Inorder to communicate successfully you have to consider the culturaldifferences and the predominating communication process inindividualistic and collectivistic cultures. It is best to explainthese differences in terms of low- and high-context communication.Context has to do with how much you have to know before you cancommunicate effectively.

Whenworkers from high-context and low-context cultures have to worktogether, problems often occur inthe process of exchanginginformation. These problems can be classifiedas differences in “direction”, “quantity” and “quality”. For example, employeesfrom high-context cultures like China and France adapt to in-groupmembers, such as theirgood friends, family,and also to close colleagues (directiondifference). Theycommunicate with them intensively (quantity difference) and exchangespecific/detailed information about many different topics(quality difference). Theresult is that every in-group member is constantly up-to-date withthe facts around the business. In contrast, people inlow-context cultures like USA and Germany do not differentiatebetween in- and out-groups as much as those in high-context cultures.So their communication is directed to personal characters andreferred to situations (direction difference). They mostlycommunicate within their out-groups in a broad and diffuse way(quantity difference). Within communication they exchange informationjust to the necessary extent so that work can be done; they don’tdiscuss or exchange information constantly in their work environmentand with colleagues (quality difference).

 Ⓐ In China, communication tendsto be very efficient because of their information-flow at work and inprivacy. They discuss everything in advance and consider meetings asan official “ceremony” where the already commonly agreed decisionwill be announced. This is important in cultures where “giving andkeeping face” is the top priority in communication. The Americansand Germans, in contrast, inform the participating attendants in ameeting about the hard and necessary facts. ⒷThe decision-making process takes place within the meeting. ToFrench, it is similar to their Asian counterparts. ⒸExplicit and detailed discussions would probably beseen as an insult because everything is obvious and easilyunderstandable. Ⓓ