Introduction
Culture is an acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and generate social behavior. This knowledge forms values, creates attitudes, and influences behavior. Because different cultures exist in the world, an understanding of the impact of culture on behavior is critical to the study of management. Doing business with and in foreign countries poses some interesting cross cultural challenges. Czech values education, cleverness, social standing, modesty and humor. Individuals are judged and respected more so on knowledge and ability and in terms of virtue, modesty is very important; therefore, making Czech’s somewhat different from Americans (Czech Republic, 2007).
The Czech Republic was the western part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic and was proclaimed in Prague on November 14, 1918, and the Czech nation became one of the two component parts of the newly formed Czechoslovakian state. The Czechs lost their national independence to the Hapsburgs Empire in 1620 at the Battle of White Mountain and for the next 300 years were ruled by the Austrian Monarchy (Czech Republic, 2008).
Despite cultural differences, the Slovaks shared with the Czechs similar aspirations for independence from the Hapsburstate and voluntarily united with the Czechs. For historical reasons, Slovaks were not at the same level of economic and technological development as the Czechs, but the freedom and opportunity found in Czechoslovakis enabled them to make strides toward overcoming these inequalities. However, the gap never was fully bridged and the discrepancy played a continuing role throughout the 75 years of the union (Czech Republic, 2008).
Differences and Incompatibilities between US and Czech Cultures
The cultural di ...