When people from several different countries share the same workplace, misunderstandings can generate friction. Sure, there are language issues and not everyone likes the way other people manage their time, but the most insidious and intractable problems between coworkers from different parts of the world often arise from variations in how colleagues perceive (literally) and prefer to use space. The most commonly recognized difference is the amount of personal space people need to feel comfortable when they’re conversing — but that’s just one of many cultural preferences that affect the way people interact with each other and their surroundings. The psychology research described below may help smooth some discussions and provide explanations for behaviors that you might otherwise find baffling.

In North America, people are very attuned to what spaces and objects look like, but vision doesn’t reign supreme everywhere. Edward Hall, in The Hidden Dimension, noticed differences in sensory sensibilities several decades ago, and his work is still relevant today. In Japan, people are much more likely to attend to smells, sounds, and tactile sensations when in a space or using an object. The functionality of sense organs is not the issue here; what does come into play is the attention given to information collected through the senses. Traditionally, in Arab cultures, the smell of a conversation partner’s breath is felt to convey all sorts of important information — and people need to stand close enough to each other during conversations to pick up those olfactory signals. So keep in mind that your colleagues may respond differently to space or an object than you do because they register different aspects of its sensory profile.

Geert Hofstede, in Cultures and Organizations, discusses five dimensions of national culture. One of them is whether a culture is more individualistic or collectivistic. People from more individualistic cultures expect to be able to spend more time alone than people from collectivistic cultures, which has implications, for example, for how people may respond to the design of a public space, such as a workplace. People from more individualistic cultures are also more likely to modify a space or object to meet their individual needs — if the design of those places or objects resists modification, they will “ugly up” fast. Countries that are relatively more individualistic include the United States. Great Britain, and the Scandinavian countries. Some of the more collectivistic cultures are China, Costa Rica, and Indonesia.

Hofstede also points out that cultures vary in their acceptance of differences in power. Countries that are more accepting include Malaysia, Russia, and Mexico, while those that don’t include the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. This has clear implications for workplace design. People from countries more accepting of differences in power can be expected to clearly differentiate the workspaces of those of higher status from those of lower status and include workplace amenities tied to relative status, as well.

The various structures of language can come into play, as well. You may have suspected this if you’ve ever distributed product prototypes or drawings of potential work or retail environments, for example, among colleagues in different parts of the world. If the noun used to connote whatever’s being talked about is associated with a particular gender, for example through the use of different articles (think “le” and “la” in French), discussions of the physical form of the thing connoted by that noun are affected. The classic related research, reviewed along with similar material by Guy Deutscher in Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, involved the word “bridge,” which is masculine in some European countries and feminine in others. In countries where “bridge” is feminine, bridges are more apt to be associated with elegance, while in countries that speak languages where “bridge” is a masculine word, bridges are more likely to be associated with sturdiness — even when native speakers of other languages speak in English. The word “office” is masculine in some European languages and feminine in others, which may cause native speakers to think about those spaces in subtly different ways.

There’s a lot more to consider when you’re working with people who grew up in another country than making sure you astutely manage interpersonal distances.

See original article at Harvard Business Review.

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