Cultural Impacts on Business Negotiations.doc

cultural impacts on business negotiations1. the definition of culturefor the purposes of the study of international management, culture is acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and generate social behavior. culture is the coherent, learned, shared view of a group of people about lifes concerns that ranks what is important, furnishes attitudes about what things are appreciate and dictates behavior.hofstede, a scholar in cultural object, dean believes that culture includes four levels, the most exterior layer of known symbols, such as clothing, language, buildings, etc., the human eye can easily see. the second layer is the heroes, in a cultural force, it is largely representative of the hero where the culture of the national character. the third layer is rituals; etiquette is to treat each culture unique representation of man and nature, such as the chinese culture, the main location where the meal is very particular about the arrangements. the deepest layer refers to the values, which is the culture in the most profound, the most difficult part to understand. cultural differences in every aspect of culture, cross-cultural communication is also required on every aspect of culture.2. cultural impacts on business negotiations2.1 impact of symbols on business negotiations (mainly focus on the impact of different languages)to begin with, the impact of symbols 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 persuasive tactics such as threats and warnings. and the french are verbally and non-verbally 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.whats more, the impact of cultural differences on negotiation also represented on non-verbal communication. non-verbal 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 chinas, 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 counterparts standards, you can seize the opportunity to access the cultural style of others.2.2 impact of heroes on business negotiations（mainly focus on the nation characters）here i take two examples respectively from the americans and japanese.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 will alienate the other managers.from the two examples we can draw a conclusion: overlooking cultural differences may lead to the failure of negotiation.2.3 impact of rituals on business negotiations religions vary from country to country, district to district and folk to folk.in a celebration held during a negotiation in qatar, the superintendent of a multinational corporation brings brandy to show his willingness of cooperation. as a result, he was driven off by the counterpart, who was a moslem. it later made the company unwelcome in whole qatar. why? the reason is that drinking liquors is forbidden in muslim doctrine. 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 partys culture. 2.4 impact of values on business negotiations values are the standards by which a culture actions and their consequences, they affect perceptions and can have a strong emotional impact upon people.in 1992, a delegation, consist of chinese business negotiation representatives and other 12 experts in different fields, purchased about 30 million chemical equipment and technology from america. the americans sent everyone in the delegation a souvenir after the first round of negotiation. the souvenir had a delicate package. however, when opening the gifts, they were shocked. there was a green golf cap in everyones box. the original meaning of the americans was to play golf after the agreement. they have no idea of what a green cap means to chinese. the agreement was not reached, not because of their misbehavior but of their lacking in chinese culture. thus, we can see that values play an important