In today's global business environment, it is necessary to communicate successfully across cultural boundaries of languages, styles, and values. Every aspect of global communication is influenced by cultural differences. There is a popular concept given by Edward T. Hall that describe some of the main differences between different types of cultures and the similarities between cultures of the same type. Needless to mention, that this attempt to generalize cultures is far from valid for every individual, organization, or group, but the main ideas of these concepts have been proven through the years. Let’s start with low-context cultures. Their way of communication is direct, clear, and precise in order to avoid misunderstandings and misinterpretation. Western cultures are accepted as a good example of low-context cultures. In contrast to low-context cultures are high context cultures which in turn rely on nonverbal communication and often require reading between the lines to understand what the opposite person actually means. A great example of this type are Eastern countries such as Japan and Korea. According to Hall these countries are able to ”read the air” and it means that they don`t need so many words in their daily working environment. The reason for this distinction between low and high context cultures can be traced back in the past and it is all related to the way they have collaborated each other. For example, in Japan people are used to work, live and do almost everything together. This is how they have learnt to understand others without saying too much. The term describes this phenomenon is “groupism” and characterize exactly this mutual way of living. When it comes to people in Western cultures, they believe in competition and individual freedom. We expect people to “be themselves” and seek to stand out from the crowd. But this belief contrasts with those of other cultures, where people feel more comfortable sticking to the norm. So what’s the best way to understand cultures beyond your own? There is a short and a long answer. The short one is simple- just interact with them. If we dig deeper, though, then we will find out that this is an overall process and needs to be carefully reviewed.
