As a student of Erasmus Mundus advanced master programme, EGEI, I experienced two foreign studying destinations. First country was People’s Republic of China (see also our Chinese Business Culture guide) and the second one was Belgium. Both of these cultures differ a lot from either Slovak or Czech culture, where I have grown up and currently live.

When I visited China for four months my impressions were very mixed. I was in a group of students from the Czech Republic and I could barely find a person who could speak English, that complicated our situation in substantial way since none of us from our group could read Chinese characters. Moreover, if we were lucky and we met a Chinese person who spoke English, there was a high probability that they did not talk to us even if we asked them kindly, because Chinese people tend to be very shy. This made our trip much more adventurous!

In the academic environment I found that my Chinese classmates were very hardworking, even more than hardworking! I could see that these students experience high pressure in relation to their academic results caused by their parents and economic situation.

Overall, I would characterize my stay in China as a powerful experience, it made me realise why China has such a powerful economy since it is driven by people who have hard work and determination which is not often seen in other European countries.

Belgium was a “different kettle of fish” when compared to China.

The country was much more familiar to me, since it is still in Europe! But, I observed that people in Belgium had different ways of thinking. For example in school, they approached their study more responsibly when compared to the Czech schools, they also rejected any form of cheating. I like this approach of honestly and responsibility.

Personally, I found Belgian people as masters of compromises, since due to their multi cultural society they were able to accommodate all differences and took their time to understand each other’s points of view. Also, they seem to me to be on the one hand very noble on the other hand somewhat conceited.

Business Culture guide as part of the https://businessculture.org describes Belgian behaviour with a lot of details and I can simply agree with the description provided according my experience. In particular, making extravagant physical gestures such as hugging is very inappropriate for Belgians at the first meeting.

I think I benefited tremendously from both study trips. By engaging in international study, it helped me to be more able to get along with foreign people from various countries. Based on my experience I realized that it would have been very useful for me to know prior to the trips information such as – where should I look for accommodation, what kind of transportation is the most suitable, what to expect from academic environment, what facilities for studying can I expect, cost of living in the specific area, language matters such as whether most people speak English and so on. Therefore, when I discovered the Business Culture guides for the 31 European countries, which includes all this information and much more, I think that businessculture.org would have been a great practical tool prior to my trips.

For my future trips I will be more prepared since this business culture website gives me a brief overview of a specific country. In addition, I can find information that is most necessary to have before you go abroad. Especially, I find good hyperlinks provided in these web pages that give more information if you need, so you do not have to browse somewhere else and you have it all in one “place”. On the other hand, I would have like businessculture.org to have extended to more countries not only Europe!

By Peter Víťazka,

Slovak student studying in Czech Republic. Currently student at Erasmus Mundus advanced master programme “Economics of Globalisation and European Integration”

My name is Sebastian Popescu and I am the manager of S.C. East Soft Consulting – an Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME),  specialising in computer software. I was invited to attend a meeting held at the University of VALAHIA from Targoviste, Romania, were I found out about the Passport to Trade 2.0 (#P2T2) project and the website resource planned to be developed.

As an SME company I am very interested in opportunities to grow our business in other countries and therefore information about business culture in Europe was very welcome. Every day I realise that the online environment is increasingly offering us new ways of advertising and staying in touch with our customers.

In late September 2013 I had to travel to Germany for business. Knowing that on the P2T2 website (businessculture.org) I can read a lot about business customs in various countries from Europe, I took the opportunity to find out more about Germany and their attitudes toward business communications and foreigners.

During my Germany visit I understood how important it is to know the customs of a country and of people you intend to contact. I refer here to the first business meeting and the first business conversation. From the P2T2 website I found out about German rigidity that is well described and in this way I knew how to approach the business meeting. It is very interesting how they respect what they discussed and how they kept their word. Taking this into consideration I prepared my presentation and business proposal to be in very short and clear statements. After the business meeting, that I consider to be a successful for starting up of a new cooperation I feel that for my preparation for the business meetings the BusinessCulture.org website was “my lucky key” to success!

This site really helps you to adopt to the model of the people and business cultures you meet in 31 European countries. On the website I liked to find information about the attitude to foreigners and some of the taboos in each country.

Small things such as how to greet, habits of people when they are at a dinner meeting, conversation topics to be used for ice breaker discussions could make you an agreeable business partner or could be considered offensive and therefore jeopardize any potential future business collaboration.

I am planning to study the content of the website in more detail and pay particular attention this time to the social media tools and strategies available. I am confident that I will gain a lot of useful information for my business development. I am also thinking to ask one or two students from the Faculty of Economic Studies University of VALAHIA to have placement assignments in my company where they will help us to get better in the use of social media and some other tips on how we can improve our business for international trade.

If you are an SME manager or employee and you have some spare time use it to explore  www.businessculture.org, I am sure you will have no regrets, certainly you will gain useful knowledge!

Having spent almost two years in England as a student, I am pleased to see that this website lists all the important cultural characteristics of the British people. Businessculture.org is a powerful tool for students, business people and individuals who are looking for a helpful resource to communicate with other European citizens face-to-face or via the Internet.

Being French myself, I found all the typical French cultural characteristics and the requirements for a good negotiation or communication with French people. Saying “bonjour”, shaking hands, being on time… as many other elements that are so important in France and that you need to learn and be aware of when in France!

I experienced myself the difficulties related to differences between English and French ways to communicate during my several trips. Knowing how people react or act can be really helpful in many situations when you are in a new country and dealing with other business cultures!

This website will drive your success in communication in Europe. I am happy to finally find out a useful and ergonomic tool to run my business projects and encourage you to have a look (and more!) on this great website.

Pierre Boulay