Cultural Logic Interpersonal communication is an interactive process, requiring two or more people to exchange thoughts, ideas, emotions, questions, proposals, and so forth in an effort to find common ground. A key component of this process is the cultural logic that underlies any message.20 (Some refer to this process as "cultural logics," to emphasize the fact that this process consists of a series of logical assumptions that do not necessarily represent a unified whole - that is, cultures have a variety of logics relating to different aspects of social interaction.) When people converse with one another, they often rely on these culture-based logical assumptions to facilitate the conversation. Cultural logic is the process of using one's own assumptions about normative behavior to interpret the messages and actions of others, thereby hypothesizing about their motives and intentions. It's how we attribute meaning to the words and actions of others on the basis of the local meanings embedded within their own culture. Cultural logic provides people with a system of assumptions about what is mutually known and understood among individuals (i.e., a common ground). People often rely on this logic to facilitate communication and reduce what needs to be said to a manageable level, since it is often too difficult and timeconsuming for people to express all the thoughts and assumptions behind everything they say. A shared cultural logic helps people fill the gaps left by what is unsaid, thereby facilitating the process of creating a shared meaning. It also allows for simplified and rapid communication.323 When moving across cultures, however, there is often an assumption of common knowledge that, in fact, is not common. In Korea, for example, it is often considered impolite for someone of "lower" status to try to make an appointment with a second person of "higher" status. The logic here is that the person with lower status is obligating the person with higher status to be somewhere at a particular time, which is a constraint on their behavior and certainly impolite. As a result, the person with lower status will simply show up at the other person's door and hope that they will be received. However, when this tradition is transferred to many countries in the West, the opposite logic applies; that is, it is widely considered impolite to simply show up, and an appointment is preferred. From Korea, let's go to Brazil and consider a recent interchange between a Canadian sales representative and her potential Brazilian customer. In order to schedule an appointment with Sergio, Sarah contacted him to propose a meeting in her office the following Monday at 9:00 in the morning. In doing so, she created a mental image of the message she was trying to convey, using her own cultural logic (in this case, relying on her Canadian emphasis on punctuality). To do so, however, she required some form of verbal shorthand - that is, she needed to make some assumptions about what was in Sergio's mind, or else her message might become excessively long and risk being ignored. To this end, she assumed that Sergio would make the same assumptions about the use of words that she was making. For example, she would have assumed that "9:00" meant 9:00, not later in the morning, when she had other appointments. She also assumed that Sergio would understand her message, and his324 agreement to the meeting indicated that he would arrive at 9:00 a.m. sharp. While Sarah was making her assumptions, however, so too was Sergio, and his assumptions about the message differed considerably. Following his own cultural logic (particularly the Brazilian perception of time), Sergio assumed that "9:00" was only a targeted or approximate time, and that slippage in the time schedule was perfectly acceptable, given traffic and other commitments around the same time. He further assumed that Sarah was also flexible and that she would agree with his loose interpretation of when the meeting would begin. After all, since she had invited him, she must have understood his culture. The end result of this episode is predictable. Using their own very different cultural logics, both Sarah and Sergio ran the risk of being disappointed or frustrated when they met. Had both parties - or even one party - understood their variability in cultural logic, perhaps the results would have turned out differently. Instead, due to a miscommunication regarding what time the meeting should actually take place, Sarah risked coming away from this experience thinking that Sergio was unreliable, while Sergio risked concluding that Sarah was too rigid. The result could easily have been a lost business opportunity.

question:

1. How could both Sarah and Sergio have prevented a potential misunderstanding with respect to time? 2. If the meeting was the disaster we predicted, what should Sarah and Sergio do next? How could each of them save the business relationship?