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3.2 Analyzing Intercultural Gaffes (Objs. 1−3)

As business organizations become increasingly global in their structure and marketing, they face communication problems resulting from cultural misunderstandings.

Your Task. Based on what you have learned in this chapter, describe several broad principles that could be applied in helping the individuals involved understand what went wrong in the following events. What suggestions could you make for remedying the problems?

a. Alert Driving, a firm that provides online driving training courses to companies with vehicle fleets, expanded into more than 20 countries before realizing that its product had cultural flaws. In Japan its product was poorly translated and failed to address geographic nuances, but the company’s Japanese customers were slow to voice dissatisfaction. As a result, the company had to spend about $1 million to revamp its product line after it was already in the market. What cultural trait caused the delay in negative feedback?¹⁰⁵