4.6 Cultural Characteristics and Communication

An important researcher in culture is Geert Hofstede. Starting in the 1970s, Geert became interested in how people from different cultures approach work. His interests ultimately culminated in his 1980 publication Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values where he explained some basic cultural differences. Over the years, Geert has fine-tuned his theory of culture, and the most recent update to his theory occurred in 2010. In Geert’s research examining thousands of workers from around the globe, he has noticed a series of six cultural differences: low vs. high power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, long-term vs. short-term time orientation, low vs. high uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs. femininity, and indulgence vs. restraint. In addition, we also examine low-context versus high-context communication.

It is important to note these differences, also referred to as “values” exist on a continuum and are “all present, to a greater or lesser extent, in all societies” (Martin & Nakayama, 2018, p. 106). In other words, these values are present on a spectrum rather than being just one or the other.

This section is adapted from Cultural Characteristics and Communication in Interpersonal Communication Copyright © by Jason S. Wrench; Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter; and Katherine S. Thweatt available at Interpersonal Communication – Simple Book Publishing licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.