negotiations
EGOTIATING: THE TOP TEN WAYS THAT CULTURE CAN AFFECT YOUR NEGOTIATION by Jeswald W. Salacuse
Governance | September / October 2004
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When Enron was still – and only – a pipeline company, it lost a major contract in India because local authorities felt that it was pushing negotiations too fast. In fact, the loss of the contract underlines the important role that cultural differences play in international negotiation. For one country’s negotiators, time is money; for another’s, the slower the negotiations, the better and more trust in the other side. This author’s advice will help negotiators bridge the cultural differences in international negotiation.
International business deals not only cross borders, they also cross cultures. Culture profoundly influences how people think, communicate, and behave. It also affects the kinds of transactions they make and the way they negotiate them. Differences in culture between business executives—for example, between a Chinese public sector plant manager in Shanghai and a Canadian division head of a family company in Toronto– can create barriers that impede or completely stymie the negotiating process.
The great diversity of the world’s cultures makes it impossible for any negotiator, no matter how skilled and experienced, to understand fully all the cultures that may be encountered. How then should an executive prepare to cope with culture in making deals in Singapore this week and Seoul the next? In researching my book The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing, and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), I found that ten particular elements consistently arise to complicate intercultural negotiations. These “top ten” elements of negotiating behaviour constitute a basic framework for
Governance | September / October 2004
Share on emailEmail Share on twitterShare on Twitter Share on facebookPost to Facebook Share on linkedinShare on LinkedIn Share on deliciousSave to Delicious Share on instapaperSave to Instapaper
When Enron was still – and only – a pipeline company, it lost a major contract in India because local authorities felt that it was pushing negotiations too fast. In fact, the loss of the contract underlines the important role that cultural differences play in international negotiation. For one country’s negotiators, time is money; for another’s, the slower the negotiations, the better and more trust in the other side. This author’s advice will help negotiators bridge the cultural differences in international negotiation.
International business deals not only cross borders, they also cross cultures. Culture profoundly influences how people think, communicate, and behave. It also affects the kinds of transactions they make and the way they negotiate them. Differences in culture between business executives—for example, between a Chinese public sector plant manager in Shanghai and a Canadian division head of a family company in Toronto– can create barriers that impede or completely stymie the negotiating process.
The great diversity of the world’s cultures makes it impossible for any negotiator, no matter how skilled and experienced, to understand fully all the cultures that may be encountered. How then should an executive prepare to cope with culture in making deals in Singapore this week and Seoul the next? In researching my book The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing, and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), I found that ten particular elements consistently arise to complicate intercultural negotiations. These “top ten” elements of negotiating behaviour constitute a basic framework for