Author: Natanja Rebsamen
Due to the globalization, International Communication is gaining a very high importance related to social interactions between different cultures. Entering new markets or commencing successful negotiations can be eased by cultural awareness.
The most common approaches were developed by E.T. Hall and G. Hofstede:
Besides the dimensions “space” and “time”, E.T. Hall (The Hidden Dimension, 1990) outlines the importance of the third factor called “context”. He differentiates between “high context cultures” which use a more indirect and formal communication style and “low Context cultures” whose communication is more direct and informal. Generally, his model demonstrates the sensitivity of coding and decoding verbal and nonverbal communication (Hall’s Context Table, 2002-2012).
G. Hofstede (Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, 2003), pioneer of comparative cross-cultural research within countries and organization, categorized five dimensions called ”power distance”, “individualism”, “masculinity”, “uncertainty avoidance” and “long term orientation”. His model offers a comparison of various countries and their local behavior and values which enables to cluster regions into homogenous markets (Five dimensions of culture of G. Hofstede, 2005-2012).