2.1.1 Impact of Time View Difference on Negotiation.
The time view which affects the negotiator’s behavior varies from east countries to west countries. The oriental or the Chinese negotiators are usually cautious and patient. They need to go through the phrases of coming up with proposes, bringing up objections and ending the trade which takes a longer time. And they hope to arrange rich time to go on a negotiation, thus knowing more about the opponent .They are good at long and continuous battle. While west people or we could say American people, consider time is precious. They tend to resolve problems swiftly. So, in business negotiation, American businessmen often complain about the delay and the lack of efficiency of negotiators from other countries, while these countries also make a complaint that the Americans lack patience. There is a popular saying among American negotiators and businessmen: It is prohibited to steal time. That shows the time view of Americans. To them, time means money. The time view of Chinese is cyclic. They use long-term and systematic viewpoints to value the importance of the topic. A famous people classify the time view into two kinds: straight-line time viewand cyclic time view. The former pay more attention to concentration and speed, and the later stress doing many things at one time. That they insist on different time view leads to different negotiating style and method. The American people represent the straight-line time view and they have a strong awareness of modern competition. They look for speed and efficiency. So they value time badly and consider time as a special commodity whose value could be assessed. They often use minute to calculate time .They hope to reduce negotiation time at every phrase and want to complete the negotiation quickly. But the Chinese time view is cyclic and they place emphasis on unity.
Moreover, it is necessary to be punctual at negotiations. West people have a strong time view, if you don’t comply with the appointment time, they may give you a punishment and they will regard you as unreliable and irresponsible person. Being late for negotiation will give the west businessmen opportunities to exert pressure onyou, and then you will lose the status of being initiative.
2.1.2 Impact of Equality View Difference on Negotiation
America went through the bourgeoisie revolution of striving for the equality and freedom, so they take equality into their heart. Americans stick to equality and fairness in business, and hope that both could gain benefit. When introducing the topic or situation, the west people would like to use concrete method, particularly data.
Their negotiating method is that they will describe their viewpoint and propose at the beginning in order to get initiative. Under this principle, they would come up with a reasonable resolution which they think is very fair. In business relationship, the sellers from America regard the buyer as a counterpart. Americans are fairer than Japanese is sharing benefits. A lot of American managers think fair division of profits is more important than how much they could get. At this point, the east people are different. Because of the deeply influence of class view, they don’t pay much attention to equality. They usually adopt single-win strategy in business negotiations. When involving economic benefits they think much about their own benefits and profits and don’t give so much attention to the benefit of their partners. The market economic system of developed countries is quite mature, so west countries take win-win strategy more in negotiation; basically, they could take the benefits of both into consideration.
2.1.3 Impact of Objectivity Difference on Negotiation
The objectivity in international business negotiation reflects the degree to which people treat any things. West people especially Americans have a strong objectivity on the understanding of issues. At negotiation table, Americans don’t care much about relationship between people. They don’t care if the status of the opponent is equal to theirs. They make decision based on facts and data, not people. The saying that public things use public ways is a reflection of American objectivity. Therefore，Americans emphasize that Businessmen should distinguish people and issues, what they are really interested in is the actual problems. But in the other parts of the world, it is impossible for them to distinguish people and issues
2.2 Impact of Negotiating Style Differences on International Business Negotiations
The impacts of negotiating style differences on international business negotiation mainly exist in negotiating method and negotiating structure. Take the negotiation between America and China as a example, since the oriental care more about unity in thinking, they method they adopt in negotiation is from unity to parts, from the big to little, from the abstract to the concrete, that is to say they should each agreement on general terms, then begin to talk about the concrete terms. And usually not until the end of the negotiation do they make compromise and promise based on all the items, and then to reach agreement. The west people are influenced by analytic thinking, so pay more attention to logical relations between things. They consider more about concrete things than integrity. And they tend discuss the concrete items at the beginning of negotiation, so they often resolve the price, delivery and issuance respectively at first. And they may make compromise at every detail, so the final contract is the combination of many little agreements. The negotiating structure is linked with cultures. Negotiating structure mostly refers to the number of the participants. In business negotiation, the foreign delegation is usually composed by 3-5 people, while the Chinese one could be more 15 people. The foreign negotiators not only need to negotiate with their counterparts but also need to discuss with related person in charge or the government. When making the final decisions, the Chinese negotiators often discuss the results repeatedly from the workers to the board to avoid being decided by a single person. That results from the influence of collectivism. So they often said to their partners: Let us think about it. Let us discuss it. But the west negotiators could make the final decision without going back for discussion. That because their admire individualism and hard working. They have strong independence. They would carry on according to the best ways after knowing their goals. What’s more, most west people think that they have the ability to deal with the negotiation situation on their own. And truly, they are brave enough to take responsibility.
2.3 Communication Process
In the international business negotiation, communication process is very important, and it contains two parts, verbal communication and nonverbal communication
2.3.1 Verbal Communication
Verbal communication mainly refers to language communication. Language is important to international business negotiation, because it is how we reach out to make contract with others. We all agree that language play an important role in communication with people from different backgrounds. However, we may be less aware that cultural literacy is necessary in order to understand the language. If we select language without being aware of the cultural implications, we may not communicate well and even send the wrong message. Therefore, during the international business negotiation process, a good interpreter can help overcome the cultural barriers.
2.3.2 Nonverbal Communication
Simply, nonverbal communication refers to communication without the use of words. Even if you know the language, cultures differ in the use of nonverbal communication. Cultural differences may cause negotiators to play differently on facial expressions, gestures, and the other kinds of body language.
Researchers have shown that the words a person speaks may be far less important than the body language used when delivering the verbal message, and they estimate that less than 30% of communication between two individuals within the same culture is verbal in nature. Over 70% of communication takes place nonverbally. Some other scholars even say that 90% of the information is actually transmitted through nonverbal means. We are not sure of that. But one thing we are sure is that in face-to-face communication nonverbal signals are just as important as verbal message.
Take head movement for example, generally speaking, in most cultures nodding one’s head is seen as agreement while shaking one’s head is seen as rejection. But, in Bulgaria, for instance, people may nod their heads to signify no and shake their heads to signify yes. A lowered head in the western culture can signify defeat or uncertainty. In Asian cultures lowering one’s head may mean acceptance
2.4 international Thinking and Analytic Thinking
Easterners lay stress on harmony and entirety, while westerners on analysis and part. In other words, easterners view things from whole to part, while westerners from part to whole. Chinese people have been accustomed to dividing one issue into two opposite parts that are considered as interactive and interdependent; they hold the view that human and nature are an indivisible unity. With regard to the relationship among people, they appeal to collectivism and trust their own intuition. For thousands of years, this kind of thinking pattern has occupied a dominant position in China and becomes the core of cognition and communication. Therefore, Chinese people are used to making a comprehensive survey of the overall situation first, and then thinking over details. They depend on intuition and are imbued with imagination. People call this “round thinking mode” (Jia Yuxin, 1997).
Western thinking pattern is noted for logic, analysis, and linearity. By adopting the method of bisection, westerners consider subject and object, material and spirit diametrically opposed, i.e., things just have two possibilities, either this or that, when thinking, westerners usually start from parts, and then think about the whole situation, which is called “linear thinking mode”(Jia Yuxin, 1997,p.100).
2.4.1 Concrete Thinking and Abstract Thinking
Basically, people in any country have concrete thinking pattern and abstract thinking pattern. However, due to the difference in history and culture, each nation has its emphasis on either of them. On the whole, traditional Chinese culture is known for concrete thinking while western culture for abstract thinking. Based on experience, concrete thinking depends on analogy, metaphor and symbol. Ancient westerners adopted abstract thinking to deal with problems by means of concept, judgment, and reasoning.
2.5 Negotiation Structure
Cultural differences also impact on negotiation structure. Different countries have different negotiation structure, so do the team. The team in eastern countries feel that time is abundant and humans should not follow the timetable blindly. For example, Chinese people are famous for the length of their negotiations; they spend much time in the non-task sounding stage of negotiation to establish rapport and get to know their partners. Chinese people usually discuss many issues at one time, without an apparent order, they may skip from one issue to another and they may also come back to points which in the eyes of their Western partners have already been settled and concessions are made or all issues at the end of the discussion.
However, the team in western countries regard time as money and would like to set fixed agendas. Western countries are emblematic of the “time is money” culture, where time is a scarce resource. People would try to achieve its optimal allocation between the competing ways of using it. They establish timetables and deadlines. Norms tend to be strict regarding time schedules. When a discussion with someone lasts longer than planned, they will politely stop the conversation, in order to keep their schedule.
2.6 Negotiation Style
Negotiation practices differ from one culture to another and cultural difference can impact on “negotiation style” --- the way people from different cultures conduct themselves. Here, we divide negotiation style into the eastern negotiation style and the western one. China and Japan are the typical countries of the East, while America the West.
Chinese culture is a high–context culture. In a high-context culture, the emphasis on communication is indirectness and ambiguity. Most of the information is in the context while little is in the explicit part of the message. The external environment, situation and non-verbal behavior are crucial in understanding communications. People depend heavily upon covert clues to interpret a message given under a certain context. And also, Chinese negotiators also look forward to long-term partnership. They are not in a hurry to push for an agreement. Generally, there is a slow start to “warm up”, and then it is followed by some tentative suggestions.
In the international business negotiation, saving face and achieving harmony are more important factors than achieving higher sales and profits for Japanese. As far as the Japanese negotiators are concerned, they try to build up a long-term relationship in the course of negotiation. Therefore, they prefer personal contacts in an informal way. For them, trust is more important than agreements. The reason why there is a low ratio of success between American and Japanese negotiators lies mainly in this point. Besides, Japanese negotiators try their best to avoid an open conflict between both parties. Consequently, they often ask a third party to function as go-betweens. In this way, they can prevent an unpleasant feeling from coming up on both sides
The impression Americans leave us on the negotiating table is flexibility, straightness and zest. They never express themselves with vague words. They say “Yes” or “No” directly. Consequently, during a negotiation they like people speaking without reservation. When any conflict appears in a negotiation, Americans aim to solve the problem and never mind if you have adequate proof and dispute with them. Meanwhile, if you want to ease up the atmosphere and respond with a smile, it will be reckoned as insincere and as if you are in the wrong way. In addition, Americans respect human rights, and they can not tolerate throwing stones at a certain person behind him. American negotiators often act in an impersonal way ---“business is business” is their view, American negotiators are always mission-driven---anxious to bring parties concerned into agreement, and they have little interest in building up any relationship. Furthermore, American negotiators like to be openly challenged for the negotiation, and they think it is quite normal if they run into any conflict with any party concerned.