Cross-Cultural Management Difference Between France and China Essay

Cross-Cultural Management Difference Between France and China - Essay Example Communication can be low context or high context. A high context communication would require minimum use of words as the communicators already have most of the information while a low context communication requires more explicit explanations as the communicators do not have the background information. Usually, people coming from cultures that have close family bonding and a huge network of friends, resort to high context communication with members of their culture. French are relatively high context individuals when compared to the Americans and other North European nationals. Thus, the communication is faster and uses fewer words. However, the flip side of this is that French do not trust other people’s analyses. They want to analyze everything on their own and will keep doing the analysis till they get all the information (to the lowest level of detail) they want (Hall and Hall 1997). The physical position an individual occupies in office determines his perception of power. French prefer to occupy a central position in office and like to be surrounded by subordinates to keep themselves at the locus of an information network (Hall and Hall 1997). Monochronic culture is one in which one activity is done at a time. Time is considered as a valuable asset and one that should not be wasted. Here, time is divided into schedules and only one activity is concentrated during a particular schedule. People from Polychronic cultures do not give too much emphasis to time schedules and indulge in many activities at a time.... However, the flip side of this is that French do not trust other people’s analyses. They want to analyze everything on their own and will keep doing the analysis till they get all the information (to the lowest level of detail) they want (Hall and Hall 1997). Territory The physical position an individual occupies in office determines his perception of power. French prefer to occupy central position in office and like to be surrounded by subordinates to keep themselves at the locus of information network (Hall and Hall 1997). Monochronic and Polychronic culture Monochronic culture is one in which one activity is done at a time. Time is considered as a valuable asset and one that should not be wasted. Here, time is divided into schedules and only one activity is concentrated during a particular schedule. People from Polychronic cultures do not give too much emphasis to time schedules and indulge in many activities at a time. They give more importance to completing human transact ions than adhering to time schedules. French are polychronic people. As a result they are committed to human relations, are easily interrupted and usually have flexile plans (Hall and Hall 1997). Thus, French meetings are characterized by high information flow, not too tight on agenda and participants already aware of what will be discussed in the meeting. The end result of the meeting is thought to bring about a consensus rather than stick to deadlines (Hall and Hall 1997). In short, as French are high context individuals they do not like to be told what to do. They take it as an offence. They also give a lot of importance to style and form. As they are polychronic individuals, they would not mind a person coming late in a meeting, but would