Cultural Long-Term Orientation and Facework Strategies

This study added to extant research by investigating the relation between cultural long-term orientation (LTO) or Confucian Dynamism and harmony and cooperation facework strategies. Studying intercultural communication is particularly vital at this time given the increasing global nature of today's communication interactions.

Respondents from two cultures-Hong Kong and the United States-completed questionnaires. Multivariate analysis of variance results showed that LTO culture members were more likely to use harmonious and cooperative facework strategies than their short-term orientated counterparts. An inadvertent finding from this study was that Hong Kong, originally thought to be high on the LTO dimension, actually scored moderate. This finding brings into question the assumption that "culture" can be classified by country and advocates use of Hofstede's Value Survey Measure for determining culture change.