Cross Cultural Negotiations
Tips and Guides
Cross cultural negotiation is one of many specialized areas within the wider field of cross cultural communications. By taking cross cultural negotiation training, negotiators and sales personnel give themselves an advantage over competitors.
There is an argument that proposes that culture is inconsequential to cross cultural negotiation.However, this is a naïve way of approaching international business.
Let us look at a brief example of how cross cultural negotiation training can benefit the international business person:
In a lecture on negotiation, Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business professor Donald Conlon, Ph.D. explores how diverse the world population is: out of every 100 people in the world, only about seven are from North America, while 55 are Asian, 21 are European, nine are African and eight are South American. Since we North Americans represent such a small portion of the world’s population, "it really behooves us to understand how people in other cultures negotiate," said Dr. Conlon. Cultural norms, such as physical touching, an aversion to touching, periods of silence during meetings or a casual approach to time can be unfamiliar or disquieting to people from different cultures.
In an anonymous article, a Japanese writer describes United States negotiators as hard to understand. One of the reasons for this, we are told, is because "unlike Japanese, the Americans are not racially or culturally homogenous." These generalizations are helpful to the extent that the reader remembers that they are only guides, not recipes. Any generalization holds true or not depending on many contextual factors including time, setting, situation, stakes, history between the parties, nature of the issue, individual preferences, interpersonal dynamics and mood.
Everything from language barriers to body language to how you meet-and-greet can have an impact on your negotiations. Should the two parties get off on the wrong foot or be working from two completely different cultural premises, there is potential for things to go wrong.
That’s why it’s important to enter such negotiations with a certain amount of knowledge and preparation beforehand. If you go in thinking that you can effectively use tactics that are specific to your country or culture, then you’re probably in for a reality check.