For example if you have business with a Japanese client you absolutely have to be prompt and cant give bad news. One student gave his story where his company usually took about 1-2 days to fully reply to a fax, as it traverse the line of command. This was not acceptable to their Japanese client, which proceeded to sent a fax every hour demanding a response. What made the matter worse was that since there was so many faxes a few people took it upon themselves to reply, so the client got many different answers.

Another student had a project in Germany. When he arrived he thought it would be neat to gather the German team and the American team and introduce everyone. Tell everyone your name, what you do, who you are etc. The problem is Germans are very personal, no one talked, it made for a awkward situation. You’d think for Americans introducing one another wouldn’t mean much, but apparently to them it was too personal. He said that the incident was an embarrassment to his company because he was not smart enough to check if that sort of thing was OK.

For most Asian cultures discussing how much you make and your personal finances is common. But of course in America that’s personal business. I have a lot of Asian friends who come over to America and are surprised when they ask about income and get a hostile reception. Or when they discuss their income they are interpreted as showing off.

A little research about where you’re going helps a great deal. Its also wise to try to explain that you’re new and you are sorry if you offend anyone.

I would add a couple items -

Part of greeting people appropriately, at least in western culture, is looking them in the eye and smiling as you shake their hand. Not smiling is easily misconstrued as disapproval.

Also, in terms of greeting people by their title – if you greet every woman over 25 as “Mrs” you risk alienating both women who do not define themselves by their marriage status and women who are unmarried. Unless you know that a woman is married, addressing a woman as “Ms” is a better choice, unless you intend to demonstrate your religious/political beliefs about women and marriage.

I would also add a note about cell phone etiquette:

Answering a phone call in the middle of a conversation sends the message that the conversation is unimportant. Worse is continuing to remain in the conversation group while speaking on the phone. Especially when everyone in the group now listening in on the call can easily evaluate the criticality of the call (in my experience it’s rarely critical enough to waste my time waiting for someone to get off the phone).

I suppose part of the issue with phone calls is that it disrupts the communication flow which is rude.

.02