The Decision Making Process and how It Is Influenced by Cultural Dimensions

China is a communistic country and is famous for its multiyear planning (mostly of 5 years) that has distinguished it from other countries, especially in the Western World.
These were the dimensions described by Hofstede and worked out through the years. The example of China allowed us to have an insight with some examples that can give a clearer idea.
To the work of this scolar, we can add the research of Hall who designed two other cultural dimensions: high and low context cultures, polychromic and monochromic cultures.
The context culture deals with language and how the message is delivered to the target. In the low context, the message is clearly stated and the communication needs to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important. Instead in the high context culture, the message has many things that are left unsaid, because it will be the context and the culture that will make it understandable and explain it. Every single word matters and we can see this deeply in the Chinese reality because a few words can communicate a complex message very effectively, but you need to know and be part of the group to get the message. Dealing with Chinese business people it’s really hard because you need to interpret correctly every single sound that they say: different words with a similar sound to a Western person might look the same, but can have an amazing difference to them.
Chinese people are polychromic which means that they: have polychromic time and deal with different things at the same time, are ready to interrupt, be late and change their plans. To give an example we will consider the business appointments: in USA you will not have any chance of setting a deal if you show late, instead in China you are pushed to do it and noone will care too much of your lateness.


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