Negotiating For Your Employer?

Cross cultural conflict can also be a factor in the workplace. The United States is an extremely diverse place, as a conglomeration of people from different races, religions, cultural backgrounds, personalities, educational experiences and learning styles. This diversification leads to more women, various ethnic groups, and immigrant workers working together in a more diverse tapestry of associates even when the corporation is located and operating only in the United States. In increasingly diverse corporate America, doing

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

How do Westerns and East Asians differ in general? Many scholars comment on the fact that East Asian countries act similarity in various conditions due to the influence of Confucianism and shared culture history. Often the Confucian roots in these countries become solutions to resolve the cultural differences compared to the West. Raymond Cohen categorizes the Western style negotiation into a low-context style and Asians as high context style. The reason that the East and West differ greatly in negotiating styles is due the collectivistic traits in Asian societies but not Confucianism.

Retrieved from http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/differences-in-business-culture-between-japan-and-west Viswat, L., & Kobayashi, J. (2012, March 28). Negotiation Styles - Similarities and Differences between American and Japanese University Students. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 1404(28). Retrieved from

This paper shows cultural differences between Iranians, Chinese and Indians in business negotiations based on interviews with three businessmen: an American citizen who set up a general trading company in China, an Iranian Canadian citizen who has a trading company in Iran, and an Indian America who set up a business in India. The interview questions focused on cultural elements based on Hofstede’s research: power distance, low-high context, and general business behavior in these countries.

As stated in Professor Carney’s class “Successful communication occurs when the message is accurately perceived and understood”. I feel that in this negotiation we perceived and understood correctly what each other wanted to express. During the negotiation I also focused on finding ways to bridge the cultural gap such as best attributes of the Thai culture, I convinced them to accept the US culture.

Addressing cultural conflicts begins by mastering the story behind the problem (Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan, & Switzler, 2013). Hauk and Mueller (2015) suggest three variables common to such stories; the cultural leaders, the cultural perspectives, and the incentives that compel each group to engage or disengage in negotiation. Understanding these components offers insights to open potential doors to negotiate an acceptable resolution.

Do you find one more or less helpful than the other?” To effectively participate in Solomon’s description of “guanxi,” apply Snow’s strategies to “Interpreting Cross-Cultural Encounters.” Snow’s first strategy, “Be aware of your expectations and feelings.” (Snow 20) In terms of “guanxi,” several Western business and political negotiators and travel to China to negotiate unprepared. They don’t consider the language barrier being as exhausting and frustrating as it is, or that the Chinese behave and react in completely different ways that both cultures will misunderstand and grow defensive adding to the already exhausting and frustrating factors. If foreign negotiators go in to China aware of what to expect and to adjust their feelings towards differences accordingly, then they will get along better with the Chinese and begin to earn their trust moving the negotiating process along. Snow’s second strategy, “Suspending or Delaying Judgement,” (Snow 21) would benefit in “guanxi” by keeping a friendship instead of making rash judgements and insulting the Chinese, losing their friendship, trust and whatever deal that was to be negotiated in the first place. Snow’s third strategy, “Empathy in interpretation,” (Snow 22) is

In this negotiation, we learned that it is important to research your opponent, to understand their culture, not only of their country or backgrounds, but also their company culture. When we are able to understand our opponent’s way of thinking about business and doing business we can then understand how to approach a negotiation situation with them. In this exercise, we learned that it is difficult for us to adjust when it involves breaking or acting in a way opposite of what we are accustomed to. We also learned that although my classmates live in the same country as we do, their upbringings may have similarities to their origin country and will therefore help them to communicate and adjust to that country’s norms and standards. We were surprised how we were able to stay in character although it was hard and it was surprising how people responded when they were unaware of your intentions and strategies. If we had to do this exercise again, what we can do is do more research on our opponents so that we would have an idea of what to expect in the negotiation table.

The Chinese team, on the other hand, consists of only females and has a gender more relationship-oriented. Collectivism, like the Chinese team will form a cohesive group and the person holding a supervisory role will make the decisions. Members of this team will look for approval from the leaders of the team. Also the difference in gender in the two teams will focus on the concept that men will see a beginning to the negotiation process and an end. They see the relationships as separate from the negotiation. The Americans will focus on the goal with a strong point of view, and the Chinese will seem take more time because the Chinese will work more on their relationships. The need to go through the powers of authority to make a decision will delay any decisions. Gender differences also play a part in low or high-power distance of a party. In the American party the decision would be spread throughout the organization with respect given to all. In this respect also comes the confidence to question decision makers in this a lower-power distance. In the Chinese world, high-power distance is more the case with the decisions made only at the top, and the finalization given by the leader. For every decision, approval from the superior delays negotiations farther.

As Nisbett explained, Western Cultures practice erabi, whereas eastern cultures practice awase. Erabi focuses on arguing or defending a point and using that point to achieve the goal that you have in mind for the negotiation. People disagree about something and then spend great amounts of time and money proving

They too can affect the success of an international negotiation, but culture is the most predominant of the factors.

Outside the primary cities, companies can take advantage of Chinese-style negotiation skills, even as a novice in China. Negotiation is a constant for global companies in China, when acquiring new business, managing existing companies’ ventures, or dealing with the fluctuating business environment. The ability to negotiate in Chinese, creates a competitive advantage.

The most recent studies in cross-cultural management reveal that the culture is a very expansive subject for organizations to study, especially for organizations, which hire the most diverse workforce. One definition of a diverse workforce could be as the one, which comes from different ethnic and demographic backgrounds (Plessis, 2011). For studying culture of the diverse workforce, there are two parts to study, the implicit and the explicit culture. The explicit culture includes behavior while the implicit part involves norms and values of individuals (Guang & Trotter, 2012). The explicit culture is already known when workers stay and work in a firm for a length of time, but the most difficult is to understand the implicit culture which is obscured in form of norms and values of the workers. Due to the differences of cultures, workers hold a great potential of variance, variety in terms of their explicit and implicit parts of the culture. The

In all honesty, the negotiation need to be imbedded in the company social operating mechanisms, which, transact through the company as well as, the individual decisions have to be recognized. According to Charan (2013) conquer of a culture decision begins with dialogue, innovation, viewpoints, equipped for action, and being passionate about the decision. Furthermore, you have to be ready to execute your decision, move with tenacity, review the situations, and have an honesty dialogue, which, incorporate