every kind of human behavior. This specific behavior we simply call – culture. The culture reflects in every aspect of people’s everyday life, even at our workplace or business. It is not surprising, that business culture reflects many aspects of the culture itself. Indeed, national culture often serves as a model for companies’ culture. Thinking of business and business culture no one can skip one of the leading economies in the world – Germany. Comparing the Bulgarian and German culture and business relations is a very exciting topic. It is very interesting how both countries’ cultures are influenced from the history they had for the last 60 years, creating different and contrasting business environment. The typical inhabitants both have different context culture: “Otto Mustermann” for Germany has a low-context and “Bai Ganyo” for Bulgaria has a high-context culture.
Having a look at all the economical and statistical charts, these two countries always diverge as black and white from one another. But what are the basic geographical and demographic differences between Bulgaria and Germany? As a matter of fact Germany’s area is three times bigger than the Bulgaria’s one and it has eleven times more population (81.7 million in 2010), which means really a lot of people to do business and to communicate with. The lowest salary in Germany is eight times higher than the one in Bulgaria and the rank “ease of doing business” for Germany is much better than the Bulgarian one. Comparing countries’ indexes and facts it looks like nothing is better in Bulgaria than in Germany!? Having a deep look in the culture of both countries may show another results.
THE CULTURE IS DEEPLY ROOTED IN HISTORY
If there
References: Bulgarian Investment Review. (2009, December). Sofia, Bulgaria: InvestBulgaria Agency. Retrieved from http://investbg.government.bg/upfs/45/BIR%2012.2009.pdf Culture 's Influence on Business as Illustrated by German Business Culture Beamer, L., & Varner, I. (2008). Intercultural Communication In The Global Workplace (fourth ed.). The McGraw-Hill Companies. CultureGrams.com. (2011). "Bulgaria". Retrieved from http://online.culturegrams.com.proxy.cityu.edu/pdf/world_pdf.php?id=26 CultureGrams.com [ 1 ]. (CultureGrams.com, "Germany", 2011) (CultureGrams.com, "Bulgaria", 2011) [ 2 ] [ 3 ]. (Bulgarian Investment Review, 2009), page 19 [ 4 ] [ 5 ]. (Federal Foreign Office, 2011) [ 6 ] [ 7 ]. (Beamer & Varner, 2008) [ 8 ] [ 9 ]. (Culture 's Influence on Business as Illustrated by German Business Culture., 2009)