When in Bogota
Team case analysis
Group 1: Rion, Anna, Eva, Helen, Tyrion, Feras
Case 1.“When in Bogota…”
Case summary. Jim Reynolds, an acquisition editor for Academia Press (college-level business textbook publisher) has arrived from New York, USA to Bogota, Colombia. He was intended to combine leisure and business. He met his old college friend Rodrigo Cardozo and spent some good time his family. But his primary aim was to conduct a series of meetings with directors of business schools at various Bogota Universities and establish business contacts in the Colombian market, as his company has seen future opportunities in Latin America. The deal was important not only to his company, but for him also, as it was a good possibility to get a promotion. He scheduled the meeting and went for the first one on Tuesday. He was supposed to meet 3 professors at 11:00, but two of them arrived half an hour later. Then they offered Jim to go for a lunch, during that time they were not discussing the business matters at all, all the conversations were about the dishes and the sights of Bogota, the professors seem to be simply not interested in Jim’s offerings. The lunch finished at 2:30, but Jim hasn’t accomplished his goal at all, he was didn’t understand what went wrong and very upset about it. When he came to his friend’s home later, he met friend’s father Dario, who was a businessman and had conducted business with people from different countries. He told about the meeting and asked for the advice. Dario reminded that Jim is Bogota now, not in the USA and the way of negotiations and doing business is simply different. First of all it is important to build trust and friendship, because people don’t do business with those they hardly know. He assured Jim that the meeting went fine according to Colombian culture and he will get the contact soon.
Case analysis. In this particular case the main problem is the culture difference, which played a big role in the establishment of business relationships. There are two different countries the USA and Columbia, situated in North and South America that have different historical background, traditions, and cultural norms, as well as the style of doing business that is greatly influenced by the national culture. The man that has come from USA was trying to do business in Colombia in the same way as in the America. He was not taking into account the fact that he is in a foreign country, where things might be seen and perceived differently. He had a friend in Bogota and he was a little bit familiar with the Spanish language, cuisine, salsa, but not the style of business communication. The problem also is that he hasn’t asked anyone (for example his friend or friend’s father, who is good in international business) about the Colombian business culture prior to the business meetings and he was absolutely unaware how to behave and how to react on people’s behavior.
According to Edward Hall’s classification of cultures there is a huge difference between the USA and Colombian cultures. USA is considered to be the low-context and monochronic culture, Colombia on the contrary is high-context and polychronic culture. From the case “When in Bogota…” we can see that people in Colombia and USA have different attitudes to life and business. Here are several examples. We have noticed that Jim has arranged the meeting with the professors and he had arrived on time and wanted to go strictly to business at the first meeting, it is very typical of the American culture and he was expecting the other people to do like him. As Hall mentioned people in USA put job first, concentrate on one thing at a time, their time is properly organized; the message is explicit and clear. When the two of the Colombian professors were late for the meeting and were not willing to talk about the business with Jim on the day of their acquaintance, it also reflects a cultural peculiarity, but not the disrespect or unwillingness to conduct business in future, like Jim thought. Colombian people prefer to build trustworthy relationships first, they are long-term oriented, the attitude to time is flexible, they can do many things at one time and are easily distracted.
We have found and compared the scores of the USA and Colombia on five G.Hofstede dimensions and the diagram below will help to show the difference clearly.
[pic 1]
The highest difference in scores is seen on the Individualism/Collectivism dimension. USA with the score of 91 is considered to be a highly individualistic society; Colombia has a score of 13 and is more a collective society. In Columbia people want always want to be a part of a group in family and work life. In our Jim’s friends are a married couple, but still they live with the parents as Colombians favor expanded families. The second dimension where the difference is seen is the attitude to risk (uncertainty avoidance). Columbians (scores of 80) are considered risk averse, they are not going to build business with strangers, they need to know person better, establish trust and only after it go to the business issues and our case is the good example to it. American people with the score of 46 are more risky and easily can establish business relations, accept innovations etc. If we look at the scores on the power distance, we may see that Colombia has a score of 67 and is considered to be a hierarchical society, and USA with a score of 40 is more an equalitarian society. People in Colombia respect hierarchy, while in USA everyone can speak openly and directly to each company member and it would not be considered inappropriate.