| Communicating with Diagrams: How Intuitive and Cross-Cultural Are Business Graphics? Martin J. Eppler, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Lugano (USI), Switzerland Jianxin Ge, Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE), Beijing, P.R. China Issue 35 (Vol. 18, No. 1), June 2008, pp. 3-22. This article reports on the results of an intercultural card sorting experiment with 104 students in Beijing and Cambridge (UK) to identify similarities and differences in the interpretation of visual business communication formats by students. The results show that English and Chinese strategy students differ dramatically in terms of their similarity and grouping decisions of business diagrams. The results indicate that communicators who employ business graphics for their presentations should pay attention to their target groups and visual formats to avoid misinterpretation in different cultural regions. The article is a contribution to visual approaches to communication management and highlights their limitations and risks. |