Abstract:
Today the intercultural communication is a central matter with several fields of application and international trade is one of these. The personal abilities in managing the communication are the main elements of every kind of managerial activity and they are fundamental in international contexts in which linguistic and cultural aspects “criss –cross”. This is much more difficult when the cultural and physical distances grow as between China and Italy.
China is coming closer to the Western Countries not only because of trade and politics but also due to the need of buying goods representing a real status symbol in that area, such as wine.
The wine business has now the new challenge to find the best strategy not only to sell wine to Chinese customers but also to build long lasting and stable relationships with them.
This essay goes deeper into this topic considering my personal experience as export manager for a wine-cellar and the experience of some valuable colleagues, working for other companies located in different parts of Italy. This essay shall investigate some matters linked to the intercultural communication that could influence the negotiation from a theoretical and practical point of view. In order to explain this I briefly evaluated some basic elements of Chinese culture such as Confucian philosophy, the concept of Guanxi and of interpersonal relations in China. This analyses led me to focus on three main critical situations that could be faced during the wine trade:
• The importance and meaning of hierarchy
• The importance of middleman and the concept of losing face in China
• The importance of nonverbal communication
The aim of this dissertation is to merely offer a food of thought to investigate deeper the sale strategies that could be used to sell different kind of western products with a strong link to the territory, to new areas with a totally different culture compared to ours.
