As a Western European and a Germanic country, Netherlands’ cultural profile is influenced by its geographical settlement, but also by its geopolitics and its interactions with various other cultures. Because of its geographic positioning, Netherlands had fought a permanent battle with waters, risking inundations, but it had found multiple ways of resisting the flood, although its residents are permanently aware of this risk. This situation made the Dutch people to be tolerant, to make compromises and to be flexible in various cases (Narayanan & Colarelli O’Connor, 2010).
Being a Germanic country, Netherlands fits the category of the monochromic cultures, wherein time is linear and activities are well defined in specific timescales, which are not desirable to be un-followed (Varner & Beamer, 2011; Gerritsen, n.d.). It is well known that in such cultures the lateness is not tolerated and working over the regular shifts is unlikely to happen.
Gerritsen (n.d) finds a connection between the monochromic cultures and the type of communication, considering that Netherlands fits in the profile of low-context countries, as people usually say what their mean through their words, making little use of non-verbal or body language communication. In business settings or in everyday life, Dutch people are direct and demand explicit messages, supported by concrete facts, indicating that they have a cognitive national culture (Strother, Ulijn & Fazal, 2012).
Because of their cognitive nature, the Dutch are inclined towards dealing first and later establishing relationships, being engaged in the concrete, relevant, reasonable aspects of a business interaction and elaborating a direct, upfront interest towards dealing (McFarlin & Sweeney, 2011).
In the modern Netherlands, people consider religion a personal matter, which is unlikely to be expressed in public. From the religious point of view, Netherlands is a pluralist society, allowing and encouraging the expression of every religious confession, although more than 51% of the country’s population are not affiliated to any religion. (Kennedy & Zwemer, 2010).
The hierarchy in Netherlands has specific tonalities. Applying the Hofstede theory, the power distance is relatively low in this country and the masculinity is high (Narayan & Colarelli O’Connor, 2010), which indicates a high level of competitiveness and a tendency towards an equalitarian communication across hierarchy. However, there is a strict formal etiquette in Netherlands, according to which the higher hierarchical person commences and ends the discussion, which demonstrates the acceptance of an authority system (Varner & Beamer, 2011).
For instance, in a business situation, the manager is the one that announces when the meeting has ended by standing up and showing his or her subordinate that he or she needs to get up and leave the meeting room (Varner & Beamer, 2011).
The Dutch people have a relatively long communication distance policy, considering that what is closer than the length of an arm is intrusive, invading their personal space (“The Netherlands: Communication Style”, 2011; Varner & Beamer, 2011). In Netherlands, people are more reserved in expressing through gestures, mimics or body language, preferring a direct communication style, based on clear words and eye contact, wherein the lack of these ingredients are interpreted as signs of disinterest in the topic discussed (“The Netherlands: Communication Style”, 2011). For example, in a situation of communicating with South American partners, known to be more expressive and affective, the Dutch citizens would feel uncomfortable by their counterparts’ physical closeness and would consider their communication style, which includes body language and gestures, as a sign of unreliability.
In terms of corruption and bribery, Netherlands is situated very low, indicating a high prestige, and exhibiting a high level of transparency, being ranked as one of the six countries in the entire world that have a very low corruption level (Unger & Busuioc, 2007).
References
Gerritsen, M. (n.d.) How to persuade Belgian, French and Dutch audiences to listen to your presentation? Nijmegen: University of Nijmegen.
Kennedy, J.C. & Zwemer, J.P. (2010) “Religion in the modern Netherlands and the problems of pluralism.” BMGN LCHR. Vol. 125, no. 2-3, pp. 237-268.
McFarlin, D. & Sweeney, P.D. (2011) International management: Strategic Opportunities & cultural challenges. New York: Routledge.
Narayanan, V.K. & Colarelli O’Connor, G. (2010) Encyclopedia of Technology and innovation management. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.
Strother, J.B., Ulijn, J.M. & Fazal, Z. (2012) Information overload: an international challenge for professional engineers. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
The Netherlands: communication styles. (2011) Available at http://www.goinglobal.com/articles/888/.
Unger, B. & Busuioc, E.M. (2007) The scale and impacts of money laundering. Massachusetts: Edwards Elgar Publishing Limited.
Varner, I. & Beamer, L. (2011) Intercultural Communication in the global workplace. Fifth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
