Omar Salgado Intenational Manufacturing

Abstract

The speed of changes in the global business environment has pushed European multinationals to employ staff of its subsidiaries abroad to take over some corporate activity in a third country. This is the case with Latin American executives working in China, which face not only the culture shock, but are immersive in a complex chain of command between headquarters, subsidiary and host market. The purpose of this article is to decode the business environment in China for Latin American executives, based on corporate communication barriers, communication genres and different business perspectives. The study is based on four groups with different degrees of involvement in doing business in China. The first group includes executives from Latin America who were employed by headquarters to carry out a corporate activity based in China, usually for several years. The second group are executives of the subsidiary who travels to China to solve a specific problem and for a period usually less than one year. The third group are executives working in Latin America, but have frequent business in China and thus not only travel to China, but also receive their Chinese counterparts. The last group are executives of the subsidiary that only work in Latin America, but are responsible for maintaining remotely business transactions with their Chinese counterparts. Unearth differences in perceptions, intentions and attitudes to do business not only improve efficiency but also increase the frequency and engagement between them.

Keywords: international business communication, corporate communication, expatriate communication, subsidiary coordination and control