Question and answer formats in academic discourse

Communication

In "UN Summit to push for corporate green plans," Clark (2012) mentions a summit in Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. In addition to the cultures represented by the host country, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and India are also mentioned in the article. Clark's (2012) article, which is published in The Financial Times, illustrates some of the challenges with cross-cultural communications and business.

In "UN Summit to Push for Corporate Green Plans," Clark (2012) refers directly to the "resistance" of countries including the United States, Canada, and India to some environmental strategies "because of fears that it will add to companies' regulatory burdens." The cultural values this represents include an economic model in which businesses operate with as little regulation on the part of government as possible. However, some businesses are on board with the environmental regulations. As Clark (2012) points out, "a group of businesses and investors, such as Aviva, that say both companies and investors benefit from long-term consideration of forecast squeezes on energy, water and other resources."

Clark (2012) mentions that the environmental regulations are popular in Europe and are actively being pushed by many countries including the United Kingdom and Denmark. The regulations are "being backed by many European countries, including the UK, which has included a leading campaigner for the measure." This shows differences between North America and Europe, representing a new type of "contact zone" between the former European colonies and the Old World. European nations tend to believe that "governments should develop a 'model for best practice and facilitate action' for so-called corporate sustainability reporting," (Clark, 2012). On the other hand, North American leaders believe less in governmental regulation. The North American contingency epitomizes what the text calls corporate colonialism (p. 283). Corporate colonialism is a type of cultural imperialism. North America since World War Two has attempted to impose cultural hegemony on other nations of the world, thereby thwarting effective public policy. This is especially true in the areas of environmental and social justice. As Mander (n.d.) points out, "corporate leaders, their allies in government, and a newly powerful centralized global trade bureaucracy" are imposing a paradigm of liberalized trade on the rest of the world. If such leaders were promoting the common good, then their efforts would not be so harshly criticized. Yet the reason why corporate colonialism is so harshly criticized is because the policies represented by North American cultures "have proven spectacularly unsuccessful over the past several decades wherever they've been applied," (Mander, n.d.).