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Understand Cultural Differences
• Cultural differences have huge impacts in
the business world
– International business dealings
– Working locally with an international work force
• Culture profoundly affects how people
communicate
– And communication is the basis of all business
activities
• The Silent Language
– Culture is often outside of people’s conscious
awareness
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What is Culture?
• How does it impact business activities?
• How can cultural differences hamper
international business?
• How can an understanding of cultural
differences improve international business?
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What is Culture?
• A lens – a frame of reference
– Through which we view and interpret human
interaction
• 90% of communication is nonverbal
– Nonverbal communication is heavily culturally
influenced
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Key Concepts
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Speed: fast and slow messages
Context
Space
Time
Information Flow
Interfacing
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Fast and slow messages
• How quickly is the meaning of a message
understood?
– Art is slow; a cartoon is fast
– Television is faster than print
• Messages are sent and received at different
speeds depending upon culture
• People are messages
– How long does it take to “know” a person?
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Context
• How much of the relevant information is in the
message, and how much is already understood
by sender and receiver?
• High context situations
– a message can contain lots of meaning
without much information content
• Low context situations
– The message must contain all relevant
information
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Space
• Territoriality
– What space and how much of it is “mine”?
– Size and location of an office
• Personal space
– How close is too close?
– This is very culturally dependent
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Time
• How people view time is very culturally
dependent
• Monochromatic vs. polychromatic
– How many things are done at once?
• One thing: monochromatic
• Many: polychromatic
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Time
• Polychronic cultures
– Lots of information is present
– Very tolerant of interruptions
– Very fluid and flexible
• Monochronic cultures
– Compartmentalized
– Schedules and agendas very important
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Time: Orientation to Past, Present
and Future
• Cultures differ in the importance they place on
past, present and future
– For example: in some cultures, current
proposals must be positioned in terms of their
historical relationships
• Respect given to age and seniority is also
relevant here
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Time as Communication
• Time-related behavior “says” a lot
– But it’s all different by culture
• Examples of time as communication
– How far ahead are appointments scheduled?
– How much importance is placed on a
schedule?
– How is waiting time interpreted?
– What does setting end dates imply?
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Time as Communication
• Other cultures
– Schedule and agendas are viewed as goals,
not binding
– Promptness is not as important as completing
a human interaction
• As a result, interruptions will delay appointments
– Forcing someone to wait is not intended as an
insult
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Information Flow
• How fast does information make its way through an
organization?
• In highly networked, high context cultures
– Very fast
– Information is not “hoarded”
• In other cultures
– Information flow is slow because communication is
more compartmentalized
• Email is changing this, but…
– Email is a low-information-content medium
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Context
• Low context cultures
– US and Canadian
– Northern European
• High context cultures
– Mediterranean (Arab, Greek, Southern
European)
– Japanese
– African
– Latin American
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Space
• Territoriality
– What space and how much of it is “mine”?
– Size and location of an office
• US: Executives have large, isolated spaces
• Japan: Executives often don’t have private offices
• Personal space
– How close is too close?
– This is very culturally dependent
– North American, North European
• Don’t get too close!
– Mediterranean, Latin, African: close
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Time
• How do monochromatics view polychronicism?
– Chaotic
– Noisy
– Inefficient (is anything getting done?
– Creates anxiety
• How do polychromatics view monochronicism?
– Slow, sterile, boring, uncreative
– Creates frustrations
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Time: Orientation to Past, Present
and Future
• Cultures differ in the importance they place on
past, present and future
• US culture is very present and near-future
oriented
• In some cultures (German, French) historical
context is very important
• Some Asian, Arab cultures are very pastoriented
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Time as Communication
• Highly scheduled cultures
– North America, Northern European
– Lots of importance placed on punctuality
– Time communicates importance
– Poor schedule adherence
• Interpreted as arrogance or incompetence
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Interfacing
• What happens when different cultures meet?
• Least difficult interfacing
– Low context to low context
– Germans and Americans
– Canadians and Scandinavians
• Most difficulty
– High context to low context
– High context to high context
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So What Do You Do?
• Don’t judge culture
– No culture is more or less valuable or efficient
than any other
• Understand your own cultural framework
• Be interested – study – the cultures you work
with
• Move slowly and softly
– Ask, listen, observe
• Be brave and have fun!
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