Deciding to study abroad was an easy decision as I had always wanted to learn about and see Italy, but only after going on the trip and seeing their culture, did I really understand what our professor was talking about in Global Leadership. Throughout the course we learned different subjects regarding history, culture, and how to best interact with other cultures whenever you are doing business. In the beginning, I thought it would be fairly simple as many cultures have similar enough views of business because at the end of the day it is business, right? However, after going on all the business trips I learned that for everyone it looks a little different.
One thing I saw was when we did a day business trip to a vineyard in Tuscany was just how family oriented everything was surrounding business. In this trip we learned about a particular family, who took over a vineyard business of another family several centuries ago, and how still to this day their descendants live on the property and control the vineyard. Additionally, many of these family businesses will not do business with you until you are close to them like family would be. This baffled me as I learned about all the families who turned down impressive offers because they wanted to remain true to their culture and their heritage. Learning this made me appreciate everything that these businesses stood for and allowed me to open my eyes to the differences in business across the world, and how to better adapt to each area, or how to even let the various areas affect what I might implement in a business later on.
