Well, Fall Break at Bradley University has come and gone, and Joe and I are getting set to graduate in December. it's one of those weird times in our lives when we are both excited and nervous, content, yet anxious. Both of us has started preparing for our transition from full-time student to (hopefully) full-time employee. Something that has helped us prepare for this time is our close friendship and the fact that we can talk to each other about almost anything.
During one of our "therapy sessions", in which one or both of us explains a problem in exchange for a piece of somewhat schoolyard-esque advice from the other, Joe was explaining a current situation in his dating life. Without getting into any specifics, I do want to bring up one very interesting conclusion we came to, which involves the culture into which Joe was born and raised.
Joe, having been surrounded by Lebanese culture for his entire life, is used to living within a high context community. Context of a culture is the level of underlying circumstances that give forms of communication varying meaning depending on a situation. High context cultures tend to exist where people are very communal and/or have deep cultural roots that are not easily understood by outsiders, such as in Arabic, Asian or African societies. Basically, in these cultures a simple phrase, like, "How are you doing today?" can carry more weight to it than just being a direct question.
Countries such as the United States, on the other hand, are home to low context cultures. Low context societies are less communal and have less entrenched and more diverse cultural roots within them. The phrase, "How are you doing today?" will most likely be taken as a simple question in these parts of the world. Joe's girlfriend is from the Chicago suburbs, so she is part of an extremely low context society.
The differences in Joe and his girlfriend's cultural contexts is a possible reason they may have some trouble communicating at times. When she says something to Joe, it is possible that he is going to overthink it and let the "lost" meaning stress him out. When Joe says something to her, she may not fully understand what he means. This is just something that will have to be worked out over time, but it will definitely make for more fun nights of sitting around the hookah and talking.
I wonder if any of my readers have ever had any experiences like this? Do you think you come from a more or less contextual society? Community? Family? Also, since this is a blog for a marketing class, what do you think are some good ways to overcome possiblle contextual differences when marketing or conducting business internationally?
I think those of us from low context cultures have a VERY hard time understanding how high context cultures work. Combine that with the highly developed sense of individualism that exists in the U.S. and it's a recipe for communication/marketing disaster!
ReplyDeleteYea, this is just one cool reason why communications is just as much a social science as it is an element of business. A company and its employees really need to have a good understanding of other cultures if they are going to expand internationally. It sounds like Caterpillar does a pretty good job of this, such as when they work in China, but I'm sure there have still been some awkward moments because the meaning of a message was not well interpreted. As a result of cultural differences like this, I find it difficult to believe that companies can ever truly become "global" in a sense that they could operate anywhere. There are just too many variables.
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