Negotiating for Your Employer “Culture” can be defined as the beliefs, customs, behaviors, traditions, skills, etc., of a group or of a people. Though culture may be transmitted from generation to generation, it is often dynamic and changing.”(Toma, p.3) The bigger the company, the more diverse it may become. As companies grow, the various cultural within the company grows amongst the employees. This opportunity will enrich the atmosphere at work, as well as, bring about cultural conflict. The differences among cultures sometimes result in stereotyping, boundaries over stepped, ignorance, unethical behavior, and many times a division within the company. The employer must ensure that the differences between the employees to not …show more content…
This type of conflict can be good and bad. As long as it is resolved properly, it can be a rewarding experience for the company. When cultural becomes a complication in the workplace, the best negotiation strategy is for the people within the company to collaborate. Everyone must take the time to recognize that we are all different and that we all have different perspectives. By collaborating everyone gives up something to come to a common ground. Realizing that different countries negotiate various ways will be beneficial to all companies. In most most culture, there will always be a collaborator, an accommodator, a competitor, a avoider and a compromiser. The tradition in China is reading the Art of War and following it as a negotiation tool throughout life. China prefers to handle negotiations during lunch
In Indonesia, negotiation take longer. It is common for the negotiator to agree to avoid conflict with the opposing party. Dealing with two different tactics that are very different can be quite frustrating. However, becoming aware of how certain countries respond or react will make business transactions run smoother. These two countries negotiate differently. However, it does not make one cultural superior to the next. Knowing this information about the culture ahead of time brings incite on who needs to sit in on what meetings. It also says who needs to be the negotiator depending on the situation and
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.
2. Using the cross-cultural criteria defined in class, list the expected discrepancies in the behavior of the Korean and US negotiators.
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.
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.
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
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.).
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
Culture is defined as the learned and socialized attributes of a given groups of people (Polan & Taylor, 2015, p.19). Often, cultures embody a vast range of elements, including dance and cuisine, language and dialect, values, perceptions, and attitudes, and taboo and accepted behaviors-relative to that group. It is critical to note that culture is acquired and compounded cumulatively over time. Furthermore, it is continually re-invented when exposed to given stressors and variables in the surrounding environment (Polan & Taylor, 2015, p.19). Culture, while often correlated to ethnicity, nationality, or religious groups, may also pervade an organizational domain.
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
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.
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.
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.
Major differences between both American and Chinese cultures presented themselves throughout the negotiation process and greatly contributed to the failure of reaching an agreement. The main differences causing
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.