cultural differences in international trade negotiation.doc

胡君青 2012013113 英语129班cultural differences in international trade negotiationi. introduction this article analyzes cultural differences in international trade negotiations. nowadays, in the era of economic globalization, the world is developing quickly. business contacts among nations are getting increasingly close, which has brought more and more opportunities to business. successful international trade negotiations certainly will benefit the development of the enterprises. during negotiation, culture difference is one of the factors that have important impacts on business negotiations. the failure of understanding the cultural differences will severely harm the smooth progress of negotiation.ii. cultural differences now, with the rapid development of economic globalization and the prosperity of international business, international business negotiations are a very common and important activity in the world on the dramatic increase. but during negotiation, it is all too natural that conflicts occur where both sides have different or separate views concerning their own interest or culture. 2.1 the difference of privacy chinese peoples privacy concepts are relatively weak, and that individuals should vest in the collective, together emphasize unity and friendship,and therefore the chinese people are often very willing to understand other peoples feeling, the other side the peoples willing frankly talk each other about himself feeling, but personal privacy are very importance for westerners, emphasize personal space, they are not willing to mention their own affairs, even they do not like others person interfere. so on the issue of privacy, chinese and westerners frequent conflicts between the two sides, such as: for the first met chinese people often asked about each others age, marital status, children, occupation, income and so on, chinese people think this is an manners, but the west people think these problems are violated their privacy.2.2 the difference of timewesterners time concept and the money concept are close contact, time is money concepts ingrained, they are very treasured time, in their life, they are often careful arrangements and plans the time, and he contracted habit of in time. in the west, to visit someone, we must advance notice or agreement, and indicate the purpose of visit, time and place, to be agreed later. chinese people are more accustomed to the time the country, in the use of time is very arbitrary, generally chinese people are not the same as westerners strict accordance with the plan, westerners often feel are not suited to this.2.3 courtesy of the phrase difference chinese people are attach importance to modest, when communication with the people, and stress for himself humble, respect for others, as a virtue, which is a rich chinese cultural characteristics courtesy phenomenon. when others are praising us, we tend to be self-criticism to show modest and polite, while western countries do not have this cultural practice, when they are praised, they will be pleased to say thank you expressed acceptance. because of cultural differences, we think that westerners are too self-confidence, without modesty; when westerners hear that the chinese people deny other persons praise or hear their denying their own achievements, even when their criticism is worthless, they would be very surprised that the chinese people are so dishonest.2.4 food practices difference the chinese nation has been called the fine tradition of hospitality. in communication occasions and banquet, the enthusiasm of the chinese people often offers their cigarettes each other. chinese banquet, even put all the delicious on the table, the owner also say, please understanding and the owner will use chopsticks help guest nip some foods, and persuade guests are more drink, more eat. in western countries, people are stress respect for individual rights and privacy, and therefore they will not do help guest nip foods. what you want, you can eat and drinking. they did not care whether you would be drunk or not. iii. reasons of cultural differencessince there are so many cultural differences, conflicts are inevitable. a cultural diversity has many reasons, in a word, eastern and western cultures have different cultures, historical background, and it will inevitably frictions and even conflicts in the minds and behavior of different nations people. peoples communicative competence is come from the process of socialization, and it contact with values together. every culture has its own unique value systems, which can help people distinguish between beauty and ugliness, goodness and evil, this is the peoples philosophy of life, morality and behavior standards. but it can not exist departing from the specific culture, every culture have different criteria, this culture think that is good, another culture might consider bad, but their existence is reasonable in their own cultural systems, it does not think that this values are advanced, and the other values are behind. for example of eastern and western cultures, in the chinese culture, people are regarded modest and ceremony, while easterners pursue “make the best of things, take things as they come” , and do not like losing, while the social atmosphere is often blocked too prominent individuals, in chinese culture, the collective orientation is the dominant position, pursuing personal development was a serious individualism, it will be condemned. however, western culture is very individualistic. “for instance, americans and chinese tend to have a different view of the purpose of negotiations. americans see the goal of negotiations as to produce a binding contract, which creates rights and obligations. but japanese see the goal of negotiations as to create a relationship between the two parties, and the written contract is an expression of the relationship. what the chinese see as a reasonable willingness to modify a contract to reflect changes in the parties relationship, americans see as a tendency to renege. american insist on adhering to the original terms of the contract, and point between east and west was particularly obvious. western culture mode of thinking will pay attention of logic and analysis, oriental culture will pay attention intuition, which is also the thinking of traditional chinese culture characteristics. due to the impact of this traditional culture, the chinese people are often special attention to intuition, pay attention to the process of understanding the experience and feeling, the exchanges are often in this experience and feeling to measure anothers foot by ones own last. and compared with the westerns mode of thinking, chinese people of this mode of thinking has obvious vague and ambiguous. in essence, things are often overlooked individual differences, while some are wrong and will have direct impact on cross-cultural communication, a communication error.iv. conclusioninternational trade negotiation is playing a more and more vital role in modem society. we can see clear that there are great differences in international trade negotiation. particularly, culture can influence negotiating styles in numerous ways. different cultures employ different ways of doing business. may we think is reasonable and acceptable in our own culture, but is not necessarily acceptable in other cultures. what we consider as effective to an event seem quite the opposite to someone from another culture. as a result, to be