Low‐ and high‐context communication patterns: towards mapping cross‐cultural encounters

Abstract

and Training. She has worked for international organizations in Scandinavia, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as for the Canadian Federal Government. Her research interest focuses on information technology and organizational dynamics, diversity management; performance improvement in private and public sector organizations and excellence in politics of decision making. She has a BSc in Mathematics and Computing; a Graduate Diploma in Management Sciences; a Master's Degree in Public Administration and a PhD in Management. She has co-authored (with A. Korac-Kakabadse) five books -The Essence of Leadership (1999) and A Study of the Australian Public Service (1998). She has contributed 24 chapters to international volumes and has published 38 scholarly and reviewed articles. She is co-editor of The Journal of Management Development. Alexander Kouzmin holds the Foundation Chair in Management in the Graduate School of Management at the University of Western Sydney -Nepean, Australia. His research interests include organizational design; technological change; project management; comparative management; administrative reform; and crisis management. He has published eight volumes of commissioned work. Among these are his edited Public Sector Administration: Newer Perspectives (Longman Cheshire, 1983); his co-edited (with N. Scott

Cross‐cultural negotiations revisited

“…The dimensions outlined by Hofstede seem to capture the basic relationship between members within a social group and overlap with dimensions proposed by other scholars in more recent studies (Korac-Kakabadse et al, 2001).…”

Understanding intercultural facework behaviours

“…Hall's low-context culture and highcontext culture dimension serve as a good theoretical foundation to explain communication style across different cultures (Ting-Toomey, 1988). Context is defined by Hall as the information that surrounds an event (Korac-Kakabadse et al, 2001). Individualist cultures tend to be low context, and collectivist cultures tend to be high context (Merkin, 2000).…”

“…In contrast, low context communication is where the mass of the information is vested in the explicit code (Gudykunst & Lee, 2003). In low context cultures, the information provided is precise and unambiguous, and in high context cultures the information provided is implicit, vested in shared experience and assumptions and communicated through both verbal and non-verbal codes (Korac-Kakabadse et al, 2001). The content of each culture's expectancies in communication vary along cultural dimensions.…”

Communicating with Chinese by understanding them better

“…Communication in a high context culture takes much longer to reach the point of exchange (Korac-Kakabadse et al 2001) and it contains attempts to smooth over any unpleasant information that has to be conveyed (Hall and Hall 1990). It has been said that the difference between Americans (low context) and Japanese (high context) is: 'When we say one word, we understand 10, but here (in Japan) you say 10 to understand one' (Kennedy and Everest 1996).…”