Analyze the Etiquette of a Business Culture
- Business Dressing Code
Canada’s formal business dressing
depends on the season of the year. In summer and spring, Canadians dress in
light business suits. They dress in dark suits during winter. Although Canadians
admit that business dressing is becoming casual worldwide, they do expect
formal business suits in all business and professional meetings.
2. First Name or Title
In a professional context, Canadians
use Mr. for men or Ms for women followed by a person’s surname when addressing
an individual. A first name can also be used instead of surname. This country
does not lay emphasis on prominent titles such as Doctor and the rest in their
business culture because they think they are pretentious titles.
3. Public Behavior
Traffic and walking on public places
is an important aspect of International culture. For example, when driving,
Canadians use right and pass left. This does only end in the road but extend to
using escalators and walking on streets. Canadians have business sexual
harassment policies. For example, men should not whistle or wink at women in
public or in formal setting because this is a sexual harassment case. It is
important to remember to maintain a personal space of an arm’s length when speaking
to a Canadian. Other generally accepted public formal behaviors include,
waiting to be sited, being introduced by a third party, and little eye contact
with people when speaking to each other and using “How are you” or “Hey” as
greetings that do not require response.
4. Appointment Alert
In Canada, conflict is a dirty word.
When referring to time, conflict is not expected. In business or in
professional setting punctuality is the pillar of that particular task. If a
person is late or did not observe time, nobody would raise it because it will
create conflict. However, your bad reputation holds.
5. Conversation
Canadians are polite but this does
not mean they are friendly. They do not just want to enter into arguments. They
tolerate the situation they are in hence prefer not to express their opinions
because they fear the consequence of creating a heated debate. During
conversations, Canadians try to avoid debate.
5.
Main aspects of etiquette to observe when interacting with a Canadian
- Being aware of cultural
differences between my country and Canadians and trying to fit in their
business culture.
- Observing Canadian
business and public behavior when meeting clients, when working and when
in a professional task.
- Observant about
time and appointments. Punctuality is inevitable in Canada because
Canadians do not expect conflict arising from time.
- Remembering the business
dressing code for different seasons of the year.
- Controlling temper and
try to understand the other party wherever there is a disagreement instead
of critiquing. Being polite and avoiding raising debate or arguments with
Canadians.
Three
cultural dimensions and their Impact on business etiquette in Canada
Equality
and Inequality dimension
Canadians lay emphasis in equality.
This can be equality between genders or equality in the general society.
Canadians adopt egalitarian hierarchical representation where everybody in an
organization is equal. In business, this dimension’s implication is that,
business seem to find win-win compromise when negotiating other than one sided
gain, with no or minimum competitiveness.
Time
dimension
The time dimension characteristic
for Canadians is present and future oriented. Canadians lay emphasis on the
importance of time. They are precise and punctual about time. Private and
public sectors have different working hours. You will not expect meeting a
person during working hours in any sector even if it is lunch or break time.
Tough-Tender
society dimension
This dimension is also known as the
value dimension. Canadians lay emphasis on quality of tasks other than amount
of tasks. Additionally, Canadians have soft gender rules and gender is always a
sensitive issue in business. For business implication quality of work done is
valuable as compared to accumulation of work done.
5
questions about etiquette to ask a person from Canada
1. Can you tell me how you dress for
business in Canada?
2. How do you decline a business
social event invitation in Canada?
3. How do you greet strangers on
people of first a quittance in a business meeting?
4. What are the signals for ending a
business meeting in Canada?
5. Can you tell me about hour or
hours of breaking during a working day in a private sector Company in
Canada?
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