How does this cultural variation in relational attunement impact communications in international business transactions?
There’s a widely held stereotype that East Asians are indirect and pay attention to saving face, while Americans are direct. However, in comparing Americans’ and Asians’ communications patterns of indirectness and directness, both at work and outside work, my colleague Fiona Lee and I found there was no difference in levels of indirectness between the two cultures when we asked people to think explicitly about communicating outside the workplace. The cultural divide became very substantial and significant when we compared the patterns in the workplace. This has two major implications. First, where cultures differ the most is in the context of work. That is really important because work is where people from different cultures are most likely to interact. Second, culture shouldn’t be thought of as a personality. It depends upon the situation. What about trust? In many parts of the world, cues of trust are based on cues that individuals pick up in an interpersonal context. Well, in the Un
