Usa (Western) Asia

USA (Western)

Asia

Punctuality-conscious countries like Germany, Switzerland and America live by the culture of the clock. Take the American “time is money” attitude, for instance. Their equating time with money can be clearly seen in their choice of words where they spend time, save time or waste time. Ancient countries such as India and Egypt that have existed for thousands of years evaluate time very differently. They, unlike the Japanese for instance, do not consider minutes, even hours or days, as desperately critical. Punctuality in attending business meetings in countries such as Japan and Germany does not mean coming on time. That is considered late. You need to arrive at least ten minutes early so that the meeting can start on time.

Time, therefore, is an expensive commodity to be used wisely for them. Values such as progress, success and achievement that are held in high regard are based on adherence to time keeping. Academic and professional assignments are timetabled and obey strict time deadlines. However, many African, Asian and even European countries like Italy or Spain that perceive time as more cyclical, regulated by rotating moons and seasons, are much more laid back. In countries such as India, it is the norm to arrive late for meetings anticipating the others would do too.

The concept of time defies easy definitions, meaning many different things to many different people. Americans often perceive time as a critical commodity, an item that can actually be bought or sold. They also normally associate phrases used with money to time. For instance, some Americans will talk about “saving time”, “spending time,” and “wasting time.” In other words, most Americans hate to wait!

Many Americans, for better or worse, also use punctuality to judge a person’s character. For instance, if you arrive on-time to an appointment, you may be seen as a trustworthy, dependable person. If you arrive late to an appointment without calling or texting ahead, it could indicate that you don’t respect the other person’s time. Many Americans keep a busy schedule and take lateness as a sign of disrespect.  Being on time in American culture becomes especially important in business and college, where punctuality remains an expectation for professionals and students.

If you go to a public event in the United States (e.g. a movie, show, sporting event), you should arrive at least a few minutes before the scheduled time. The show will go on whether you are there or not! Luckily, smaller social gatherings – like a party at someone’s home – are usually exempt from this rule. You are not expected to arrive exactly on time, but you should still try to stay within a 15 to 30 minute range of the expected arrival time. This behavior is also known as being “fashionably late.”

Time is seen in a particularly different light by Eastern and Western cultures, and even within these groupings assumes quite dissimilar aspects from country to country. In the Western Hemisphere, the United States and Mexico employ time in such diametrically opposing manners that it causes intense friction between the two peoples. Being late for an appointment, or taking a long time to get down to business, is the accepted norm in most Mediterranean and Arab countries, as well as in much of less-developed Asia. Such habits, though, would be anathema in punctuality-conscious USA, Japan, England, Switzerland, etc. In the Japanese train system, for example, “on time” refers to expected delays of less than one minute, while in many other countries, up to fifteen minutes leeway is still considered “on-time”. For that reason, a world traveler who speaks ten languages, British linguist Richard Lewis, decided he was qualified to plot the world's cultures on a chart. He did so while acknowledging the dangers of stereotypes. "Determining national characteristics is treading a minefield of inaccurate assessment and surprising exception," Lewis wrote. "There is, however, such a thing as a national norm." Many people think he nailed it, as his book "When Cultures Collide," now in its third edition, has sold more than one million copies since it was first published in 1996 and was called "an authoritative roadmap to navigating the world's economy," by the Wall Street Journal. 

Chronemics is the study of the use of time, and the way that time is perceived and valued by individuals and cultures, particularly as regards non-verbal communication. These time perceptions include things like punctuality, willingness to wait, approaches to face-to-face interactions, and reactions to time pressure.

Different cultures may be considered to be:

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  Monochronic – where things are typically done one at a time, where time is segmented into precise, small units, and where time is scheduled, arranged and managed. In such a culture, time is viewed as a tangible commodity than can be spent, saved or wasted, and a paramount value is placed on regimented schedules, tasks and “getting the job done”. This perception of time is probably rooted in the Industrial Revolution of the 18^th and 19^th Century, and the archetypal examples are the United States, Germany and Switzerland, to which could be added Britain, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and the Scandinavian countries.
  
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  Polychronic – where several things can be done at once, and a more fluid approach is taken to scheduling time. Such cultures tend to be less focused on the precise accounting of each and every moment, and much more steeped in tradition and relationships rather than in tasks. Polychronic cultures have a much less formal perception of time, and are not ruled by precise calendars and schedules. The arbitrary divisions of clock time and calendars have less importance to them than the cycle of the seasons, the invariant pattern of rural and community life, and the calendar of religious festivities. Many Latin American, African, Asian and Arab cultures fall into this category, especially countries like Mexico, Pakistan, India, rural China, the Philippines, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
  
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  Variably Monochronic – a group of “in between” countries, including Russia, Southern Europe and much of East-Central Europe are sometimes referred to as variably monochronic cultures.