Chapter 15: Intercultural Communication
15.7 Differences in Time
Perhaps the hardest cultural difference for people to understand is the perception of time — not how you set your watch, but how you understand and value time. What is considered late? Friends of mine recently visited Switzerland and were impressed by the extreme precision of the train system there: when the Swiss say a train will arrive at 2:18 p.m., that means exactly 2:18 and 0.00 seconds, and they synchronize all the clocks in the stations to a central signal so there’s no ambiguity about exactly when 2:18 is. When they took an excursion to Italy, in contrast, they found that even though it’s a neighboring country, the Italian attitude toward time was completely different, and it was not uncommon for trains to be an hour late. In many countries in the world, showing up to a social gathering two or three hours behind is being “on time,” and no one has to apologize.
One reason these differences are difficult to grasp is because time is both a social construct and something that can be measured with precision. As a teacher, I make sure that my classes start at the designated time, and I stop when the class period is over so the students can get to their next class. If I have to catch a flight, I am anxious that I will miss it, knowing the airline will do their best to leave when they said they’d leave or risk lowering their “on time departure” ranking. I set many alarms throughout the week, and if one of those alarms fails and I’m late for something, I apologize to the people I “wronged” by being tardy. People who are routinely late seem inconsiderate in my eyes.
What I don’t often do is stop and think about different ways of treating time, and how they translate to a different kind of consideration. In cultures where time is not treated as rigidly, there’s a saying: “The relationship matters more than the clock.” If you get in a conversation with someone, you continue that conversation until it is complete, and saying “Oops — gotta go to my next appointment” would be inconsiderate. In these cultures, life is about enjoying the moment, and rushing around because the clock says you have to is just prioritizing the wrong things.
If you think “time is money,” does that mean you are overly obsessed with material wealth? As Mumby and Kuhn point out in their organizational communication textbook,[1] the idea of being paid by the hour is a very recent innovation: before the rise of factories, craftspeople worked on their creations until they were finished.
Perceptions of time also overlap with beliefs and attitudes about fate and control. Imagine an international company that orders parts from a distributor and demands to know exactly when the parts will arrive. To the distributor, setting a positive date can feel like peering into the unknown: they can have the intention of shipping the parts promptly, but who knows what fate will have in store? If the distributor is Arabic, they may add “Inshallah” (“if God wills”), an acknowledgement that although they intend to hit the deadline, humans should not be so arrogant as to assume they are in full control of life.
Cultures can also differ in how people view the past, how important it is to follow tradition, and how much time and effort should go into honoring ancestors. If you focus enough attention on your ancestors, it makes you want to be a good ancestor as well, thinking of future generations when you make decisions. The Iroquois Nation of Native Americans even wrote that principle into their constitution (a document that predates the United States Constitution): “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”
15.1: INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE
How do these cultural dimensions translate into actual expectations and behaviors in the workplace? I’m not talking about “corporate culture,” a phrase that refers to the specific culture that arises in a specific organization, but about working with others who come from different cultural backgrounds than you do, whether that means talking to them long-distance over Zoom or the phone, or working beside them. Here are a few scenarios where cultural dimensions can make a difference.
- “Open Door Policy.” Many managers and bosses like to maintain a policy of open communication with their employees, and as a result they say “If you have anything you want to talk to me about, just come to my office — the door is always open.” What they may not realize is that the likelihood of an employee taking advantage of that policy depends on where they fit on the Power Distance dimension. LPD employees can actually picture themselves knocking on the boss’s door and having a good chat, but this might be unimaginable to an HPD employee. If that’s the case, then the LPD employees have a distinct advantage: their opinion gets heard, and in turn they learn more about what’s going on in the higher levels of the organization. Meanwhile, HPD employees who keep a respectful distance and only speak when spoken to can get “left out of the loop.”
- “It’s in the employee manual.” Orientation (or, as it’s known sometimes, “onboarding”) is a vital part of becoming a successful employee, but it’s unrealistic to think that an employee learns everything they need to know in a few days. If an employee has questions later, how do they find answers? One option is to use written documents such as an employee manual, a “policy library” (a website that gathers all of the company policies in one place), or an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on the company website. Just be aware that that kind of system reflects a low context/direct culture mindset: employees from high context/indirect cultures won’t put much faith in such documents, and will still wonder how things “really” work. If they see the phrase “no exceptions” in a policy, they might assume that’s not reality; of course there are exceptions!
- Bonuses and Incentives. Many companies talk enthusiastically about teamwork and collaboration, but when it comes to rewarding success, they reward employees individually. Perhaps management can’t grasp the concept of a team reward because it’s too collectivistic. Meanwhile, employees from collectivistic cultures might be uncomfortable with contests and individual bonuses — things that feel like they undermine the collective harmony.
- “Punch the clock.” Business leaders long ago realized that if their company was doing well, it was advantageous to open factories and plants in foreign countries. They also assumed the system that brought them success in the first place should be carried overseas, and this system often included rules about working hours: e.g., employees must show up precisely at 8:00 a.m., punch the clock as they enter, take no more than 30 minutes for lunch, and clock out at 5:00 p.m. Then they proceeded to hire employees from the local community who had an entirely different conception of time and were used to totally different laws and labor practices. This is a perfect example of a situation where “something’s got to give” — either the employees had to adapt to a different approach to time itself, or the company had to become more accepting of flexibility.
- Mumby, D. K., & Kuhn, T. R. (2018). Organizational communication: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications. ↵
