Chuks, the Avianca example was Gladwell's to make his point about cultural inadequacy, not mine. I referred to it to put his use of Hofstede's data in context.
The F/O doing the comms was literally translating the Captain's requests (from Spanish to English and vice versa) and urgency got lost both in language translation and mitigation between the parties (Capt-F/O-ATC-F/O-Capt). The Captain didn't ever specifically order a Mayday call as far as I can see, the CVR translation reads "tell them we are in emergency". It appears to me that there were other authority and workload management issues but the comms problem was certainly primary. I have the full report, PM me if you want it.