1. In France you are expected to shake hands with everyone you meet.

2. People in Britain shake hands just as much as people in Germany.

3. In France people prefer talking about business during meals.

4. It is not polite to insist on paying for a meal if you are in Italy.

5. Visitors to Germany never get taken out for meals.

6. German business people don’t like to be called by their surnames.

7. Make sure you know what the titles of the German people you meet are.

8. Italian professionals are usually addressed by their titles.

9. A humorous remark always goes down well all over the world.

Discuss these questions.

1. Which of the ideas in the article do you disagree with?

2. What would you tell a foreign visitor about ‘good manners’ in your country?

3. How much do you think international business is improved by knowing about foreign people’s customs?

Forms of business in the USA

Businesses in the USA may be organized as one of the following forms:

§ individual business

§ general partnership

§ limited partnership

§ corporation

§ alien corporation

An individual business is owned by one person.

A general partnership has got several owners. They all are liable for debts and they share in the profits,

A limited partnership has got at least one general owner and one or more other owners. They have only a limited investment and a limited liability,

A corporation is owned by persons, called/stockholders. The stockholders usually have certificates showing the number of shares which they own. The stockholders elect a director or directors to operate the corporation. Most corporations are closed corporations, with only a few stockholders. Other corporations are owned by many stockholders who buy and sell their shares at will. Usually they have little interest in management of the corporations.

Alien corporations are corporations of foreign countries.

All the corporations are to receive their charters from the state authorities. The charters state all the powers of the corporation. Many corporations try to receive their charters from the authorities of the State of Delaware, though they operate in other states. They prefer the State of Delaware because the laws are liberal there and the taxation is rather low. Such corporations, which receive their charters from an outside state, are called foreign corporations.

AJ1 the corporations require a certificate to do business in the state where they prefer to operate.

Read the texts to get more information about business abroad.

As the company marks an important anniversary this year, Canon President Fujio Mitarai pauses to reflect on how his company has grown / has been growing since its start in August 1937 as a manufacturer of high-quality cameras.

In a way, Mitarai observes, it was lucky that Canon’s products were at the time relatively expensive for most Japanese consumers.

This forced us to look overseas for sales, he notes. It forced us to stand up to criticism and competition, and to make our products better and better.

Mitarai divides the company’s past into two periods. Camera production was mastered in the first period, he says, and a new era began in 1967 when it was decided Canon would be a ‘two-handed company’ with ‘cameras on the right hand and business machines on the left’.

The ensuing go years have seen / have been seeing the company turn out new products, like copying machines and printers, and branch into new fields like electronics and engineering. ‘But all along’ Mitarai says, ‘our goals have been to globalize and diversify’.

Canon now has 140 sales subsidiaries in 33 countries, plus 30 different production sites outside Japan, and has opened / has been opening eight separate R&D facilities in the United States, Europe, Australia and China. Consolidated sales rose 18% last year to reach approximately $22 billion and the number of employees has increased / has been increasing rapidly to a total now of over 75 000.

In coming years, Mitarai says, his goals are to further strengthen R&D centres worldwide. Recently, he has also pushed / has also been pushing Canon to play an increasingly active role in digital technology, and in networking his company’s wide array of computer peripherals.

Turning back to talk of his workforce, Mitarai repeats ‘Our employees have always been our greatest strength’. And true to his word, plans are underway to improve the quality of Canon’s headquarters. A new health and fitness centre has just been built, and for the last few days cranes have pulled / have been pulling down an old building to make room for a garden.