engleski

Intercultural differences between Austria and Croatia in the context of business communication

The globalization of the economy, especially in the context of adaptation and successful communication within the European Union, emphasizes the importance of perceiving and adapting to intercultural diversity in order to achieve business success. This paper analyzes the notion of interculturalism from the aspect of observing business relations, and emphasizes the perception of intercultural diversity that is of importance for business communication and the outcomes of business cooperation and negotiations between any country within or out of the EU. In the focus of research presented in this paper were specific characteristics of Croatia and Austria, to geographically close countires with many diversities. The research tasks were to determine the phenomena of business intercultural interaction, obstacles in intercultural communication and the dimensions of cultural values according to Hofstede, to analyze the intercultural differences of the mentioned countries, to distinguish everyday from a business communication, and to point out the importance of these aspects in terms of fulfilling business strategies. At the start of this resarch three hypothesis were stated. Initial startpoint was that though sharing the part of history and presently two countries have built a rich cooperation there are significant differeneces that may be of importance for business communication. First hypothesis stated a larger business formality that characterizes Austrian culture, and second lack of intercultural experience of Croatian culture and gaining less communication experience valuable for intercultural behaviour, which makes it less adaptable. The third hypothesis is about the perception of equality in business gender relations. Respondents' attitudes were examined by a specially designed survey containing 18 statements, with the respondents agreeing on a five-point Likert scale. The study was conducted on 40 (50%) respondents in Croatia and 40 (50%) respondents in Austria. Respondents had experience in Croatian-Austrian intercultural business. The results of the study confirmed all three hypotheses.

cultural intelligence, intercultural communication, crosscultural business, international business, cultural diversity, cultural characteistics

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