Cultural discrepancies in negotiation contexts

Why does time not always have the same quality? Why is it linear in certain contexts, redundant in others? Why are work processes exhibited here, and hidden there? Why are direct lines of communication required for some, and intermediaries necessary for others? Why does authority stem from silence in one place, and from verbal practice in another?

Intercultural research often concentrates on symptoms of divergence, and negotiation manuals on the pragmatic handling of gaps.

Expanding the lessons of an individual experience in Europe and at its borders, this work looks behind symptoms in order to identify a number of cultural software algorithms. They relate to time structures and background time; to space characteristics and intermediary functions; to varying degrees of discursive independence and to the question of authority