Chapter 5 Culture, Management Style, and Business Systems 143 cross-cultural communication apply to that medium as well. We begin here with a discus-sion of communication in the face-to-face setting and then move to the electronic media. Face-to-Face Communication. No language readily translates into another because the meanings of words differ widely among languages. For example, the word “marriage,” even when accurately translated, can connote very different things in different languages—in one it may mean love, in another restrictions. Although language is the basic communication tool of marketers trading in foreign lands, managers, particularly from the United States, often fail to develop even a basic understanding of just one other language, much less master the linguistic nuances that reveal unspoken attitudes and information. Indeed, in the corporate setting, how languages are integrated in multinational companies where several different tongues are spoken is a daunting and difficult task, to be undertaken with care.31 The formation of trust, for example, in multinational teams is affected by the diversity of language,32 which may contribute to an “us vs. them” attitude.33 On the basis of decades of anthropological fieldwork, Hall34 places 11 cultures along a high-context/low-context continuum (see Exhibit 5.2). Communication in a high-context Japanese High Context (Implicit, Emphasis on Context of Communication) German Swiss Low Context (Explicit, Emphasis on Content of Communication) Arabian Latin American Spanish Italian English (UK) French North American (US) Scandinavian 31Vesa Peltokorpi and Eero Vaara, “Language Policies and Practices in Wholly-owned Foreign Subsidiaries: A Recontextualization Perspective,” Journal of International Business Studies 43 (2012), pp. 808–33. 32Helene Tanzer, Markus Pudelko, and Anne-Wil Harzing, “The Impact of Language Barriers on Trust Formation in Multinational Teams,” Journal of International Business Studies 45 (2014), pp. 508–35. 33Pamela J. Hinds, Tsedal B. Neeley, and Catherine Durnell Cramton, “Language as a Lightning Rod: Power Contests, Emotion Regulation, and Subgroup Dynamics in Global Teams,” Journal of International Business Studies 45 (2014), pp. 536 – 61. 34Edward T. Hall, “Learning the Arabs’ Silent Language,” Psychology Today, August 1979, pp. 45–53. Hall has several books that should be read by everyone involved in international business, including The Silent Language (New York: Doubleday, 1959), The Hidden Dimension (New York: Doubleday, 1966), and Beyond Culture (New York: Anchor Press-Doubleday, 1976). Exhibit 5.2 Context, Communication, and Cultures: Edward Hall’s Scale Note: Patterned after E. T. Hall.
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