Abstract:

The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of cultural stereotypes on business communication. In doing so, it first reviews the theoretical background to stereotypes, and then it moves on to discuss an empirical research which aimed to find out how cultural stereotypes affect the partners’ behavior as well as the level of trust, and thus business communication too. The research findings indicate that cultural stereotypes have mostly indirect, but important effect on business communication by changing the behavior and the attitude of the partners towards each other as well as their communication style. The results also show that cultural stereotypes affect the level of trust that also influences business communication between partners with different cultural backgrounds.