3) Decision-making approaches
Decisions are made differently in different groups. They may be made by individuals or by the group generally. Within a group, participants may turn to the person of the highest authoritative or the most senior group member, or some groups, even accept the decision of the majority of the group members. Other groups get the agreement of all the members among group members and decision will not be made until all members have agreed.
2.3 Comments
Every person is a product of his or her cultural environment. Though this provides stability and psychological comfort, it inherently limits one’s understanding of other cultures. Most people, unconsciously, use their other personal cultural background as a guide for judging the actions, views, customs, or manners of others. We may condemn someone because his or her views do no coincide with ours and lose sight of the fact that our words and actions may also be misunderstood in the same way. Therefore, understanding the influence of culture on international business is of great importance.
3 Impact of cultural differences on international business negotiation
3.1 Impact of cultural differences on communicating process
To begin with, the impact is manifested on the language communicating process of negotiation. The differences are obvious, though the language behaviors negotiators used are provided with higher fitness. People on earth use more than 3000 languages. Because few of us can be good command of more than one language, problems of communication are bound to occur in international business communication. One reason for such differences is that languages are based on the concepts, experiences, and views and so on. Proper use of the language is a sensitive cultural issue. Americans tend to exchange task-related information in business relatively frank and direct, with clear statements of needs and preferences. Generally, they openly express their disagreements and resort to aggressive
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persuasive tactics such as threats and warnings. And the French are verbally and nonverbally expressive. They love to argue, often engaging in spirited debate during business meetings. Asians, on the other hand, tend to be far more reticent or implicit and sometimes go to great lengths to save face or not to offend. Saving face and achieving harmony are more important factors in business dealings for the Japanese than achieving higher sales and profits.
What’s more, the impact of cultural differences on negotiation also represented on nonverbal communication. Nonverbal signals differ by culture, and the differences can affect communication. For example, people from Americans who visit certain Asian countries are likely to view the fast, short steps taken by the inhabitants as peculiar or subservience or weakness. Similarly, Americans see standing up as the appropriate thing to do on certain occasions, whereas people from other cultures do not. Apart from that, as for our Chinese, an up-and-down movement of the head means yes and a side-to-side movement of the head means no. These movements may mean nothing at all or something quite different to people from other cultures. Some cultures, like our China’s, do not like touching, while people from other cultures that like touching will give you greetings ranging from full embraces and kisses to nose rubbing. If you can understand others from different cultures based on your counterpart’s standards, you can seize the opportunity to access the cultural style of other.
3.2 Impact of cultural differences on negotiation style
People from different countries have different values, different attitudes and different experience. They have different strengths and different weaknesses from one another. A competent negotiator should develop a style appropriate for his own strengths including the strengths of his particular culture. The negotiation style means negotiator’s main tolerance and style characters represented in the negotiation. The negotiation has deep cultural brands. Negotiators will have different negotiation styles because of different cultural backgrounds. For example, American style is very direct, decisive and practical.
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They always try to demand the same from counterparts. German negotiators are known for very thorough preparation. In other words, in particular the German preparation for negotiation is superb. They are also well known for sticking steadfastly to their negotiating positions in the face of pressure tactics. Koreans often make emotional pleas of their negotiating style. They are also not beyond painting themselves as poor, humble peasants, even though they have one of the higher GDPs per capita in Asia. In reality, the Koreans only respect hard-line, strong opponents. In the negotiation, it is very vital to know well opponents’ negotiation styles in order to hold the direction and schedule of negotiation and exert the strategy of negotiation purposefully. And of course, in real life, though the negotiators with same cultural backgrounds may have the evident convergence, their negotiation styles could be totally different because of other factors. And even when different negotiations across national cultures are identified, change is constant. Therefore, it should be dealt with flexibly.
3.3 Impact of cultural differences on decision manners
When faced with a complex negotiation task, people in different countries may use different means to make a decision, knowing these differences will facilitate anticipating the reactions of the other side. Americans make decisions based upon the bottom line and on cold, hard facts. They do not play favorites. Economics and performance count, not people. Business is business. When faced with a complex negotiation task, Americans tend to divide the large task into a series of smaller task. Issues such as prices, packing and delivery may be settled one at a time. For them, progress in the negotiation is measured by how many issues have been settled. While in Japan, decision-making is quite different. Many Japanese companies still make decisions by consensus. This is a time-consuming process, another reason to bring patience to the negotiating table. So quick answers to any question or problem are almost impossible. Besides, foreign businessmen negotiating with a Japanese company should avoid showing any kind of favoritism toward one individual or depending on a single individual. This
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will alienate the other managers. By contrast, the Russian decision-making is rather bureaucratic. Even the simplest deals will take a great deal of time when compared to other industrialized powers.
To sum up, the cultural differences are embodied on every segment of the whole negotiating process. Only by knowing these differences, can we predict and judge the opponents correctly and seize the initiative of negotiation.
4 Suggestions and conclusion
4.1 Strategies for intercultural negotiation
In view of the above described, we should try to know more about the negotiation differences initiatively, explore the real reasons which lead to misunderstanding and promote to a successful negotiation.
1) Strengthen the intercultural awareness.
International business negotiation comprises many different thinking, patterns, emotional expressing ways and customary behaviors. Sometimes, effective communication may be weakened if some cultural factors were ignored. Consequently, in the international business negotiations, it’s of great necessity to strengthen the intercultural awareness. It should be realized that negotiators with different culture backgrounds have different needs, motivation and beliefs. It is suggested to understand, accept, and respect the other party’s culture. Also, under the guidance of correct negotiation awareness, it needs to adapt to different business culture styles with flexible tactics.
2) A keen insight into the negotiating cultural norms, social customs and taboos.
Negotiators must try to know the opponents’ customs and taboos as many as possible before carrying on the international business negotiations, in case of any unpleasant atmosphere arise because of ignorance of some particular customs. For example, elephant, which we
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considered to be precious and lucky, is the symbol of clumsy and awkward in England. Therefore, when trading with English people, elephant images should not be avoided on the trademarks and packages. So it’s very important to know the other culture deeply.
3) Understand and accommodate different cultures.
Cultural bias should be overcome. Though mostly, people can aware of the existence of cultural differences, they use their standards to explain and judge others intentionally or unintentionally. Usually, they forget the absolutely different business cultures. Thus, in the international business negotiation, ethnocentrism should be abandoned firstly. When encounter with different cultures in negotiation, try to respect and accommodate others’ moral rules or other similar things, stand on others’ position to look at problem is a much wiser action.
4.2 Conclusion
We live in different cultural environment, so intercultural conflicts are probably inevitable. International business negotiators are distinguished from each other not only by geographic location, language spoken, more importantly by the specific cultures in which they grow up. Cultural differences influence negotiation in many aspects, even before the face-to-face negotiation starts. Understanding the different cultural environments that exist among nations and considering cultural differences in all facets of business are crucial for negotiators in the operation of international business negotiation.
To achieve effective communication, the possible international business negotiator should have a good knowledge of the counterpart’s culture. Therefore, additional training and education in the art of intercultural negotiation will be needed for many managers and the management teams. To prepare and respect the counterparts’ culture within which you are negotiating is a better suggestive method to cope with international business negotiation. Only in this way, can satisfactory results be achieved.
