Establishing contacts, gift giving, entertaining, dress codes and negotiations styles in Egypt, Greece and Brazil

Résumé du document

In every day life and more especially in business and negotiations, it is important to understand the different cultures and their particular characteristics to be a good manager or negotiator. By having competent knowledge in cross-cultural communication,international businessmen will have an advantage over their competitors.

In this paper, I will focus on the three following countries : Egypt, Greece and Brazil. Located on three different continents, it is not obvious that these countries have a lot in common as far as cultural behavior is concerned. But surprisingly, Egypt, Greece and Brazil tend to have very similar forms of customs and practices in business. Generally speaking, they have a tendency to be group-oriented, with a big sense of belonging but to leave room for individuality at the same time and trust, honesty and politeness appear to be strong values.

To understand their cultural behaviors, we will see in the first section of the paper how the citizens of these countries usually communicate, the different ways of meetings to be able to discern how they negotiate and how agreements and contracts are made.

Extraits

[...] As far asArabian countries are concerned, people greet differently. Egyptians shake hands every time they see each other, but it is important to be careful to use always the right hand, the left hand being considered as unclean And it is always welcomed to use title when adressing to the counterpats. Furthermore gift are welcome but not expected, a gift from the country of origin of the businessman is appreciated, like chocolates for example. One relevant detail : avoid alcohol ! [...]

[...] Some can find it distrubing, baffling or annoying. But once more, the attitude to have is to be patient and never lose temper. Bargaining can sometimes be hard and extensive, it is important to know what objectives you want to reach and not to be to agressive during the negotiation, time pressure for example won't work, and concessions will have to be made to reach a compromise. Be carefull Egyptians, Brazilians and Greeks are masters in the use of deceptive techniques, they could lie or send fake non-verbal messages. [...]

[...] Due to their hierarchical behavior, authority is quite important, the negotiation often take place with senior executives but they consult anyway their pairs and want to have a consensus before making the final call. Once more, Brazilians, Egyptian and Greeks tend to be very relationship focused and trustworthy, this explains why signatures are often not required to confirm a commitment, handshakes already mean a lot. That is also why the written contracts are quite succinct, in which are only specified the primary aspects, terms and conditions of the agreement. [...]

[...] Time is an important detail that has to be taken into account. For example, never schedule a meeting on a Friday is Egypt because egypians work days are Saturday to Thursday, and avoid setting meetings during the ramadan. While it is Monday to Friday in Greece and Brazil. A good advice would be to schedule meetings at leats one to two weeks in advance. It is always well seen to be on time, or at least to avoid being more than 10 or 15 minutes late. [...]

[...] Respect is a very important value, and the negotiator will have his counterparts' if he keeps a positive attitude, avoiding conflict is always the best behavior to have. The three countries tend to be expressive, but the more the relationship will be close, the more information will be shared, which means that the counterparts will play cards on table, they also tend to be have a quite expressive communication style, which avoid misunderstanding. Similarly as the introductive talk, the negotiation can be interrupt for several reasons, but again this not shows a lack of interest, it is just that they pursue multiple actions and goals at the same time and may jump back and forth between several different topics rather that in a logical order. [...]