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1、 Cultural Differences in West-Eastern Business Negotiation1 IntroductionAs the step of the development of economic globalization became more and more rapid, there are more and more cooperating and integrating opportunities for all kinds of business. As we can see, there are more and more opportuniti
2、es for people to do business with people in the different countries all around the world. The west people use the things and wear the clothes which the east country produced, and the east people watch the movies that west made. Thus business around the whole world has already become closer and inter
3、national. Undoubtedly, the success of the international business is the agreement which all the participated corporations reached. In the process of reaching an agreement, it is necessary to communicate with the business partner about condition, price, production, service, promise, mode, quantity an
4、d bargain. The communication process is called Business Negotiation. As a consequence, we can see that business negotiation across border has become more frequent and more complex, and at the same time, with great importance in international business.International business negotiations are carried o
5、ut by people from different countries. Without question, they have different ways and different style in the negotiation. That is because they have different culture. Culture is a common cognition and understanding shared by the people who belong to the same race or the same nation. Culture forged t
6、he notion, value and belief; decide the mode and the ways of their behavior. What people focus, what they like, what they care about, how they think, how they gather, analyze and deal with information, how they make decision, all these are deeply influenced by the culture they hold. Undoubtedly, it
7、is easier to communicate with domestic people who have similar culture background, on the other side; it seems not easy to communicate with a guy who has totally different views. The greater the cultural differences, the more likely barriers to communication and misunderstandings become Donald W. He
8、ndon, Rebecca Angeles Hendon and Paul Herby, Cross-Cultural Business Negotiations, Quorum Books Westport,Connecticut,London,1996,4 (Donald W. Hendon, Rebecca Angeles Hendon, 1996). This thesis will talk about how the culture differences impact the international negotiation which between west and eas
9、t. Why I chose this study mode? It is because; there is a closer and closer relationship between west and east in economic, policy, technology and culture fields. There is more and more cooperation between west and east not only in the field of promoting the economic grown, bust also in the process
10、of maintaining the peace and stability of the world. In this course, all sorts of negotiation between the both sides are certainly evitable. This paper chose the international business negotiation as the specific sort of study. Because business activities is the most frequent and complex in todays c
11、ross-culture communication. This thesis contains five parts. First I will talk about the importance and significance of this study, then, I will give a briefly literature overview of the two key concepts “culture” and “negotiation”. And then will make a contrast study of the differences of the typic
12、al culture between west and east. The forth part is the main body of this thesis; the impacts of cultural differences in west-eastern business negotiation will be present from three phases: pre-negotiation, face-face negotiation, post-negotiation. each phase will be studied from several dimensions.
13、Last part is the conclusion, and I will make several further suggestions about how to make well understanding of the culture differences and how to use these differences to get the successful result of the international negotiation.Moreover, culture is not invariable; it is vary with time and change
14、s that happens in society, economy, policy and life. At the same time, business negotiation cross border is also change with the economy trend, commerce rule, relative laws and every influence factor. Hence, the study about the impact of cultural differences in West-Eastern business negotiation shou
15、ld be limited in the special time and special condition. What we talk about is just current. So this will make our study more precise and academically valuable.2 Cultural Differences2.1 Definition of CultureAs we all know, Culture is definitely an old topic which had been already studied for several
16、 decades by numerous academicians. It is can be easily proved that there are over 160 definitions for the concept “culture”. In the ancient century, culture had been defined as “the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired by man as a
17、member of society” by the anthropologist Edward Taylor in his book Primitive Culture. Then, hundreds of other different definitions had been given by scholars in many different dimensions. An excellent scholar Geert Hofstadter, who focus on the management and cross-culture differences, defined cultu
18、re as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from anotherculture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture Geert Hofstede (1984) Cultures consequences: International Differences in Work Related
19、Values, Beverley Hills, CA: Sage . Adamsom Hoebel defined culture as “the integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristics of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance” ( McGraw-Hill, 1972). And Faure&Rubin defined culture as “a set of sh
20、ared and enduring meanings, values, and beliefs that characterize national, ethic, or other groups and orient their behavior (Faure&Rubin, 2001). Therefore, we can say that culture penetrate in language, art, morals, beliefs, customs and even everything in our life. In our thesis, the culture we stu
21、died can be limited to “a set of learned and enduring values, belief, knowledge, standards, laws and behaviors shared by a group of members and determines how the member acts, feels and views oneself and others.” In this basement, we can say that culture is formed during everyday, and it works every
22、day. Culture determines peoples thinking, their values, their standards to distinguish what is right and wrong, and direct peoples judgment and opinions. People get their culture from their parents, their relatives, their companions, and even ever people around him. To some degree, culture is inhere
23、nt, changeless and invariable, because it is passed down by generation and generation, on the other side, culture is influenced by others everyday. This process is interactive and dialectic. As a consequence, it is great helpful to have a good understanding of the culture of yourself and your busine
24、ss partners to achieve the successful agreement of the cross-culture business negotiations. 2.2 Cultural Differences Although there are too many dimensions for the definition of culture, anthropologists generally agree on some typical components of culture. Some scholars say that culture consists of
25、 the material and the non-material parts. For the material part it may refers to the things we can see and touch, such as desks, cars, telephones and houses; the non-material part refers to the things such as values, feelings, norms and beliefs. As we just said, there are great differences in busine
26、ss negotiation when the both sides hold different culture. Then, we must want to know, what aspects are the special differences include? Geert Hofstede was one of the great scholars who focus on the intercultural communication. Last chart we mention his thesis, and his research result had great cont
27、ribution to the further research in this field. During the 1980s, he made the first attempts to use extensive statistics data to estimate cultural value in a quantity view. Then, he made a subsequent analysis for the concrete aspects of the cultural differences. These four dimensions had also become
28、 to be the theoretical tools for the subsequent researchers. These two dimensions are individualism versus collectivism and power distance.Individualism versus collectivismAlthough there are so many different dimensions to study the concrete aspects of the cultural differences, individualism versus
29、collectivism are the most frequently-used study tools in the cross-culture study field. It describes the close degree of the human society; it has also become a standard to scale a human society. Hofstede defined the two concepts as follows:Individualism stands for a society in which the ties betwee
30、n individuals are loose. Everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only. Collectivism stands for a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, which throughout peoples lifetime continue to protect them in exch
31、ange for unquestioning loyalty. Geert Hofstede, Cultures Consequence: International Differences in Work Related Values, Beverley ills, CA: SagePeople who from an individualistic society tend to have higher degrees of self-esteem and independent. They have fewer opportunities to show their wishes, de
32、sires, and needs. They may spent less care about the social events than their family, companies, friends and the people around them. They have individual initiative and achievement is stressed by this individual culture, and they think a lot of the individual decision-making. They burden their own d
33、uties and to make decisions, they take charge of their behavior and the result subsequently. On the other side, the people who think a lot to the collectivistic tend to give more attention to their organization-based role, they value their duty and obligation to the group they belong, and try best t
34、o make contribution to their group. Therefore, people with high-degree collectivistic culture have great reliance to their group work and make more effort to their organizational tasks. China is a typical country with a collectivistic culture. Chinese people think high of organization decision and t
35、hey emotionally depend on organizations.Power DistanceAccording to Hofstede, the expert on cross-culture communication and multi-culture, besides the first dimension individualism and collectivity, another cultural dimension is power distance. It is defines as bellows “the extent to which the less p
36、owerful members of institutions and organizations accept the power is distributed unequally” (Moran & Harris, 1990) Phillip Harris & Robert Moran(1987) Managing Cultural Differences, Houston. This index presents the degree of acceptance by a society of the unequal distribution of power in organizati
37、ons. In a high-power distance society, people feel comfortable with an unequal distribution, they believe that power is the target and fact of life; power will make their life totally different. China is a typical country with high degree power distance as well as some Asian countries. People believ
38、e there is not absolutely free and equal in the society, base on this value, they run after power and respect the powerful people. In contrast, in a low-power distance society, people think there is so-called “equity” in the society. They think equity as a given thing as well as free for human being
39、. People in the society like this think a lot to independent, free and equality. They believe there are much more things to be standards for the truth of life besides power, such as free, happy and the pain in the process to success.3 An Overview of Business Negotiation3.1 Definition of Business Neg
40、otiation Negotiation is an old topic; it has been talked for decades by academics. It came from the religious missionaries and conquering warriors, the both sides want to get an agreement or want to beat the other side, the first thing they need to do is to know your competitor. So the negotiation c
41、ame out. With the rapid development of information technology and network, the negotiation became more and more important in every fields of peoples life. When the whole world began to become a small village, it is more and more frequent and necessary to negotiate with people with different culture
42、background. The word “negotiation” is from “negotiar” used by Romans, meaning “to carry on business or to trade.” Negotiari derives from the Latin root words neg(not)and otium(ease or leisure), meaning “not leisure.”(Moran & Stripp, 1991:71) The same with many other cultural concepts, negotiation al
43、so has two typical element: “there must be both common interests and issues of conflict. Without common interests there is nothing to negotiate for, without conflicting issues nothing to negotiate about.”(Fang, 1999:36). These two elements are the core part of a negotiation and play so important rol
44、e in the process separately. As a consequence, business negotiation is a communication process in which two or even more parties sit down together to discuss the common interest and the conflicts, then they work out a resolvent, a compromise process, and last get to an agreement base on mutual benef
45、it and interest. In fact, negotiation can be considered to be a special kind of communication based on some common focus and similar interests. Business negotiation is also a special case of negation to work out in the special fields. With a business negotiation cross-culture, a win-win transaction
46、is the common target for the both sides in modern society.3.2 General Process of Negotiation As just mentioned, negotiation is a special case of transaction what happens everywhere and every time. In face, negotiation process is also the same with the communication process, the difference with commo
47、n communication is the negotiation targets for an agreement base on the common benefit. In the international business negotiation studies, a lot of academicians have already found there is a general model for business negation. Based on the previous research which had done by the expert Henddon & He
48、rbig in 1996, they summary the process of business negotiation for five parts: preparation phase, non-task sounding, task-related exchange of information, persuasion, concession and agreement. (Henddon & Herbig, 1996:4).Preparation phasePreparation phase is so important stage for every thing, as the
49、 old saying goes “well begun is half done”. For cross-cultural business negotiation, the preparation is also of great significance. In the preparation phase, the general information of the both sides must be collected. First of all, the negotiation participant must have a clear acknowledgement of itself, then, it is so necessary to collect adequate information about the other side of the negotiation. This phase includes collecting general information about the organization, hi
