The Value Profile of Bulgarians According to Hall and Hofstede
The Value profile of Bulgarians according to Hall and Hofstede
When we talk about intercultural communication, we consider culture as a set of beliefs, ethics and values that determine the behavior of nations. Edward T. Hall divided cultures according to their ways of communicating, into high-context and low-context cultures. Low-context cultures are cultures, which need explicit verbal words and information, in order to fully understand the message. On the other hand a high-context culture is a culture where there is a lot of information surrounding the explicit verbal message. People from a high context cultures, and Bulgarians are one of them, often send more information implicitly, have a wider network of family, friends, colleagues, customers and are keeping themselves up to date with the people important to them, and thus tend to stay well informed on many subjects. How we use time is one of the most unbiased and certain ways to define cultural differences according to Hall. Societies perceive and use time differently, causing conflicts when partners lack understanding of their cultural differences. Americans, defined as monochronic, pay attention to one thing at a time, view time linearly, and schedule and value time differently than do polychronic people. They require more information, adhere to a plan of action, and emphasize promptness. Conversely, polychronic people, such as Bulgarians, are more time-flexible, perform many tasks at once, change plans often and easily, tend to build lifetime relationships, and base promptness on relationships. When it comes to measuring cultural differences, there is one person who admiration a huge research and theoretical contributions. His name is Geert Hofstede. He found that differences in values between cultures could be reduced to four basic values. He calls them dimensions. The four cultural dimensions are: power distance, which has to do with the
When we talk about intercultural communication, we consider culture as a set of beliefs, ethics and values that determine the behavior of nations. Edward T. Hall divided cultures according to their ways of communicating, into high-context and low-context cultures. Low-context cultures are cultures, which need explicit verbal words and information, in order to fully understand the message. On the other hand a high-context culture is a culture where there is a lot of information surrounding the explicit verbal message. People from a high context cultures, and Bulgarians are one of them, often send more information implicitly, have a wider network of family, friends, colleagues, customers and are keeping themselves up to date with the people important to them, and thus tend to stay well informed on many subjects. How we use time is one of the most unbiased and certain ways to define cultural differences according to Hall. Societies perceive and use time differently, causing conflicts when partners lack understanding of their cultural differences. Americans, defined as monochronic, pay attention to one thing at a time, view time linearly, and schedule and value time differently than do polychronic people. They require more information, adhere to a plan of action, and emphasize promptness. Conversely, polychronic people, such as Bulgarians, are more time-flexible, perform many tasks at once, change plans often and easily, tend to build lifetime relationships, and base promptness on relationships. When it comes to measuring cultural differences, there is one person who admiration a huge research and theoretical contributions. His name is Geert Hofstede. He found that differences in values between cultures could be reduced to four basic values. He calls them dimensions. The four cultural dimensions are: power distance, which has to do with the