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Not understanding the cultural aspects of doing business overseas can jeopardize the success of international negotiations, entry strategies, joint ventures, technology transfer, marketing, and human resources. This article reports a study of the perceptions of U.S. and Mexican executives concerning the importance of 15 cultural dimensions of doing business in Mexico (our second largest trading partner). It found that, whereas Mexican executives believed more strongly than U.S. executives that the cultural dimensions of doing business in Mexico were more important than the product or service offered and the accompanying terms of sale, the U.S. executives, surprisingly, assigned higher levels of importance to the 15 cultural variables. Both Mexican and U.S. executives strongly agreed on which of the 15 variables were most important. All eight subgroups of U.S. executives assigned higher levels of importance to the 15 cultural aspects of doing business in Mexico than did their Mexican counterparts. When four comparisons of the executives of the eight subsets of U.S. companies-large vs. small, border location vs. nonborder location, doing business in Mexico vs. not doing business there, and doing business there more than 5 years (pre-NAFTA) vs. doing business there 5 years or less (post-NAFTA)-were made of the level of importance they attached to the cultural variables, no significant differences were found. Based on the study's findings, implications for doing business in Mexico are indicated. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF DOING BUSINESS IN MEXICO: PERCEPTIONS OF U.S. AND MEXICAN EXECUTIVES
It is almost a cliche that U.S. companies will not succeed in international markets unless they are knowledgeable about the cultural dimensions of doing business overseas and incorporate these into their international operations. Glover (1990) perhaps expresses this axiom best: "Understanding and heeding cultural variables ... is one of the most significant aspects of being successful in any international endeavor. A lack of familiarity with business practices, social customs, and etiquette of a country can weaken a company's position in the market, prevent it from accomplishing its objectives, and ultimately lead to failure."
What aspects of a firm's international operations can be adversely affected by cultural insensitivity? Practically all of them. For example, negotiations (Barnum & Wolniansky, 1989; Bryan & Buck 1989; Burt, 1984; Francis, 1991; Graham & Sano,...