CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 455.

As we know, misunderstandings are especially likely to occur when the people who are communicating have different backgrounds. One person encodes a mes­sage in one context, using assumptions common to people in his or her culture; Another person decodes the message using a different set of assumptions. The result is confusion and, often, hard feelings. For example, take the case of the computer sales representative who was calling on a client in China. Hoping to make a good impression, the salesperson brought along a gift to break the ice, an expensive grandfather clock. Unfortunately, the Chinese client was deeply offended because, in China, giving clocks as gifts is considered bad luck for the recipient.

Such problems arise because of our unconscious assumptions and non-verbal communication patterns. We ignore the fact that people from other cultures differ from us in many ways: in their religion and values, their ideas of status, their decision-making habits, their attitude toward time, their use of space, their body language, and their manners. We assume, wrongly, that other peo­ple are like us. At Vons, management has spent a great deal of time learning about the cultural preferences of the store's Hispanic customers.