BECC BUSINESS ENGLISH

UNIT III - COMMUNICATING ACROSS CULTURES

Article: Cultures & Context

Examples of How High and Low Context Cultures Differ
Theory is nice, but real-life issues are always more complicated. The high and low context cultural framework can help you better understand business today, however, by giving you a way to analyze your situations. We often dont recognize when cultural conventions are inuencing our actions, and we almost never understand the cultural conventions of others. The following examples can help you begin to think globally. debate their conicts. In modern societies, someone is usually hired to argue a persons case, and try to be as persuasive and logical as possible. When a decision is reached, its a question of who is more right. Both sides must accept the decision, as it is based on reason and analysis - even if they personally still feel unhappy.

Example 3: A Question of Values

What different cultures value are also clues to their level of context. For high-context cultures, an important value is harmony, or the ability of the entire group to live together without conict or problems. People will often sacrice personally to help maintain the groups harmony. In low-context cultures, independence is much more important. People want to achieve as individuals, and want the space to control their own lives. They often feel less responsible for the group, preferring to give others the space they need to take care of themselves. High and low context cultures see things very differently. For a high-context person, independence sounds more like selshness. Therefore, when a person from a low-context culture makes decisions with independence in mind, it can be misinterpreted as rude or thoughtless. Similarly, people from low-context cultures tend to interpret high-context cultures as passive. When a person from a high-context culture makes a decision in hopes of maintaining good relationships, they can be misunderstood as avoiding the issue. Since high and low context cultures deal with conict so differently, disagreements among international teams can be tough to resolve With such different ways of saying no, negotiating agreements is obviously tricky. Most of all, low and high context cultures will interpret other cultural values in their own way, which can lead to profound misunderstandings.

Example 1: No Means No?

Many people have found the hard way that in business, no doesnt always mean no. For low-context cultures, who express themselves directly and focus on languages literal meaning, saying No to a business deal while on the golf course is exactly the same as saying No in the board room. The message doesnt change, and for low-context cultures, the message is what matters. Highcontext cultures, however, will send messages and include meaning at many levels. For example, a No can really mean Make me a better offer, or Ask me again later. The listener understands the message based on signals from many other levels, including where they are, who else is in the room, when they are having the conversation, and many nonverbal signals. For low context cultures, no always means no. But for other cultures, it might not.

Example 2: Resolving Conicts

High-context cultures avoid direct conict, so when disagreements occur, they deal with them indirectly. A common strategy is to nd a unbiased person to listen to both sides privately. This person will then think of a way to make everyone feel better about the situation - a compromise where both sides feel they have won something. Low-context cultures, however, tend to openly