High Context Culture

Communication expert Edward hall divided the social frame work of cultures into high and low context (Reynolds & Valentine, 2006). The high context cultures are based on nonverbal communication, beliefs, collectivism and ethics. In contrast the low context cultures are based on facts, verbal communication, and individualism. Individual belonging to high context at workplace expresses attention on the way the communication takes place, grasp meaning from nonverbal communication, value relationship more than business, take decisions after discussing with teams or subordinates, treat peer’s, subordinates and others at workplace as a family, gives importance to beliefs, trust at the work place. Whereas the individuals belonging to low context culture rely on facts, written proofs, separates relationship from business, characterize themselves as individuals, speak to the point and rely solely on figures showing the end results of the business (Reynolds & Valentine, 2006).
Cultures are generalized according to the countries, positioning of the countries into the high and low context is based on the 15 years of research done by Hofstede (1983) on all type of employee behaviour into four value dimension of * Power Distance * Individualism * Masculinity * Uncertainty Avoidance
Cultures of a country are very well exhibited by the beliefs, value, behaviour and actions of the people in the country. The Indian culture is made up of 35 states, speaking in 29 different languages hosting 1.21 billion people(“Demographics of India,” 2013). These all have one thing in common their values, the Indian culture imparts respect, sincerity, faith and many such values in the society. These all dynamics of Indian culture are reflected into the work culture of the organizations positioning India in countries having high context behaviour at workplace. Kumar and Sankaran (2007) mentions that the Indian workplace adheres to behaviour of allowing participative