Table 2.2 The Power Distance Index
* Myanmar does not have a world ranking because it was not included in Hofstede's cultural dimensions work,36 or the GLOBE Studies.37
** This score is from an exploratory study of Myanmar culture by Dr. Charles Rarick,38 which uses Hofstede's value dimensions. Refer to Chapter 10 for more information.
3. How Do We Compare Rules and Relationships?
Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner speak of this distinction in terms of universalist and particularist cultures (see Table 2.3). As they point out in Riding the Waves of Culture:
Table 2.3 Universalism-Particularism Chart
“One serious pitfall for universalist cultures in doing business with more particularist ones is that the importance of the relationship is often ignored. The contract will be seen as definitive by the universalist, but only a rough guideline or approximation by the particularist.”
The authors have identified different countries' cultural preferences with respect to rules and relationships. In one example, they discovered which cultures would follow the rule of law and which would consider the circumstances to protect a friend from the police. Table 2.3 indicates where some Western cultures fall on this universalist-particularist continuum, together with the six Asian cultures included in Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's study.39 The higher the number, the more universalist the culture.
4. How Do We View Time?
One key subtlety about time concerns the concepts of monochronic and polychronic. In the West, we expect an executive stopped by another colleague en route to a meeting, to say that he or she can't stop to chat. In polychronic cultures, such as those in Asia, it's common for several things to happen at once and punctuality is not as essential. People in the U.S. tend to be less comfortable with constant interruptions; such simultaneous comings and goings are common in polychronic societies like India and Malaysia.
Like cocktail party guests, some of whom arrive promptly whereas others only show up after the event is in full swing, there are considerable variations within as well as between cultures when it comes to perceptions of time.
With respect to the concepts of monochronic time, meaning linear or sequential, doing one thing at a time, and polychronic or synchronic time, meaning doing several things at a time or multitasking, a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that the U.S. falls within the middle of the continuum (3.18, where 1.0 is monochronic and 5.0 is polychronic).40
In Asian countries, the equivalent figure was 4.0. Given the central theme of this book – relationships – this movement is a good thing.
As Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner point out, polychronic cultures are less focused on punctuality. Although recent research indicates that the U.S. is moving toward a more polychronic orientation,41 the culture has typically been monochronic. Although you may not ever need to use either of these terms directly, what we are stressing here is encapsulated by this quote of Hall's:
“It is impossible to know how many millions of dollars have been lost in international business because monochronic and polychronic people do not understand each other or even realize that two such different time systems exist.”42
Table 2.4 on page 19 shows different concepts for monochronic and polychronic time.
Table 2.4 Monochronic and Polychronic Time
5. How Do We Typically Communicate?
One important topic to consider with respect to communication is what anthropologists have termed low-context and high-context. Here's an analogy to illustrate the difference between the two:
As a lawyer, Sharon frequently read witness testimony transcripts. These documents capture the witnesses' spoken word, not body language such as hand gestures, eye movements, shrugs, finger-pointing, eye-rolling or other nonverbal communication. Only observing the witness provides awareness of the enormous effects of such subtleties on the jury, the judge, and the observers. The same is true of interoffice-communication.
The U.S., for example, is considered a relatively low-context culture in which direct communication is rewarded and the emphasis is placed on words. In contrast, Asian cultures are high-context, meaning communication is indirect and words can only be understood in context. Body language and facial expressions all have a major part to play. Few cultures, or the people living in them, fall at one end of the spectrum or the other. Most people have a combination of high- and low-context characteristics in communication. Table 2.5 on page 20 shows the key differences.
Table 2.5 Communication Characteristics of High-Context and Low-Context Cultures
6. How Formal or Informal Are We?
Professor Michele Gelfand and her colleagues at the University of Maryland's Department of Psychology have made a distinction between tight and loose cultures. Tight cultures are those with strong social norms and a low tolerance for any behavior that does not conform to those norms. An example would be the Japanese, with their higher degree of structure, and formality. Loose cultures are the polar opposite, with weak social norms and high tolerance. These cultures are more likely to be comfortable with informalities.
Table 2.6 gives a sense of the informality or “looseness” between countries in the West and the eight Asian countries included in Gelfand's study.43 The higher the number, the tighter the culture. Richard Lewis has categorized country cultures into three broad categories: linear-active, multi-active, and reactive.44
Table 2.6 Continuum of Tight and Loose Scores
7. How Aligned Are Our Social and Business Lives?
In the same way that people in the East and West have different concepts of time (see our discussion of question 4 on page 17), the ways we choose to spend that time in the workplace are diverse.
Researchers from the University of Delaware45 asked workers how many of their working hours were spent on work-related tasks as opposed to social activities, such as informal chatting, celebrating coworkers' birthdays and anniversaries, and enjoying tea or coffee together. U.S. respondents working for companies in major cities typically said they spent 80 percent of their time on business tasks and the remaining 20 percent on socializing. In Asian countries, including India, Indonesia, and Malaysia, the answer was 50/50.
This study also found that many international business travelers believed that socializing on the job was an inefficient way to spend time in today's competitive world. As Richard Brislin and Eugene Kim of the University of Hawaii