Cultural Business environment: the case of the Czech Republic. Current situation, advantages and perspectives

Today, doing business in a foreign country is difficult, mainly due to cultural differences. Companies and business people must face multiple issues when operating abroad and even in their own nations. Crossing cultural boundaries is a real challenge for businesses today. In order to succeed, they must fully understand the cultural backgrounds of people to be more efficient when managing and cooperating with them and other businesses. The Czech Republic is one of the most developed countries in Central and Eastern Europe. However, it keeps its old roots and traditions that make people and companies behaving in a much more different way than in Western countries. The current situation in the Czech Republic is stable and the country has many advantages that attract FDI. But the economical and financial "crisis" within the European Union, and the pressure from new emerging nations might have an impact on the country in the future. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and understand first what culture is and how difficult it is to cross cultural boundaries when doing business. Furthermore, the importance of taking into consideration the cultural characteristics of a country will be highlighted, here with the case of the Czech Republic. The other aim of the study is to bring knowledge about the main economic facts of the Czech Republic as well as the different steps when starting a business in the country. The author focused his research on explaining and discussing the business practices and etiquettes in the Czech Republic to better succeed when doing business. Finally, the advantages, opportunities and perspectives of the business will be analyzed, including results from interviews of Czech people and also foreigners living, studying or working in the Czech Republic. In other words, the aim of this study is to help professionals and any people who do not have any knowledge about doing business in the Czech Republic by giving them essential information on the topic