Edward Hall’s contextual model provides an effective approach for explaining many of the differences between cultures. The issue of context is certainly one area where much communication goes awry, creating surprise and confusion over where the miscommunication occurred and why. Hall distinguishes cultures along two axes:

• In contract, in a low-context culture many more things are “explicit” in the environment because members of the culture come from a wide variety of backgrounds and traditions. In low-context cultures, people tend to have many loose connections of a shorter duration. Because of its heterogeneity, such cultures can change significantly from one generation to the next. Some examples of low-context cultures are the US, UK, Canada, Denmark, and Norway.

In general, individuals moving from one type of culture to another have to adapt and be more flexible in learning new ways of working than individuals moving to a different culture, but with the same type of context. For example, language issues aside, workers moving among France, Italy, and Spain (all high-context cultures) have an easier time adapting than individuals moving from the US to China (low- to high-context cultures) or from Italy to Canada (high- to low-context cultures). Individuals from high-context cultures expect there to be underlying differences between cultures and so tend to be more attuned and ready to see and work with the subtleties that lie beneath the surface.

In contrast individuals from low-context cultures moving to high-context cultures often can’t believe that there are so many unwritten rules of conduct and ways of interacting. In this situation, low-context culture individuals need to hone their intuition and learn how to look for differences that may catch them by surprise and create that embarrassing “foot-in-mouth” situation. Individuals from low-context cultures must learn to listen and ask questions, rather than attempt to work out a solution independently.

The following chart attempts to lay out some of the major differences between low-context and high-context cultures that affect the business environment:

It should be obvious what areas are ripe for cultural conflict when individuals from high- and low-context cultures come into contact. One area in particular is the decision-making process. The logical, linear thinkers quickly become frustrated by the intuitive, relational thinkers and neither ends up valuing the perspective that the other individual brings.  Another area where I’ve often seen a lack of understanding between cultures is in work approach and style: individuals from low-context, individualistic cultures who are very task and results-oriented versus those individuals from high-context, collectivist cultures who are focused on building relationships and “saving face” in group settings. Add to these, language differences, geographical distances, timezone changes, and organizational barriers, and it’s no surprise that cultures come into conflict and progress suffers because of misunderstandings.
Understanding, accepting, and learning to work with these differences is fundamental to being successful in a global environment. HR needs to broaden its focus on diversity beyond the traditional focus on gender, ethnicity, and generational issues. HR needs to fully embrace global diversity, fostering understanding, acceptance, inclusion, and leveraging of cultural differences to enhance team productivity, organizational effectiveness, and overall business performance.