Curs engleza: Timpul

Distinguishing clearly between these concepts is a virtually impossible task. The way one structures time belongs to one?s value system, but the way time manifests itself in that person?s actions illustrates various practices. Understanding a foreign culture refers mainly to understanding values, but for a businessperson practices may come in first.

The explanation for this is that when doing business time is restricted, therefore making it impossible for both parts to get to know each other deeply. A businessperson must rather be prepared for the handling of the first contact, the gestures and the words to be exchanged as introduction, for the time the negotiations require, etc. From this point of view, in business, having mainly basic knowledge about cultural patterns of behavior can make sense at the beginning.

Dangers regarding practice interpretation
Since one is educated in a culture that teaches him patterns of behavior with precise meanings, when meeting with a person from a foreign culture, one faces the danger of interpreting erroneously the other?s words and gestures. Attribution mistakes may lead to painful and even ridiculous misunderstandings since the meaning we ascribe to the other person?s words or deeds does not correspond to that person?s actual intended meaning. The overall danger in such a situation is to rely too much on your own familiar framework to interpret behavior and no one is immune against attribution mistakes, since this is largely carried out unconsciously.