Context

verbal communication. In contrast, Danes tend to be clear and structured in their communication. Likewise, Indians must also be attentive to the signals they send, e.g. shaking the head means „no‟ in most parts of the world, but in India it has multiple meanings, and therefore it can be difficult for foreigners to interpret that particular signal. At the same time, it can also be difficult for foreigners to interpret the Danes‟ explicitness. One of our Danish respondents feels that he spends excessive amounts of time explaining his intentions and expectations to the Indians, because they misinterpret the directions. We argue that there are different levels of explicitness in a communication situation. While the Danish explicitness is efficient in a Danish context because of a shared frame of reference, it is not sufficiently precise when communicating with Indians who have a different frame of reference. Culturally determined truisms are not expressed in the communication, but are included as underlying assumptions of the interaction, and are thus not understood by foreigners who have a different frame of reference and thereby different truisms. Some Danish respondents felt that they had to explain everything in detail, down to the point where they felt that they were being disrespectful to the Indians. Being explicit and at the same time avoid causing loss of face seem to be incompatible as the explicitness is needed in order to ensure that the message is conveyed as intended, but on the other hand, too much explicitness may be experienced, by the Indians, as an attack and an attempt to take face. The solution may thus be found in how the explicitness is expressed in the situation.

Directness

The majority of our respondents agreed that, in comparison with Indians, Danes are generally more direct in their way of communicating. Based on the theory, it would be fair to assume that in a contract negotiation between two Indian parties, the interaction would be rather indirect and more time consuming. Nevertheless, some respondents argued that Indians are equally direct when negotiating big contracts. A distinction was made between “regular business” and “big business”, and our respondents claimed that when the negotiation concerns

“big business”, Indians are just at decisive as Westerners are, because they, too, focus on the economic outcome. Thus, it could be argued that the reason for this distinction between

“regular” and “big” business is not necessarily culturally determined, but rather a result of international trading customs. Usually, in international business you are dealing with

substantial amounts of money and in order to be competitive in a globalised world, you will have to adjust to the international standards.

The international standards include both the technical aspects of negotiating a contract and the style of communication. The Indian respondents noted that Indians, who are unfamiliar with international communication, would take offence of the directness of Danes. Theory states that Danes are very direct in their way of communicating, which is in consistence with our Indian respondents‟ experiences in dealing with Danes. In contrast, the respondents stated that Indians are overall unfamiliar with direct communication. The interesting thing is that one of our Indian respondents explained that even though it seems unplanned there is a strategy underneath the unstructured surface of Indian communication. We believe that the message only seems unplanned to the Westerner who does not understand the strategy or the underlying message, but to the Indian, it is the only logical way to convey a message. Indians are able to infer meaning from very little information, because they know their counterparts. But for the Westerner, this indirectness seems very time-inefficient and confusing. Indians, on the other hand, do not experience it as inefficiency, but rather as a means to get to know their counterparts better and establish trust. Culturally experienced business people are able to communicate in their own culturally influenced style and at the same time listen in the style of their counterparts. This makes them excellent when communicating with different cultures.

This is referred to as having a high intercultural competence, as we mentioned in the theory.

The conversational maxims

Establishing a relationship with the counterpart is important to Indians, and as mentioned earlier, the level of formality is a good indicator of how well the parties know each other. As the relationship develops, the communication style changes accordingly. Our data suggest that the Indian and Danish communication styles change in terms of Grice‟s conversational maxims. The quotation “A36: It is my experience that the communication is not concealed. We Danes prefer to be honest and keep our promises, and at the same time, not promise anything we cannot keep. But the Indians over-promise and under-deliver” illustrates the Danish way of communicating, and suggests that Danes tend to meet the two conversational maxims quality and manner. The respondent claims that Danes value honesty and commitment to agreements, which is in concurrence with the maxim of quality. At the same time, it also suggests that

Danes prefer direct communication, which corresponds with the maxim of manner. According to the conversational maxims, the respondent has a point when he states that Indians over-promise and under-deliver. However, leaning against Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey‟s argument that the conversational maxims are only suitable for low-context cultures, we believe that the Indian style of communication cannot be evaluated according to the Gricean maxims. As India is perceived as a high-context culture, it is not reasonable to assess the Indian style of communication according to these four maxims.

One Danish respondent states that “When reproving a person it‟s almost like we‟re speaking two different languages. I [the Dane] want the person to understand the mistake so that it doesn‟t happen again. But I have experienced that the person [the Indian] either doesn‟t take responsibility or just pass it on, or simply just says “Yes ma‟am, yes ma‟am, it won‟t happen again”. The Dane evaluates the Indian response according to the maxims quantity, quality, relevance and manner. According to Western assessment, the response is neither sufficient, particularly truthful, unambiguous, nor explicit. What the Danish respondent does not realise is that the Indian is not trying to answer according to any of these maxims, but is in fact attempting to save face in a face-threatening situation. Our data suggested other similar incidences where the Indian party simply was unwilling to accept criticism and completely ignored it out of fear of losing face. Indians will, at all costs, deny a face-loss situation, even though it is obvious to everybody else in the given situation.