As the global marketplace develops, American companies are finding more and more that there is a need for management to have a better understanding of how to do business in foreign environments, how to manage a foreign-born workforce, and how to communicate with foreign customers, workers, and even competitors. American managers have also been noting the success of certain foreign companies and have been asking what elements might be borrowed from these successful efforts and adapted to the American company to make it more competitive. Each of these forces is causing a rethinking of the standard American way of doing business, and a reconsideration of how best to approach different cultures in order to make American business more successful overall. Managers need to understand the role of cultural differences, the way in which culture can and cannot be emulated, and the aspects of culture which can and must be adopted in order to do business in a particular cultural setting. The effort to adapt is a two-pronged effort, both in terms of adapting to foreign consumers and business and in terms of adapting management methods for a foreign-born workforce.
Culture shock may affect nearly everyone who leaves his or her own culture and lives in a foreign culture for any length of time. Social scientists use the term culture shock to denote the feeling of depression, often expressed as homesickness, caused by living in a foreign environment, and when faced with an unknown or poorly understood foreign language and confused by different codes of conduct, unfamiliar foods, and even unfamiliar physical surroundings, the traveler or new resident may look upon the people and the unaccustomed behavior with distaste and even fear. Culture shock passes when it is recognized as such. When it is not recognized as culture shock, though, the problem can become more severe. In his book The Silent Language, Edward T. Hall examines the many inf...