Culturally determined business operations and practices .
According to Deresky (2000), the importance of culture background can be seen when the times come to make decision that impose our own values on different societies. The fact of people from the same culture share some common values, understandings and assumptions that generate attitudes, common codes of conduct, expectations and norms of behavior can not be denied (p.105-108). The OEP (in Singapore) believes that they run business differently from those other Event Planning companies in Australia especially in terms of labor. The event planning companies in Australia tend to be smaller because the costs of labor are higher. .
Different cultural background also results in various work ethics and practices. For example, when it requires a particular form of business agreement. According to Mr. G, Caucasians are more strictly abide with the written agreement and sometimes very calculative while Asian seems more flexible. Dealing with Caucasian considered to be easier as they are generally straight forward. However, when it comes to establish a new business contact with new acquaintances, he is more likely to trust someone from similar cultural background. When an Asian firm or enterprise group seeking a partnership with other people or businesses, "personal trust" is exist. Personal trust is one of the key mechanisms upon which guanxi and partnerships are based. They would not sign a contract without "personal trust" whereas when doing business with westerners most transactions rest upon rights and obligations. They believed that there will be no cooperation without intimate guanxi which is important in business ownership and management. If this kind of trust exists the deal is easy to make (Kao, quoted in Hamilton 1996, p. 62-63). .
In other practices, "networking" are very common in Asian business. It includes in form of friendship from the past and present and relatives.
