French Business Etiquette

During my time studying at the Ecole de Management (EM) Strasbourg Business School in Strasbourg, France, I learned many helpful tools that will allow me to grow professionally. As an International Business major, I felt that studying abroad would teach me a lot about the world of business on an international scale. I was able to take classes that educated me on topics that focused on French companies, as well as companies that have expanded into many other countries leaving a large impact on the world. I was also able to hear from professors and students who had different views about the business sector of our world. I learned much about how different countries conduct business, the correct business etiquettes, and how to expand a company to an international scale.

In my Intercultural Management class, my professor Dr. José L. Vallejo García, taught our class about how different countries and cultures manage their workplace. He expressed the importance of working with people from both high-context and low-context cultures. I learned that people of a high-context culture value relationships and communicate in implicit ways. Oppositely, people of a low-context culture are more logical and concerned with the actions being performed rather than the relationships that are built. Countries such as Japan, China, and France tend to belong to a high context culture, while countries such as the United States, Germany, and Switzerland tend to belong to a more low-context culture. My professor explained to us that when interacting with people from different cultures, we must acknowledge and respect the way that they want to be approached and communicated. He also had our class do an activity in which he split up students into groups based on their home country. Each group was to come together and create a PowerPoint that would explain how their culture places in the high versus low context attributes. A few of my classmates from France explained that since many French people are passionate about their heritage, they pay much attention to one’s body language and non-verbal cues before agreeing to meet or converse with them. They also included that their work was not always their main priority and that creating relationships in the office was more important than the actual work completed that day. On the other hand, my group presented that the United States cared much about an employee’s work ethic and the company’s efficiency rates and less of the relationship building aspect of work. I was able to learn a lot from each groups’ presentations. I think this activity will help me professionally when looking for an occupation. In the future as I apply to jobs outside of the United States, I will need to be knowledgeable about how to approach my interview and eventually my coworkers and bosses.

I will also be able to use information I learned abroad professionally when it comes to different business etiquettes. For example, in the US, almost everyone dresses relatively casual whether you’re a college student or working a 9-5 each day. Dress-down days are common in the American workforce. However, in France, both students and employees wear business casual / business professional clothes every day. This was something different that I had to get used to, as I initially wore comfortable clothes each day to class. I changed my wardrobe while I was living in France and adapted to their dress etiquette. In France, clothing tends to be more formal and shows one’s status, which is why it is important to dress correctly when performing business interactions in France.

Another event I experienced abroad and that helped me grow, was speaking with my International Strategy professor. For this course one of our final grades was a group presentation on a company of your choice. Your group would research their specific strategy for expanding internationally. My group decided to research Tesla and Elon Musk’s expansion of this company. After much work put into our project, my group submitted a 12-page report and performed a 25-minute presentation to the class. Each member of the group was responsible for presenting a different part of the research. After each group’s presentation, I stayed after class to speak with my professor, Jean Philippe Berque, to ask him about his thoughts on my presentation. He was able to share with me some of the things he evaluated my team on and give me some constructive criticism on my part specifically. This was helpful because now I can take the information I learned and better myself when giving a presentation in the future. I also made a deeper connection with my professor and can continue to network with him and use him has a future resource.