The difficulties of intercultural communication
Opportunity Wealth Group
In today’s world every one of us has to deal with people from another culture every now and then. Whether it is in a business environment, on holiday, in the street, on the phone or on the internet. Most of the time we use English as a lingua franca, a language that both persons speak so that they are able to communicate but for neither one of them it is their mother tongue. The fact that we can communicate in the same language already makes the matter less complicated, we are not stuck on strange translation and don’t depend on a third person or a dictionary. This does however not take away the other problem that’s present, the fact that each person can interpret a text in a different manner. This depends on age, surroundings, culture, and many more factors. Since we are all form different cultures and surrounding the question is how we can take away this barrier as much as possible while we ourselves are not objective either?
A Dutch psychologist and sociologist called Geert Hofstede studied this subject intensively. He wrote multiple books on the subject in collaboration with other experts in this field. He succeeded in creating a list of factors that puts a country in a specific place in a table, so that we can compare countries and especially their culture and values in the most objective way possible. The factors he compared are hierarchy and power distance, the individual and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, avoidance of uncertainty, planning on the long and short term and indulgence. By being able to compare countries to each other we can find out if for example in Spain the individual is more important that the common good and so we can adapt our behavior accordingly. The same goes for knowing if for example Australians are encouraged to take risks or if they are afraid of change and won’t quickly go for something if the outcome isn’t sure.
To understand this system a little better we have to take a better look at the dimensions Geert Hofstede proposes. First of all power distance. This takes into account if in a society, both on a professional and on a private level, hierarchy is important. Does everyone know their place and stays there and only moves up with the permission of a person higher up or is it a freer environment where everyone can come up with ideas and be criticized? The results of this calculation show that Malaysia knows the biggest power distance, with an overall high score for Asian countries. Eastern European countries also score very high on this index. On the other side, at the bottom, we find Austria, Denmark, Israel and mainly North European and Anglo-Saxon countries.
The second dimension is the importance of the individual and the importance of a group. In some countries it is seen as normal to work for personal gain and not interest yourself in the people you run into on the way. In other countries the wellbeing of a group, whether it’s a cultural group, a family or friends is more important than the wellbeing of one individual. Countries we find at the top of individualism are the United States and most North European and Anglo-Saxon countries such as Canada, the Netherlands and Great Britain. Countries that are noted as the most group centered are Asian countries such as Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea but even more collectivism centered are the South American countries such as Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. Pakistan is also noted as one of the most group centered countries, as one of the only ones from the Muslim world, Middle East and Africa.
Masculinity and femininity is the third dimension. This dimension shouldn’t be interpreted in the literal way. Geert Hofstede doesn’t mean that all men are masculine and all women feminine. He merely tries to categorize countries using traditional values. This means that a masculine society focusses on power and success are important for men and quality of living is important for women whereas in a feminine society people are supposed to be humble and focused on the quality of living rather than material success. At the top of the masculinity index we find Slovakia, Japan, Hungary, Austria and Venezuela. Around the middle we find France, Turkey, and Iran and at the bottom we find the Scandinavian countries, Latvia and the Netherlands. The countries at the top share the heritage of the British culture, as old colonies for example.
The next dimension is the avoidance of uncertainty. Are people encouraged or discouraged to take a risk, qui their job and try something else, move somewhere else, etc. Countries where taking a risk is highly discouraged are Greece, Portugal, France, Guatemala, Russia, Japan. Countries where taking a risk is seen as a positive thing are countries such as Jamaica, Singapore, Denmark, Sweden, Hong Kong, Vietnam, China and Great Britain.
Moving onto long term and short term planning. In some cultures it is very important to show your face, spending money is not a problem, marriage is a moral question, and children can be raised by others. These countries are defined as short term planning. Countries with long term planning are supposed to save their money, strive for flexibility, marriage is a practical matter, respect for circumstances and being ready to be subordinate to reach a goal. The cultures that score the highest on the long term planning are South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, Ukraine and Germany. Most central European and old soviet countries follow just after whereas we start seeing South American countries only at the bottom, as the most short term planning countries. This also goes for Muslim countries, the Middle East and Africa. At the bottom we find Puerto Rico, Ghana, Egypt, Trinidad and Nigeria. Most European countries are somewhere in the middle.
The last dimension is indulgence versus restraint. This dimension shows us if a person feels free to make their own luck, if they feel happy, and if they feel like they are in control of their own life. The countries that score the highest here are Central and South American countries; Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Colombia. After this comes a list of most northern European countries and some African countries such as Nigeria. At the bottom of this list we find most old Soviet countries and central European countries, Muslim Countries and also quite some Asian countries.
Now that we have seen all the dimension being taken into account we need to ask ourselves how we can use them. We can’t carry around a book to check the results in whenever we meet a person from another country. What we can do however is take some time to analyze the results and make a division in our head. It is not good to generalize but try to have an idea in your head of what is important for each continent, and if you can divide the continents into smaller parts. By knowing that for example Greece scores high on the masculinity scale and that Greeks are discouraged to take risks shows you that power is important in Greece but you have to be careful if you bring a proposal to a Greek person because they don’t like to take risks. If you have time to prepare yourself before meeting a person from another culture try to organize yourself, see what is normal in their country and don’t assume that this person will be exactly the same but know that these values are part of their background. Intercultural communication is always difficult because we don’t know the specific situation of the other person, and we also have to take gestures and facial expressions into account but Geert Hofstede helps us to have a minimal understanding of other countries, cultures and their values.
If you are interested in seeing the results for all the countries and comparing them you can click on this link and see more, this is an example of how France scores on the six dimensions: https://geert-hofstede.com/france.html
By Vera Donker
