Abstract
A culture must have several characteristics: it must be adaptive, transgenerational, symbolic, shared, learned, and patterned. Culture influences relationships and interactions between people. Thus, each culture has specific habits and behaviors. In consequence, the interaction between two cultures generates some difficulties while adapting the communication patterns. This problem must be taken into account in business. Many companies deal with foreign clients but forgot to study the foreign culture and fail in that aspect. The most difficult characteristic in doing business with another culture is to understand the other culture and to adapt our attitudes so as to obtain the best communication. That's why companies must study foreign companies and keep an "open mind". A similar case in point is that of Intel in China. In this case, there is an intercultural management issue between Charles Tang and Yong Li. The first difficulty is to be perceived as a local in Beijing, who has imposed or adapted to his choices. The second difficulty of Charles Tang is to be perceived as an expatriate externally. We examine how Tang faced and overcame these hurdles on his road to achieve his goals.
