Communication is direct and explicit, with little patience for rhetoric, allusion, or complex etiquette. Another important contrast is between cultures with polychronic and monochronic concepts of time. Monochronic cultures tend to regiment time. Schedules and timetables are given great weight. Haste is a virtue.
Polychronic culture take a more leisurely view of time.
Time moves in greater and lesser cycles, independent of human wants. Patience and steadiness are virtues. Cohen calls collectivist, polychronic cultures high-context cultures. Individualistic, monochronic cultures are then low-context. Cohen suggests that supposedly universal models of negotiation may instead reflect an individualistic, monochronic culture.