Cultural assumptions and expectations determine both the form and the content of every business interaction.  Cultural anthropologist E.T. Hall theorised that people’s cultural values and beliefs determine their communication style.  Hall characterised these communication behaviours as high context and low context.

In high context cultures, most of the information is inferred from the context of a message – very little is spelled out.  Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Latin American cultures could be considered high context.

In low context cultures, context is less important.  Most information is explicitly spelled out.  German, Scandinavian and the dominant North American cultures could be considered low context.

High context and low context cultures value different kinds of communication and have different attitudes towards oral and written channels.  Low context cultures favour direct approaches and perceive indirectness as dishonest or manipulative.  The written word is seen as more important than spoken agreements, so contracts are binding but promises may be broken.  Details, logic, and time constraints matter.

Culture influences every single aspect of business communication.  How to show politeness and respect, how much information to give, how to motivate people, when, how much and how loudly to talk and laugh.  How to organise a letter – even what size paper to use!

Communication is also influenced by the organisational culture and by personal culture, such as gender, race and ethnicity, social class and so on.  These cultures intersect to determine the communication needed in each situation.  Sometimes one kind of culture may dominate another culture.