The Ninth Dimension of National Culture: Unpacking Cross-Cultural Communication Styles

Abstract

This article aims to study the communication styles among different national cultures; that is, we examine the relationship between national culture, based on the Hofstede model, and communication styles. In order to investigate the role of national culture, it is fundamental first to analyze the communication styles and then identify how these are related to each other, with the purpose of identifying differences (or similarities) in communication styles across selected countries, a factor analysis was conducted, combined with an ANOVA test. Based on a sample from 10 different cultures: Germany, Sweden, Japan, China, Russia, Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, Serbia and North Macedonia, and using communication assessment instrument as well as the data on Hofstede’s six dimensions of national culture model, the findings show that different national cultures practise different communication styles. When the Professional-Casual communication style is concerned, Germany is the most professional, while Japan is the most casual; that is, the least professional of all while the analysis of the Cold-Warm communication style leads us to the fact that Sweden is the coldest, and the US is the warmest country. The study’s significance is hopefully fundamental since it proposes an additional dimension, which is as frequent among cultures as it is rooted deeply in each culture. In this way, the article recommends that the countries ought to both comprehend their national culture and utilize it as a “tool” for understanding other cultures as well.

Keywords

• national culture
• hofstede
• dimensions
• communication
• communication styles