1. How Do We Prefer to Act—Individually or as a Group?

You may already be familiar with the terms individualism and collectivism or communitarianism⁹ that refer to the tendency for cultures to be oriented toward the self or the group. In individualistic societies like the U.S., U.K., and Canada, for example, decisions are made, contracts are negotiated, and deals are cut for which people consider themselves individually responsible. Business people from collectivist cultures, like those covered among the 10 countries featured in this book, prefer group representation and group negotiations. In most cases, making a decision without group input is to be avoided.

People in each of these two cultural dimensions have developed different social skills that, although essential to success in one's own culture, are not necessarily understood elsewhere. As Richard Brislin, professor of management and industrial relations at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, advises

To transcend the distance between self and others, people in individualistic societies have to develop a certain set of social skills. These include public speaking, meeting others quickly and putting them at ease…making a good impression…These skills are not necessary for collectivists. When it comes time for a person to meet unknown others in a larger society, members of the collective act as go-betweens and make introductions, describe the person's accomplishments and abilities, and so forth. In short, individualists have to rely on themselves.… Collectivists have a supportive group that assists in this same goal.¹⁰

If you are wondering what individualism and collectivism have to do with expanding into international business markets and boosting sales in Asia, know that when you sit at the negotiating table with your Asian partners, your conversation should not be about you and your company but about collaboration and working in harmony with them.

Table 2.1 on page 15 shows the Individualism Index from Geert Hofstede's research on cultural differences, including the rankings of the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, and eight of the Asian countries included in this book (Myanmar and The Philippines were not part of the original Hofstede study). In this index, the higher the number, the greater the degree of individualism. Countries positioned lower on this index are more focused on making sure that you will be consensus-seeking and team-focused before they commit to doing business with you long-term.¹¹

^* Myanmar does not have a world ranking because it was not included in Hofstede's cultural dimensions work,¹² or the GLOBE Studies.¹³

^** This score is from an exploratory study of Myanmar culture by Dr. Charles Rarick,¹⁴ which uses Hofstede's value dimensions. Refer to Chapter 10 for more information.

2. How Are Power and Authority Viewed?

Many cultures around the globe are ascriptive. In ascriptive cultures, characteristics including class, age, sex, higher education, and religion are considered more important than in achievement-oriented cultures. In some ascriptive cultures, power is held over people. In others, including many of the Asian countries included in this book, power is considered to be participative.

As Michael DeCaro, former Chief Audit Executive and VP of Finance, Asia Pacific, and Japan, for Dell, explains

“Western leaders that arrive on the scene and simply announce decisions without getting everyone involved have a much greater likelihood of finding it difficult to achieve their objectives in Asia. For example, in Japan, a position of authority simply allows a leader to take the lead in gaining and developing consensus as to what the ultimate decision will be.”

The differences in perceived inequalities between people in Asian countries are captured by Geert Hofstede's Power Distance (PDI) dimension, reflecting the degree to which a culture is comfortable with power inequalities. The higher the PDI number, the greater the power distance, meaning members of a culture “expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.” For example, the U.S. score of 40 on the PDI in Table 2.2 is relatively low on the PDI, reflecting the belief that ‘all men are created equal.’ Nevertheless, reality teaches us that there will be inequalities in society.

^* Myanmar does not have a world ranking because it was not included in Hofstede's cultural dimensions work,¹⁵ or the GLOBE Studies.¹⁶

^** This score is from an exploratory study of Myanmar culture by Dr. Charles Rarick,¹⁷ which uses Hofstede's value dimensions. Refer to Chapter 10 for more information.

3. How Do We Compare Rules and Relationships?

Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner speak of this distinction in terms of universalist and particularist cultures (see Table 2.3). As they point out in Riding the Waves of Culture:

“One serious pitfall for universalist cultures in doing business with more particularist ones is that the importance of the relationship is often ignored. The contract will be seen as definitive by the universalist, but only a rough guideline or approximation by the particularist.”

The authors have identified different countries' cultural preferences with respect to rules and relationships. In one example, they discovered which cultures would follow the rule of law and which would consider the circumstances to protect a friend from the police. Table 2.3 indicates where some Western cultures fall on this universalist-particularist continuum, together with the six Asian cultures included in Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner's study.¹⁸ The higher the number, the more universalist the culture.

4. How Do We View Time?

One key subtlety about time concerns the concepts of monochronic and polychronic. In the West, we expect an executive stopped by another colleague en route to a meeting, to say that he or she can't stop to chat. In polychronic cultures, such as those in Asia, it's common for several things to happen at once and punctuality is not as essential. People in the U.S. tend to be less comfortable with constant interruptions; such simultaneous comings and goings are common in polychronic societies like India and Malaysia.

Like cocktail party guests, some of whom arrive promptly whereas others only show up after the event is in full swing, there are considerable variations within as well as between cultures when it comes to perceptions of time.

With respect to the concepts of monochronic time, meaning linear or sequential, doing one thing at a time, and polychronic or synchronic time, meaning doing several things at a time or multitasking, a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that the U.S. falls within the middle of the continuum (3.18, where 1.0 is monochronic and 5.0 is polychronic).¹⁹

In Asian countries, the equivalent figure was 4.0. Given the central theme of this book—relationships—this movement is a good thing.

As Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner point out, polychronic cultures are less focused on punctuality. Although recent research indicates that the U.S. is moving toward a more polychronic orientation,²⁰ the culture has typically been monochronic. Although you may not ever need to use either of these terms directly, what we are stressing here is encapsulated by this quote of Hall's:

“It is impossible to know how many millions of dollars have been lost in international business because monochronic and polychronic people do not understand each other or even realize that two such different time systems exist.”²¹

Table 2.4 on page 19 shows different concepts for monochronic and polychronic time.

5. How Do We Typically Communicate?

One important topic to consider with respect to communication is what anthropologists have termed low-context and high-context. Here's an analogy to illustrate the difference between the two:

As a lawyer, Sharon frequently read witness testimony transcripts. These documents capture the witnesses' spoken word, not body language such as hand gestures, eye movements, shrugs, finger-pointing, eye-rolling or other nonverbal communication. Only observing the witness provides awareness of the enormous effects of such subtleties on the jury, the judge, and the observers. The same is true of interoffice-communication.

The U.S., for example, is considered a relatively low-context culture in which direct communication is rewarded and the emphasis is placed on words. In contrast, Asian cultures are high-context, meaning communication is indirect and words can only be understood in context. Body language and facial expressions all have a major part to play. Few cultures, or the people living in them, fall at one end of the spectrum or the other. Most people have a combination of high- and low-context characteristics in communication. Table 2.5 on page 20 shows the key differences.

6. How Formal or Informal Are We?

Professor Michele Gelfand and her colleagues at the University of Maryland's Department of Psychology have made a distinction between tight and loose cultures. Tight cultures are those with strong social norms and a low tolerance for any behavior that does not conform to those norms. An example would be the Japanese, with their higher degree of structure, and formality. Loose cultures are the polar opposite, with weak social norms and high tolerance. These cultures are more likely to be comfortable with informalities.

Table 2.6 gives a sense of the informality or “looseness” between countries in the West and the eight Asian countries included in Gelfand's study.²² The higher the number, the tighter the culture. Richard Lewis has categorized country cultures into three broad categories: linear-active, multi-active, and reactive.²³

7. How Aligned Are Our Social and Business Lives?

In the same way that people in the East and West have different concepts of time (see our discussion of question 4 on page 17), the ways we choose to spend that time in the workplace are diverse.

Researchers from the University of Delaware²⁴ asked workers how many of their working hours were spent on work-related tasks as opposed to social activities, such as informal chatting, celebrating coworkers' birthdays and anniversaries, and enjoying tea or coffee together. U.S. respondents working for companies in major cities typically said they spent 80 percent of their time on business tasks and the remaining 20 percent on socializing. In Asian countries, including India, Indonesia, and Malaysia, the answer was 50/50.

This study also found that many international business travelers believed that socializing on the job was an inefficient way to spend time in today's competitive world. As Richard Brislin and Eugene Kim of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii, point out, “The problem with such reactions is that they are ethnocentric: People are making conclusions based on the norms and values of their own cultures.”²⁵

The importance of the 50:50 balance that some consider “aimless socializing and chatting” becomes clear when you realize how much more important relationship-building is in collectivist cultures than in individualist ones. In China, for example, the culture depends largely on guanxi networks through which favors and influence are passed from one person to another.

Westerners often don't appreciate how important it is in Asian cultures to spend more time developing and maintaining relationships. This difference was highlighted in a cross-cultural communication course attended by an Indian interviewee who was surprised and interested to learn one of the “key elements of U.S. business culture”²⁶ was the separation of our work and private lives. In contrast, one U.S. executive who is currently establishing connections in Myanmar pointed out that he will likely spend the next two years in meetings, having talks, hosting delegations, and attending dinners and luncheons before any business is secured.

As Andy Molinsky so eloquently states in his book Global Dexterity,²⁷ “adapting to new cultures without losing yourself in the process” requires establishing personal boundaries and knowing just how far you are prepared to modify them as situations arise. Some activities may not be for you. Knowing this beforehand will save grief and face for you and your Asian business partners. It is possible to refrain from participating without judging other cultures. Often the wise and more successful approach is to keep an open mind to new experiences, as the pioneering work of Stanford psychology professor Dr. Carol Dweck highlights.

8. How Is the Concept of Women in Business Handled?

Life is not as black-and-white as we would like it to be. The extent to which a female professional may experience challenges in Asia because of her gender depends on many things.

The challenges that impact women in their home country often shed light on the business environment for international businesswomen. There is no hard-and-fast rule on the topic of how women are treated in the world of work, as you will discover when we ask this question again in each of the 10 country-specific chapters. In the meantime, look at Table 2.8 on page 24, the Booz & Company Third Billion Index, to see rankings for the Canada, U.K., and U.S., and eight of the Asian countries covered in this book. The Third Billion Index is compiled from a myriad of indicators that affect women'seconomic standing, including entrepreneurial support and equal pay. It features 128 countries whose scores range from 70.6 (Australia and Norway, ranked number one and number two, respectively) to 26.1 (Yemen, with the lowest score).³⁰

Global flexibility research conducted by social psychologist Richard E. Nisbett, anthropologist Joe Henrich, and many others show that different cultures not only think differently, but they actually see the world differently. Yet this thinking, whether Eastern or Western, can be modified fairly easily. To demonstrate that, consider Hong Kong. Given its exposure to the influences of both East (China) and West (Great Britain), Hong Kong proves to be “an interesting laboratory for purposes of cross-cultural study.”³¹

By priming student participants with pictures associated with U.S. culture (images of Mickey Mouse) or Chinese culture (images of dragons), Ying-yi Hong³² and her University of Hong Kong colleagues discovered something interesting during their studies. Those students who were primed with the U.S. images quickly adapted to the individualistic thinking indicative of the West, whereas those primed with Eastern images continued to embrace the context-dependent way of thinking that typifies Asia.

Cognitive and cultural neuroscience is shedding light on the hidden workings of the mind and the hidden role of deep culture on cognition and behavior.³³

This book is designed to serve as a similar kind of primer, one that will help you be flexible in your thinking, motivations, feelings, and behaviors when doing business in Asia, while maintaining the values and morals you hold dear.

Now let's explore what U.S. Americans specifically need to be aware of when attempting to develop relationships with business people in Asia. The next chapter, as well as the 10 country-specific chapters in this book, provide responses to these eight questions, along with valuable country basics and international etiquette.