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.).

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.

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.

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.

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

An effective business negotiation is very significant in achieving a successful business relationship. As the businesses expand globally, so do the conflicts between the interacting parties. These conflicts only get amplified if the interacting parties are from different cultural background. An individual 's cultural background plays a big role in his perception, which affects his judgment, motivation and behavior at the bargaining table. The perception of an individual is the manifestation of the deeper held values and beliefs he has grown up with. In short, culture affects the whole negotiating process. A better

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

In this era of modernization business is expanding its horizon to all over the world. To do a successful business at the global level one should also consider the fact of cross cultural negotiation according to the country. Now, what is cross cultural negotiation?Why do we study cross cultural skills? What is its relation with the business deals? How does it affect a business deal? All these questions come to our mind with this. To do business in a different country one should be aware of the people of that country and should also be aware of how they respond to different situations.Otherwise you won’t be able to get success in your business. They behave according to their cultural values and beliefs while doing business. Cultural believes affects their communication nature and the way of observing the business deals. Having a study of your consumer’s culture will give you an edge to crack the deal. It affects a lot of factors like strategy making, advertising, marketing, consumer’s reaction etc. In international negotiation expertise in the business practices is not only required but minding cultural effects is also very important. You should take account of their cultural practices in your mind, understanding and respecting their cultural values is also very important. Many of the managers haven’t kept mind of these facts due to which a lot of business deals did not happen. In this term paper we will be focusing

In the world of business, the importance of developing good international relationship is increasing as technology and competition arises. Today, there is no country that feels self-sufficient enough to not do negotiations with diverse countries across the world. Nevertheless, certain negotiations may experience conflicts while communicating since the agreement is being done by people from different countries. The most common issue that humans experience while communicating with people around the world is the culture since society can sometimes be close minded, meaning that “people see what they want to see(Riccardi, 2014).” As Pellegrino Riccardi expanded the problem with intercultural communication, he stated the real significance in the definition of culture, which is being in the comfort zone of familiarity and acceptance. In addition, according to Benedict Lee(2015) some of the barriers that affect intercultural communications include “anxiety, ethnocentrism, assumptions, stereotype and prejudice.” However, there are ways to conquer intercultural communications such as acquiring “good attitude, being knowledgeable of the other culture, and developing such cultures empathy skills(Lee, 2015).” Communication across cultures will be described by going in deep in the work of Geert Hofstede and examining culture of China and Australia.