Intercultural communication in negotiations

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Intercultural communication in negotiations

• Marianne van Vlierden

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When is someone a good intercultural negotiator?

• List 5 characteristics of a good negotiator.
• Can you learn to be a good negotiator or are you
  born one?
• What elements of intercultural communication do
  you need to consider in intercultural
  negotiations?

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Characteristics effective intercultural
negotiators

• Observant
• Patient
• Adaptable
• Good listeners
• Keep their promises
• Negotiate in good faith
• Realise culture influences everything

• Speak in a polite way
• Use humour only when appropriate
• Do their homework on the countries
• Dont critise the others country
• ..?

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• Which characteristics do you think you have that
  would make you a good negotiator?

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Fisher (1980)

• 5 elements in intercultural negotiations
• Players and the situation
• Decision-making styles
• National character
• Culture noise
• Interpreters and translators

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What affects the outcome of intercultural
negotiations?

• Policy (concept, negotiators, role, protocol,
  significance)
• Interaction (language,persuasive,time)
• Deliberation (trust,risk-taking,internal
  decision-making systems)
• Outcome (form of agreement)
• (Moran and Stripp)

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Protocol

• 3 classifications
• Tribal
• Collective
• Pluralist

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Persons responsibility

• Tribal
• Support family and follow rules of society
• Collective
• Group contribution, honour, conformity
• Pluralist
• Personal growth, achievement, independence

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Interaction with strangers

• Tribal
• With strangers, aloof formal with friends
  warm, welcoming, trusting
• Collective
• Does not stand out, friendly yet noncommittal to
  strangers
• Pluralist
• Informal, direct communication

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Life objective

• Tribal
• Respect of group, contribute to family
• Collective
• Succeed at work, to get opponent to concede
  something
• Pluralist
• Success beyond goals

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Business environment

• Tribal
• strong vertical hierarchy, leaders inaccessible
• Collective
• Shared power, no one stands out, open offices
• Pluralist
• Layered hierarchy, private spaces, best offices
  for top management

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Conducts business

• Tribal
• Must control, manipulative, correspondence
  limited
• Collective
• Divided responsibilities, strategy and ritual are
  important
• Pluralist direct, formality with strangers,
  correspondence to may

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Feedback

• Tribal
• Avoids details, not accountable, subjective
• Collective
• within the group consensus a must, nothing
  negative
• Pluralist
• direct, specific, objective, impersonal

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Decision-making

• Tribal
• Decisions at the top, pride, emotion
• Collective
• Consensus, final decisions from the top
• Pluralist
• Independent, rational process, middle management
  approval

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Problem solving

• Tribal
• Blame assessment more important
• Collective
• Problems are evaded someone loses face
  conflict, no problem admitted
• Pluralist
• Addressed quickly, rationally analysis after the
  fact (Chaney Martin,2004)

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Intercultural negotiation models

• Sociopsychological model
• Principles model
• Directional model
• Interaction model
• Package deal model

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How important are the following things in
intercultural negotiations and why?

• Location of meeting
• Time of meeting
• Duration of meeting
• Number and status of negotiators
• Gender of negotiators
• Social talk before the meeting

• Making notes during the meeting
• Making a report of the meeting
• Negotiating over dinner
• Talking about details
• Reaching agreement very quickly

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Cultural background

• Understanding cultural background is vital to
  successful international business communication.
• Basic cultural orientation centres around the
  following items
• Beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviour and norms
  (ethnocentrism)

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Beliefs

• Assumptions about the world and how it works
• Values
• Assumptions about right and wrong, preferability

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Attitudes

• Expressions of values, influences on thought and
  action
• Behaviour
• Human action
• Norms
• Expected or typical behaviour

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Ethnocentrism

• An egocentric view is I centered.
• An ethnocentric view is we centered. It is
  based on the social group. You judge all other
  groups according to your own standards,
  behaviours and customs and you see differences as
  inferior.
• Ethnocentrism causes stereotyping and prejudice.

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Recognizing cultural differences

• The obvious differences
• Age
• Language
• Gender
• Physical ability
• Family status
• Educational background

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Less obvious cultural differences

• Social values
• Roles and status
• Decision-making customs
• Concepts of time
• Concepts of personal space
• Body language
• Social behaviour and manners

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• Legal and ethical behaviour
• Corporate cultural differences

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Guidelines for good intercultural communication
skills

• Assume differences until similarity is proven
• Take responsibility for communication
• Withhold judgment
• Show respect
• Empathize
• Tolerate ambiguity
• Look beyond the superficial
• Be patient and persistent

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More guidelines

• Recognize your own cultural bias
• Be flexible
• Emphasise common ground
• Increase your cultural sensitivity
• Send clear messages
• Deal with the individual
• Learn when to be direct
• Treat your interpretation as a hypothesis

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Negotiating across cultures

• Personal relationship
• Tolerance for open disagreement
• Different problem-solving techniques

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How to communicate successfully in international
business

• Realize and become aware of your own
  communication behaviour
• Always be open to new information
• Realize there is more than 1 perspective
• Forget about stereotypes and defined categories

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When there is a conflict in intercultural
communication

• In intercultural conflicts the following can be
  of influence
• Thinking patterns
• Language barriers
• Cultural context

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1. Thinking patterns (Kaplan,1970)

• English speakers linear in language (inductive,
  deductive reasoning)
• There is one central idea and all the other ideas
  are related to this central idea. To prove
  something, the relationship between these ideas
  is explained.

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Thinking pattern

• Romance language speakers
• Although similar to the English they allow
  greater freedom for digression or introduction of
  other material into the conversation. The pattern
  shows that the Romance speakers are more
  inner-oriented and rely more on feelings and
  expectations in their behaviour and judgment.

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Pribim (1949) thinking patterns

• In the Western world
• Universalistic
• Nominalistic or hypothetical
• Intuitional or organismic
• dialectal

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1.1 Universalistic

• Dominated by the principle of identity of
  thinking and being.
• Hierarchical system of rigid concepts
• Can be directly proved by human mind
• French, Mediterraneans, Latin America

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1.2. Nominalistic/hypothetical

• Puts emphasis on induction and empiricism.
  Thinking is dominated by hypothetical concepts.
• Knowledge based on our sense perceptions and
  freely formed conceptions
• Anglo-Saxon countries

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1.3. Intuitional/organismic

• Mixture of universalistic and nominalistic.
• It denies the existence of innate ideas but
  assumes that, with the assistance of the insight
  of the human mind, we are able to attribute
  knowledge to the general truth.
• Intuition and unity of the whole
• Germany, Slavic Central European countries

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1.4. Dialectical

• Denies the principle of the existence of innate
  ideas. It assumes the mind can fully understand
  the universe and discover the general truth.
• Explanations follow the evolutionary process of
  thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
• Sub Sahara Africa

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2. Language Barriers

• 3 Major barriers in intercultural communication
• Verbal communication styles
• Variant meanings
• Indirect verbal language

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2.1. Verbal communication styles

• Direct verbal messages used to show our
  intentions in the process of conversations.
• Indirect used to conceal or camouflage our true
  intentions.
• (low context lt-gt high context cultures)

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2.2. Variant meanings

• Situational context is not emphasized
• Important information usually occurs in explicit
  verbal messages
• Self-expression, verbal fluency and eloquent
  speech are valued
• Opinions and intentions used to persuade others
  are expressed directly.

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2.3. Indirect verbal messages

• Explicit verbal messages are not emphasized
• Important information is usually carried in
  contextual clues (place, time, situation,
  relationship)
• Harmony is highly valued, using ambiguous
  language and keeping silent
• People talk around the point, avoid saying no.

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3. Cultural context

• Determinants of conflict
• Face
• Interrelation
• Favour
• Seniority
• Status

• Power
• Credibility
• Interest
• Severity of conflict
• Gender