Real Communication An Introduction

126 Part 1  Basic Communication Processes

Diverse Organizations

Any job you take will involve some degree of intercultural communication. A

teacher may have students whose families are from different parts of the country

or from other countries entirely; an entrepreneur must understand how different

groups respond to her product and her marketing campaigns. Being aware of how

culture affects communication is especially crucial to business communication

across borders (Busch, 2009). During negotiations, for instance, you may need

to know how hard to push a client to commit and when to be silent. The increas-

ingly global reach of organizations also means that managers need to be effective

leaders with increasingly multicultural workforces (Mazur, Boboryko-Hocazade,

& Dawidziuk, 2012; Okoro & Washington, 2012).

Clearly, intercultural communication is important in your life as a student,

as a citizen, and as a professional. The culture in which you live (or were raised)

has particular ways of communicating in the world. We illustrate these now by

examining seven cultural variations.

Communication and Cultural Variations

It is one thing to notice cultural differences; it is quite another to be able to

explain them. Why, for example, might Germans seem very blunt and direct as

they speak, whereas the Japanese may seem never to get to the point? Scholars

have identified seven major communication variations^1 across cultures: high-

and low-context cultures, collectivist and individualist orientations, comfort

with uncertainty, masculine and feminine orientations, approaches to power dis-

tance, time orientation, and value of emotional expression (Hall, 1976; Hofstede,

1984, 2001; Matsumoto, 1989).

These seven variations are often treated like opposites, so you may think that

your culture must be one or the other. However, these variations actually play out

along a spectrum: your culture may be masculine in some ways and feminine in

others. Also, within any culture, there is great variance among different groups

in terms of where they fall on the spectrum. Finally, there are always differences

among individuals as well—some people are more like their dominant culture

than others. With these caveats in mind, let’s consider each variation more closely.

High- and Low-Context Cultures

Our culture strongly affects how direct we are in our use of language and how

much we rely on other, nonverbal ways to communicate. Individuals in high-

context cultures (including Japan, Korea, China, and many Latin American and

African countries) use contextual cues—such as time, place, relationship, and

situation—to interpret meaning and send subtle messages (Hall, 1976; Hall &

Hall, 1990). A Japanese person who disagrees with someone, for example, may

say something indirect, such as “Maybe” or “I’ll think about it,” or she may not

(^1) Geert Hofstede referred to these variations as cultural dimensions—largely psychological
value constructs that affect the way people think about and perform communication
behaviors.
CONNECT
If you are from a low-
context culture, you may
wonder how to decode
communication from a
high-context friend or
colleague. The key lies
in developing strong
listening skills (Chapter 6).
By participating in active
listening, you can look for
opportunities to select
and attend to nonverbal
messages or contextual
clues that will help you
understand the message
your friend is encoding
and sending.