Question

The company has just reached agreement to open a new sales office in Africa in order to better serve customers in that market. Although support personnel will be hired locally, three sales representatives from headquarters will be transferred to this office for a period of two years in order to get it “up and running.” The national sales manager has asked you to prepare a report outlining the intercultural communication issues that these sales reps likely will face.

Discuss business communication in Africa: prevailing norms of communication, cultural differences in listening, nonverbal communication, gender differences in communication, and other factors that may play a role in the success of these sales representatives in establishing an office in the country.

Answer 1

The business communication in Africa is as follows

- For verbal communication, African are unfamilar with double verbal words, speak and listen plane english, unfamiliar with phrases and they often use humour to release stress. African also adress by first name only,they love to hear the success stories of the people and become intimate in personal question.

-Their appearance is normally in western dress and in ocassion wear traditional formal dress like hats and gowns.

-They easily say no, do not like taking gift in left hand, corporate hospitality should be proper,prefer to have business meeting at the time of lunch or dinner. When they smile it indicates their weakness.

- They prefer to shake hand and often do back slapping and firm handshake, casual in their business dealing. In time management White-African are more of punctual and value more to time where as Black-African are little slower.

-While dealing with Africa eye contact is important while shaking hand and date line date must be written in the contract.One can get personal question during business meeting also.