Analyzing Cultural Communication Differences: Australia vs China

This essay examines the complexities of cultural communication within the hospitality industry, focusing on the differences between Australia and China. It utilizes Hofstede's cultural dimensions to analyze these differences, specifically addressing power distance, individualism versus collectivism, and indulgence versus restraint. The essay explores effective communication strategies, including recommendations for active listening and appropriate responses when interacting with Chinese clients and employees, while also highlighting behaviors to avoid. It emphasizes the importance of understanding cultural nuances, such as hierarchical structures, team dynamics, and social norms, to foster successful business relationships and ensure customer satisfaction. The analysis provides insights into how Australian hospitality professionals can adapt their communication styles to better serve and collaborate with individuals from Chinese cultural backgrounds. The essay concludes by underscoring the significance of cultural sensitivity and awareness in creating positive and productive interactions within the diverse environment of the hospitality sector.

Running head: CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student:
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Author Note:

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The aim of this essay is to discuss the differences of communication in different
national cultures. In the hospitality industry, the employees need to communicate and mix
with the people from different race and culture. Most of the clients are often international.
Therefore, their understanding, values, behaviors are different. The employees in the
hospitality industry therefore have the duty to make their customers satisfied. Similarly, while
working in this industry, the workforce consists of the employees from different cultures. It is
an important factor that the Australian tourism and hospitality sector largely depend upon the
Chinese tourists and Chinese agents or companies related with the tourism and hospitality
sector (Verderber, Sellnow and Verderber 2018). This is the reason why, the staffs of
Australia must have the competency to work with the staffs from the Chinese branch. In this
regard, the response to the other culture needs to be specific and knowledgeable. The theory
of cultural dimension by Greet Hosted throws light in this aspect and analyzes the six most
important dimensions of the national cultures. In this essay, the cultural differences of
Australia and China will be discussed and what should be the responses to the employees or
customers from China will be pointed out.
The national cultures are different from many aspects. However, according to the
cultural admission theory by Hofsted has pointed out individualism vs. collectivist, power
distance, indulgence vs. restraint, and masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance and
long term orientation versus short term orientation dimensions (Verderber, Verderber and
Sellnow 2014). In order to understand what should be the response of the employees to the
Chinese cultural representatives like customers, business partners as well as employees, the
dimensions of power distance, individualism and indulgence can be detailed.
China has high ranks in the power distance index which supports the inequality in the
society as well as organizations. In the organization structure, the higher authorities are the
last persons to order and the employees in the ground or middle level only abide by them.

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The subordinate superior relations tends to be polarized hence there is no way to defend the
abuse from the powerful high authority. Every rank has their own capacities and limitations
hence the employees of a rank needs to be aspire according to their ranks in the organization.
China has a high context culture where they focus on inner locus of control and show
personal acceptance for failure (Verderber, Verderber and Sellnow 2014). They use multiple
sources of information. This thinking process goes from general to the specific one. In
addition to this the culture of China tends to follow the time and schedule perfectly so that the
discipline can be maintained. Change in the organization is a slow process as the lower level
employees do not always have the permission to think for change that means against the
already set structure and their leadership change. This is reason why while working with the
Chines clients, the employees from Australia needs to be able to provide a lot of guidelines or
direction for work. The power distance index as high in the culture of China, they tend to
expect orders and guidelines from their higher authorizes (Deresky 2017). The Australian
managers therefore need to tell them what and how they want the task to their Chinese
counter parts so that the latter get the assurance that they are in the right track. However,
there are issues with the use of metaphor and ability to read between lines, hence the
Australian managers need to know about the nonverbal communication systems of and
listen positively of what they are telling. Chinese communication process otherwise the
misconception and misinterpretation can ruin the business relation.
According to the high context culture opined by Edward T. Hall, the people of China
build relationships slowly but depend upon trust. Hence the realization ship factor is
important for the Chinese employees, they try to work in teams for completing the projects.
On the other hand the Australian employees tend to apply their own skills in completing their
own tasks. This is due to the fact that the culture of China is highly collective. On the
contrary, the culture of Australia is like other western countries, individualistic. The

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employees of Australia while working in Chinese context may face issues like preferences of
the families and find in the workplace, need for cooptation among the team members and
team competition. On the other hand the Chinese counterparts may not work properly
individually as they are accustomed in working in teams. This is the reason why the
Australian employees need to follow the aspects of territoriality of the Chinese organizational
culture. It is the method of sharing same place with the colleagues and sharing of knowledge
as well as skills to develop a team to perform a task. While communicating, the use of some
very important Chinese words to give an impact of brotherhood as this concept in the
teams of Chines organizations is highly expected.
China scores low in the indulgence dimension in which the Australian scores high. In
this aspect China scores only 24 which reveals that the sociality does not support the idea of
leisure without fulfilling the responsibilities to the families or self (Hofstede-insights.com.
2019). These people try to restraint to control their impulses as well as desires. As the
Chinese society follows the Confucian ideals, they think that they have duties for their
communities and families hence they do not waste money and time in leisure or doing
something that they desire. These social norms are not present in the Australian society.
Hence while communicating with the Chinese employees the managers or employees of
Australia must communicate their respect to the social norms but make them
understand the life with purpose. As they all are working in the hospitality industry, if
they do not value the leisure factors, they will not be able to serve the customers who
will come to their hotels.
As the culture of Australia scores low in the power distance index, they have a flat
structure of organization. Therefore the Australian employed must not put pressure on the
employees to have an equality value on the organization. The rigid hierarchy system do not
accept any question. Hence while communicating with the Chinese business partners, the

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meetings should give the impression that the Australian partners are respecting the hierarchy.
The Australians must not interrupt in the communication of the senior managers in
terms of their age and try to talk when he has completed his conversation.
China has a strong people bonds with affiliation to family and community but they
never react negatively regarding the personal matters and other topics related to their
families, country and communities. Therefore, the Australian employees while
communicating with the Chinese employees or clients must know small amount of their
language but use small talk. Climate, scenery, travel and food are the topics about which they
can have conversation but the question regarding the political issues, human rights and
personal question are not taken positively (Williams and Pimentel 2016). As mentioned
before, China is a collective society, the people are more concerned with their belongings and
communities, asking questions are not supported. In this society, asking questions about
personal and other matters do not show good self-image and they are concerned more about
the face issue. While communicating with them the Australian managers must not show
over curiosity amount the personal matters and ask questions about their political and
legal wellbeing’s, religion and communities.
As china scores low in the indulgence dimension, they do not expect any gifts from
the others. This seems to be unethical and against modesty of the Chinese people. Therefore,
while communicating the Australian employees do not try to convince them to accept any
favour or gift as well as complement on their face. In addition to this, the Chinese culture do
not always accept the negative answers or response. The social norms as does not allow to
waste money and time in the leisure activities, hence the people have become quite cynic
with their positions and points of view. They do not take complements heartily and find
doubtful message in the complements (Adetunji and Sze 2012). Therefore, the Australian

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managers must not give unexpected complements or offers to their Chinese clients and
employees as this is considered to be unauthentic in nature and low quality of producers.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the culture of Australia and China are completely
different. In every aspects of Hofsted cultural dimensions, like power distance, individuality
and indulgence, these two cultures show nothing common. Therefore, while communication,
the Australians must know the social accepted etiquette and choice of words so that nothing
create a negative situation in the business relationship. Knowledge of the language can also
help to grow business relations with the clients as well as partners. Moreover, small
geopolitical knowledge and what can be offensive to the Chinese partners are important for
the Australian employees working in the hospitality industry.

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References:
Adetunji, R.R. and Sze, K., 2012, November. Understanding Non-Verbal Communication
across Cultures: A Symbolic Interactionism Approach. In i-Come International Conference
on Communication and Media.
Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures.
Pearson Education India.
Hofstede-insights.com 2019. China - Hofstede Insights. [online] Hofstede Insights. Available
at: https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country/china/ [Accessed 24 Mar. 2019].
Verderber, K., Verderber, R. and Sellnow, D. (2014). Communicate!. 14th ed. Boston, MA:
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, pp.55-60.
Verderber, R.F., Sellnow, D.D. and Verderber, K.S., 2018. Comm. Cengage Learning.
Williams, M.F. and Pimentel, O., 2016. Communicating race, ethnicity, and identity in
technical communication. Routledge.