Business process in Israel: a major issue for western managers

Résumé du document

This pre-assignment aims at studying how a simple example attempts to set up a partnership or a venture in a different country that could be jeopardized by a lot of cultural differences. We have chosen to take the case of Israel, which is very different from the standard western countries with regard to the establishment of a business. We are going to see all cultural implications during the business process. If western managers have to set up partnerships or joint-ventures on long-term, they definitely have to understand cultural approaches. Otherwise, they will notice that something is not going well with their interlocutors and will spend a lot of money and time to solve cultural problems.

Extraits

[...] Indeed, we have chosen to take the case of Israel, which is very different from standard western countries to make business with. Thus, we are going to see all cultural implications during the business process. There is no doubt that lots of American or European managers expect to do business in Israel as they would do in their home countries. The fact is that behavior of people in business changes according to continents, regions and countries. In Israel, western managers are often perceived as being superficial, so the strategy is going to be totally different compared to other countries. [...]

[...] However, if the weather is hot, foreign managers should not wear a jacket for a lunch or an outdoor meeting. Western managers should never forget that clothes represent their personality, their business style and their legitimacy. In addition, foreign people have to know that Israeli people do not shake hands very often even is they are usually close and touchy. But this is changing because of the globalization and the expansion of Israel business abroad. Thus, for the first meeting, politeness and smiles are the main assets of a good starting relationship. [...]

[...] The Israeli society is often considered as a polychronic culture[2]. That means that relationships are stimulated and more informal. Thus, emotions and feelings are definitely primordial in Israeli culture whereas intuition and objectives come secondly. Moreover, Israeli businessmen do not act directly and need time to open negotiations, they actually want to know the person they trade with first and afterwards they are able to do business with them. Because of those cited elements previously, lots of foreign companies, especially American and European ones fail doing business with Israel and this is a major challenge for them to compete with Asian companies on the interesting Israeli market. [...]

[...] They are very hard in negotiation but at the same time very friendly because they enjoy negotiating with people. Furthermore, the presence of a translator could be an advantage in order to avoid all translation problems or cultural differences. If an agreement has to be set up, it has to be written, it is safer for foreign managers and the interests of their company. You should avoid oral commitments, which could be misunderstood and risky. Israelis may also invite foreign managers at home for dinner. [...]

[...] By the way, bringing a gift from the home country for dinner would be appreciated. To conclude, we advise American or European managers to take into consideration all the elements we detailed above. And they do not have to forget that Israelis are very different than them in all areas of their culture. Therefore, they have to take into account their cultural differences in order to succeed in this country. To put it in a nutshell, intercultural management is a strategic issue within a company but also to do business with a foreign country that we are not used to do business with. [...]