4. What is culture? Culture-creating factors.

The word culture has many different meanings. For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food. For a biologist, it is likely to be a colony of bacterias or other microorganisms growing in a laboratory. However, for anthropologists and other scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. The term was first used in this way by the pioneer English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871. Tylor said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology.

Culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is a phenomenon too. It is constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. Our written languages, governments, buildings, and other man-made things are merely the products of culture. They are not culture in themselves. For this reason, archaeologists cannot dig up culture directly in their excavations. The broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns--they are things that were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills.

Culture include the set of beliefs, moral values, traditions, language, and laws (or rules of behavior) held in common by a nation, a community, or other defined group of people. Culturally determined characteristics include: the language spoken at home; religious observances; customs (including marriage customs that often accompany religious and other beliefs); acceptable gender roles and occupations; intellectual, artistic pursuits; and other aspects of behavior. In the United States, and in other nations with large immigrant populations, there is a wide range of cultural diversity, religious beliefs, customs, and values, reflecting the scattered origins of the people.

So, culture is an integral part of people’s life through the whole history of mankind. And people must know their history and past cultures to draw any conclusions and to be aware of where their true culture emerged in the form in which it exists now.

5. Doing business across cultures. Cultural awareness.

Today business trips and work with a foreign partners become a very important part of some businessman or companies lives. More and more representatives of the companies need to travel all over the world to establish good relationships with their foreign business partners. And if the company wants to have the maximum degree of mutual understanding with its counterpart – it must have as much knowledge about cultural features of this partner’s country as possible .

And it’s obvious that during the visit representatives or businessman face with different types of problems, for which he must be prepared and which he need to overcome as an obstacle on his difficult and thorny path.

The first and most important issue - it is certainly a cultural awareness. It’s very important to know about aspects of culture of the destination country because in different countries there are unlike traditions, special cultural aspects, and rules, including legislation. In this case any ignorance of the rules of this country can be a cause of loss business relationships and serious consequences up to the punishment, prison or even the death penalty if you do something wrong and you will be very unlucky person. So, knowledge of country’s laws, traditions and rules is vital for any business traveler.

So, preparation, as we can see – it’s a vital aspect for the businessman if he wants to have successful business in countries with quite different culture. And he will make only the most favorable impression, because everyone appreciates and respects their culture, perhaps above all else. Business partners will be impressed and arranged for the businessman if he will show courtesy and knowledge of their structure, rules and traditions - in the general cultural characteristics of this people.

As an example, I can tell you about a situation where you run your business in the Philippines and just threw a candy wrapper or a piece of paper on the street – in this way you can be caught and killed for it by the law of this country. And negotiations will stop by the reason of your death. I do not think anyone wants die because of his ignorance of some simple rules of the country. The knowledge - force, and if you warned – you forearmed.

All things considered, preparation for the businessman in sense of cultural studies is the most important points of any business in the other country. And businessman or representative of the company must take into account a very big range of aspects, which are very important for the successful business and negotiations with the foreign counterparts.