The document discusses cross-cultural communication and differences in communication styles across cultures. It provides examples of how communication may differ in Japanese and American cultures. Specifically, it notes that Japanese communication tends to be more indirect, focus on relationships, and avoid confrontation, while American communication is more direct, task-focused, and accepts confrontation. It also discusses high context vs low context cultures, and how cultures like Japan and China are more high context and rely heavier on context and nonverbal cues, while cultures like the US are more low context and explicit. Finally, it provides tips for effective intercultural communication, noting the importance of cultural awareness, flexibility, and sensitivity.

1. © 2006 Prentice Hall 4-1

2. What is Culture???
• Provides patterns of
acceptable behavior &
beliefs.
• May be based on….
–Nationality
–Race and Religion
–Historical Roots
–…All of the Above

3. Cross–Cultural Communication
• Skills needed to operationally carry out the attitudes and
knowledge conducive to culturally competent pharmacy
practice.
• It is of paramount importance that pharmacists
understand the role culture plays in communication and
are able to study and utilize appropriate forms of
communication in interacting with patients.
• “Health care professionals assume a special responsibility
in assuring that they understand their patients in order to
treat them effectively.”

4. Cross–Cultural Communication
• Possessing a positive attitude toward cultural competence
as well as a desire to be culturally competent is a
necessity. The practitioner must also have awareness of
their own culture, their own biases and their own
communication style.
• Second, knowledge is needed. To be culturally sensitive it
is important for the practitioner to understand what it
takes to be an effective member of specific cultures.
• Finally, assuring practitioners have the skills to behave
with patients in a way that promotes acceptance and
effective medical compliance is the next step. Awareness,
knowledge, emotional growth and skills are all needed to
develop effective cross-cultural interactions.
• Without any one of these components there is likely to be
failure.

5. Culture
is like an
Iceberg.
Most of it is
UNDER the
water of
awareness

6. BEHAVIOR
BELIEFS
VALUES
AND
THOUGHT
PATTERNS

8. 8
Cross-Cultural Behavior Model
Communication
about
Innovation
Consequences
Strategic
Opinion
Leadership
Adoption
Tendency
Cognitive
Search
Change
Agent
Adoption
Propensity
to Change
Evaluation
of
Innovation
Cognitive
Distortion
Cultural
Lifestyle

9. 9
Cross-Cultural Behavior Model
• The key variable of the model is
propensity to change, which is a
function of three constructs:
– cultural lifestyle
– change agents
– communication about the innovation

10. 10
Cultural Dimension Scores for 12 countries
Uncertainty
Avoidance
Individualism
Power Distance Masculinity
1000 0
100 100
50 50
50 50
Japan
France
Mexico
Brazil
Germany
Netherlands
U.S.A
Great Britain
Arab Countries
West Africa
Indonesia
Hong Kong
Japan
Arab Countries
Mexico
Brazil
France
Germany
Great Britain
U.S.A
Netherlands
Hong Kong
West Africa
Indonesia

11. 11
Cross-Cultural Training
• Cultural training programs
should include:
– culture-specific information
– general cultural information on
values, practices, and assumptions
– self-specific information that
identifies one’s own cultural
paradigm

12. 12
Cross-Cultural Training (cont.)
• Additional forms of training
include:
– mentoring
– area studies programs
– cultural assimilator programs, in
which trainees must respond to
scenarios of specific situations in a
particular country
– sensitivity training
– field experience

13. 13
Tips for Making Culture Work for
Business Success
• Embrace local culture
• Build relationships
• Employ locals to gain cultural knowledge
• Help employees understand you
• Adapt products and practices to local markets
• Coordinate by region

14. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 14
Cultural Context and its Effects on Communication
(Exhibit 4-5)
High Japan
Middle East
Latin America
Africa
Mediterranean
England
France
North America
Scandinavia
Germany
Switzerland
high context/implicit
low context/explicit
Low
Low HighExplicitness of communication
Context

16. Some Cultural Scenarios
Japan China
India Mexico

17. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 17
Differences between Japanese and American
Communication Styles
(Exhibit 4-8)
• Japanese Ningensei Style of
Communication
• Indirect verbal and nonverbal
communication
• Relationship communication
• Discourages confrontational
strategies
• Strategically ambiguous
communication
• Delayed feedback
• Patient, longer term negotiators
• Uses fewer words
• U.S. Adversarial Style of
Communication
• More direct verbal and nonverbal
communication
• More task communication
• Confrontational strategies more
acceptable
• Prefers more to-the-point
communication
• More immediate feedback
• Shorter term negotiators
• Favors verbosity

18. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 18
Differences Between Japanese and American
Communication Styles
(Contd.)
• Distrustful of skilful verbal
communicators
• Group orientation
• Cautious, tentative
• Complementary communicators
• Softer, heartlike logic
• Sympathetic, empathetic, comple
x use of pathos
• Expresses and decodes complex
relational strategies and nuances
• Exalts verbal eloquence
• More individualistic orientation
• More assertive, self-assured
• More publicly critical
communicators
• Harder, analytic logic preferred
• Favors logos, reason
• Expresses and decodes complex
logos, cognitive nuances

19. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 19
Differences Between Japanese and American
Communication Styles
(Contd.)
• Avoids decision making in public
• Makes decision in private venues,
away from public eye
• Decisions via ringi and
nemawashi (complete consensus
process)
• Uses go-betweens for decision
making
• Understatement and hesitation in
verbal and nonverbal
communication
• Frequent decision making in
public
• Frequent decisions in public at
negotiating tables
• Decisions by majority rule and
public compromise is more
commonplace
• More extensive use of direct
person-to-person, player-to-
player interaction for decisions
• May publicly speak in
superlatives, exaggerations,
nonverbal projection

20. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 20
Differences Between Japanese and American
Communication Styles
(Contd.)
• Uses
qualifiers, tentative, humility as
communicator
• Receiver/listening-centered
• Inferred meanings, looks beyond
words to nuances, nonverbal
communication
• Shy, reserved communicators
• Distaste for purely business
transactions
• Mixes social and business
communication
• Favors fewer qualifiers, more ego-
centered
• More speaker- and message-
centered
• More face-value meaning, more
denotative
• More publicly self-assertive
• Prefers to “get down to business”
or “nitty gritty”
• Tends to keep business
negotiating more separated from
social communication

21. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 21
Differences Between Japanese and American
Communication Styles
(Contd.)
• Utilizes matomari or “hints” for
achieving group adjustments and
saving face in negotiating
• Practices haragei or belly logic
and communication
• More directly verbalizes
management’s preference at
negotiating tables
• Practices more
linear, discursive, analytical logic;
greater reverence for cognitive
than for affective

22. JAPAN
To help her American Company establish a
presence in Japan, Mrs. Torres wants to hire a
local interpreter who can advise her on business
customs. Ms. Tomari has superb qualifications
on paper, but when Mrs. Torres tries to probe
about her experience, Ms. Tomari just says, “I
will do my best. I will try very hard.” She never
gives details about any of the previous positions
she has held. Mrs. Torres begins to wonder if
Ms. Tamari's résumé is inflated.

23. CHINA
Stan Williams wants to negotiate a joint venture
between his American firm and a Beijing-based
company. He asks Tung-Sen Lee if the Chinese
people have enough discretionary income to afford
his product. Mr. Lee is silent for a time, and then
says, “Your product is good. People in the West
must like it.” Stan smiles, pleased that Mr. Lee
recognizes the quality of his product, and he leaves
a contract for Mr. Lee to sign. Weeks later, Stan still
hasn’t heard anything. If China is going to be so
inefficient, he wonders if his company should try to
do business there.

24. INDIA
Gloria Johnson is proud of her participatory
management style. Assigned in Bombay on
behalf of her U.S.-based company, she is careful
not to give orders but to ask for suggestions.
But the employees rarely suggest anything.
Even a formal suggestion system she
established does not work. Worse still, she
doesn’t sense the respect and camaraderie that
she felt at the plant she managed in Texas.
Perhaps the people in India just are not ready
for a woman boss.

25. MEXICO
Alan Caldwell is a U.S. sales representative in Mexico
City. He makes appointments with Senõr Lopez and
is careful to be on time, but his host is frequently
late. To save time, Alan tries to get right to
business, his host wants to talk about sightseeing
and about Alan’s family. Even worse, the meetings
are interrupted constantly with phone calls, long
conversations with other people, and even
customers’ children who come into the office. Alan’s
first report to his home office is very negative. He
hasn’t yet made a sale. Perhaps Mexico just isn’t the
right place to do business.

26. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 26
Behaviors Most Important to Intercultural
Communication Effectiveness
(as reviewed by Ruben)
• Respect (conveyed through eye contact, body posture, voice tone and
pitch)
• Interaction posture (the ability to respond to others in a descriptive,
nonevaluative, and nonjudgmental way)
• Orientation to knowledge (recognizing that one’s knowledge, perception,
and beliefs are valid only for oneself and not for everyone else)
• Empathy
• Interaction management
• Tolerance for ambiguity
• Other-oriented role behavior (one’s capacity to be flexible and to adopt
different roles for the sake of greater group cohesion and group
communication

27. Prentice Hall 2003 Chapter 4 27
Personality Factors For Effective Intercultural
Communication
(as reviewed by Kim)
• Openness – traits such as open-mindedness,
tolerance for ambiguity, and extrovertedness
• Resilience – traits such as having an internal locus of
control, persistence, a tolerance of ambiguity, and
resourcefulness

28. Good Intercultural
Communicators Are….
• Aware values &
behaviors not
always “right.”
• Flexible & open to
change.

29. And…..
• Sensitive to verbal
& nonverbal
behavior.
• Aware of values,
beliefs, practices of
other cultures.
• Sensitive to
differences within
cultures.

30. HIGH CONTEXT VS. LOW CONTEXT
CULTURES

31. High-Context Cultures
• Infer information from
message context, rather than
from content.
• Prefer
indirectness, politeness &
ambiguity.
• Convey little information
explicitly.
• Rely heavily on nonverbal
signs.
• Asian
• Latin American
• Middle Eastern

32. Low-Context Cultures
• Rely more on content
rather than on context.
• Explicitly spell out
information.
• Value directness.
• See indirectness as
manipulative.
• Value written word more than
oral statements.
• European
• Scandinavian
• North American

33. Thank You
Questions?