Understanding Misunderstanding in Intra- and InterculturalCommunication - Findings of a Sino-German Experiment

Effective and efficient communication can be regarded as a major source of competitive advantagein international business. It is not only a prerequisite of successful marketing and humanresources strategies but also of importance for the internal coordination of multinational corporations(MNCs). Different communication styles and their influence on intracultural as well asintercultural interaction is therefore a topic of growing relevance. In this article, Hall’s (1976)communication-oriented concept of High- and Low-Context-Cultures and Krippendorff’s(1986) information theory are combined to an experiment to assess communication effectivenessand efficiency based on different degrees of context-orientation. Furthermore, the existenceof archetypical interferences as hindrances to effectiveness and efficiency on the process ofcommunication is scrutinized. The experiment was conducted among German and Chinese studentsat Tongji University in Shanghai. The results of an analysis of 1132 intracultural and 312intercultural communication processes partially support our hypotheses about the influence ofculture on communication effectiveness and efficiency...