High/Low-Context Communication Problems

In this age of globalization, interaction between high- and low-context cul­tures has become more frequent than ever before. International business transactions, for example, may suffer because of communication difficulties between cultures.

In general, a low-context individual often becomes puzzled and frustrated when interacting with other people who have a high-context culture. Their messages seem incomplete and ambiguous. A U.S. professor of communica­tion, teaching at a Japanese university, tells of the endless faculty meetings that he endured. Decisions were made by consensus, a process that required a great deal of discussion in a high-context and collectivistic culture like Japan. It was considered inappropriate to ask direct questions in these dis­cussions, and often the progress of the faculty conversations drifted in what seemed to be aimless directions. Careful statements would be made by the professors, which only seemed to deal with the topic of discussion in a very oblique way. Individuals would hide their feelings to avoid hurting someone else's feelings with whom they might disagree. The U.S. professor could not even be sure as to who disagreed with whom. Faculty meetings would often continue for five or six hours, and some stretched to seven or eight hours, only ending when everyone was completely exhausted. Many faculty meetings ended without any decision being made.

Communication problems between people of high- and low-context cul­tures are so common that the occupation of translator extends far beyond transcription of speeches. Chen is a translator in a New York city hospital. She facilitates physician/patient communication for Chinese patients. The European American doctors continually demand that Grace get to the point of an exchange with a patient more quickly. Their time is valuable, and they are thinking about the other patients in their wait­ing room. But Grace's high-context patients insist on describing their medi­cal problems in a spiral of widely scattered details, without actually stating what their illness is. Translating between such high-context patients and low-context doctors is very difficult. Grace is not just translating from one language to another. She is mediating between two different types of cultures. Low-context people become impatient and irritated when high-context people insist on giving them information they feel that they do not need.

Lower Context Cultures: German, Scandinavian, American, English, Irish, English Canadian, Australian, New Zealander.

Higher context Cultures: French Canadian, French, Finnish, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Latin Americans, Greek, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipinos, Indian, Brazilian, Thai.

Linear-Active and Multi-Active Cultures

An example: a BBC producer, often used to visit Europe to visit BBC agents. He never failed to get through his appointments in Denmark and Ger­many, but he always had trouble in Greece. The Greek agent was a popular man in Athens and had to see so many people each day that he invariably ran over­time. So the producer usually missed his appointment or waited three or four hours for the agent to turn up. Finally, after several trips, the producer adapted to the multi-active culture. He simply went to the Greek agent's secretary in late morning and asked for the agent's schedule for the day. As the Greek conducted most of his meetings in hotel rooms or bars, the BBC producer would wait in the hotel lobby and catch him rushing from one appointment to the next. The multi­active Greek, happy to see him, would not hesitate to spend half an hour with him and thus make himself late for his next appointment.

When people from a linear-active culture work together with people from a multi-active culture, irritation results on both sides. Unless one party adapts to the other—and they rarely do—constant crises will occur. "Why don't the Mex­icans arrive on time?" ask the Germans. "Why don't they work to deadlines? Why don't they follow a plan?" The Mexicans, on the other hand, ask, "Why keep to the plan when circumstances have changed? Why keep to a deadline if we rush production and lose quality? Why try to sell this amount to that customer if we know they aren't ready to buy yet?"

A study of attitudes toward time in a Swiss-Italian venture showed that, after some initial quarreling, each side learned something from the other. The Italians finally admitted that adherence at least in theory to schedules, production dead­lines and budgets enabled them to clarify their goals and check on performances and efficiency. The Swiss, on the other hand, found that the more flexible Italian attitude allowed them to modify the timetable in reaction to unexpected devel­opments in the market, to spot deficiencies in the planning that had not been evi­dent earlier, and to make vital last-minute improvements with the extra time.

Germans, like the Swiss, are very high on the linear-active scale, since they attach great importance to analyzing a project, compartmentalizing it, tackling each problem one at a time in a linear fashion, concentrating on each segment and thereby achieving a near-perfect result. They are uneasy with people who do not work in this manner, such as Arabs and those from many Mediterranean cultures.

Americans are also very linear-active, but there are some differences in atti­tude. As Americans live very much in the present and race toward the near future, they sometimes push Germans into action before the latter want to act. Germans are very conscious of their history and their past and will often wish to explain a lot of background to American partners to put present actions in con­text. This often irritates Americans who want to "get on with it."

Figure 1.1 gives a suggested ranking on the linear/multi-active scale, showing some rather surprising regional variations. German and other European influ­ences in Chile have caused Chileans to be less multi-active than, for instance, Brazilians or Argentineans. The differences in behavior between northern and southern Italians are well documented. Australians, with a large number of Southern European immigrants, are becoming less linear-active and more extro­verted than most northern peoples.