A Miss Manners guide to doing business in Europe - business and social etiquette

Business Horizons, July-August, 1993 by John Hill, Ronald Dulek

The beginning of EC 92 gives American business people an opportunity to reestablish this "similitude of sentiments." Americans can do business in Europe effectively and efficiently. Europeans do not shun competition--their economic unification demonstrates that. But adopting American-style competition does not mean adopting American attitudes on all other fronts. Eventually, Western Europe may become more like the United States, but until that actually occurs, Americans must compete on European terms and remember European perspectives or be prepared for failure. American business people must not land on European shores striving to create little Americas. They must instead respect European traditions and cultures, and bring this respect and understanding to all of their business and personal dealings.

References

Culturegram Series, Brigham Young University, David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, Provo, Utah, 84602. J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur, Letters From An American Farmer (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1976). Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1984). "Unlikely Ski Jumper Lands, Hard, in Calgary," New York Times, February 13, 1988, pp. 51, 55.

John S. Hill is a professor of international business, and Ronald E. Dulek is a professor and chairman of the management and marketing department, both at the College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.