Atmosphere and communication style in the workplace

One thing I have recognized since I started to research about interpersonal communication was communication has various forms depending on company culture, and atmosphere. For the company culture, it’s highly related to countries’ cultural differences such as differences between Western culture and Eastern culture. Some employees don’t realize they have to modify their attitudes and expressions in company with different cultures. Also, knowing company’s atmosphere is extremely important to convey your ideas, thoughts, and opinions.
Let’s look at company culture. I will compare the major differences between Western and Eastern cultures, and how those differences might affect companies’ atmosphere.

Western company culture has:
• More freedom of speech than Eastern culture
• Horizontal communication style — democratic style
• Relatively better Flexibility of work time than Eastern culture.

Eastern company culture has:
• Less freedom of speech than Western culture
• Vertical communication style — autocratic style
• Very rare flexibility of work time

Before I start to clarify the items, to avoid generalization, I would like to say my thinking should depend on the companies. For the freedom of speech, I’ve heard that employees in the Western company can address opinions to boss freely. In contrast, employees in the Eastern company do not really have a chance to address their opinions to the boss. Basically, the company must have a hierarchy system but the perception of it is pretty different when it comes to western and eastern companies. That’s because western culture has more likely a horizontal communication style which can be described as democratic style. Eastern culture, however, has more likely a vertical communication style which can be somewhat described as autocratic style. Both of them have advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of horizontal communication would be a more open-minded atmosphere, and working as a collaboration. Disadvantages would be the amount of time taken when people have to make decisions. On the contrary, advantages and disadvantages of vertical communication would be vice versa.
It is not appropriate to say what culture is superior or not, but I believe employees should adapt to different cultures when they try to use interpersonal communication skill in the workplace. For instance, when you’re in eastern countries, employers expect from you to show courtesy and respect to them with different manners than western culture. It’s not too much to suggest that you must know the culture where you want to work and build up the adaptability as well.