Chapter 10 International
Negotiation
Managing Organizations in a Global
Economy: An Intercultural Perspective
First Edition
John Saee
Copyright  by South-Western, a division of Thomson Learning. All rights reserved.
Negotiation Defined
Negotiation is the process in which at
least two partners with different needs
and viewpoints need to reach an
agreement on matters of mutual
interest.
A negotiation becomes cross-cultural
when the parties involved belong to
different cultures and therefore do not
share the same ways of thinking,
feeling, and behaving.
International Negotiation
All global negotiations are crosscultural.
Global managers spend more than
50% of their time negotiating.
Negotiation is not always the best
approach to doing business.
Managers should negotiate when the
value of the exchange and of the
relationship is important.
Consider negotiating when:
Your power position is low relative to
your counterparts.
The trust level is high.
The available time is sufficient to
explore each party's multiple needs,
resources, and options.
There is commitment to ensure that
the agreement is carried out.
Research has shown that each of the
three areas on which the success of a
negotiation is based - individual
characteristics, situational
contingencies, and strategic and
tactical processes - vary considerably
across cultures.
What role do individual qualities
play?
The most important individual
characteristics are:
Good listening skills.
An orientation toward people.
A willingness to use team assistance.
High self-esteem.
High aspirations.
An attractive personality, along with
credibility and influence within the
home organization.
Negotiation Contingencies:
Characteristics of the Situation
Situational contingencies influence
success just as individual
characteristics do, but they are rarely
as critical to success as the strategy
and tactics used.
Negotiation Contingencies:
Characteristics of the Situation
Location
Physical Arrangements
Participants
Time Limits
Status Differences
Negotiation Process
Process is the single most important
factor predicting the success or failure
of a negotiation.
An effective process includes
managing the negotiation's overall
strategy or approach, its stages, and
the specific tactics used.
Negotiation Strategy
Culturally synergistic approach
(Fisher & Ury):
 Separating the people from the problem.
 Focusing on interests, not on positions.
 Insisting on objective criteria (and never
yielding to pressure).
 Inventing options for mutual gain.
Negotiation Strategy
As with other aspects of negotiating,
process varies markedly across
cultures.
Stages of a Negotiation:
Preparation and Planning
Analyze the situation in terms of your
and the counterparts' needs, goals, and
underlying cultural values.
Determine the limits to your authority,
assess power positions and
relationships.
Stages of a Negotiation:
Preparation and Planning
 Establish overall and alternative
concession strategies.
 Make team assignments.
 Determine the best alternative to the
negotiated solution.
Stages of a Negotiation:
Preparation and Planning
Identify facts to be confirmed.
 Set an agenda.
What do skilled negotiators do?
 Explore options.
 Establish common ground.
 Focus on long-term issues.
 Set range objectives for more
bargaining flexibility.
 Use issue planning.
Interpersonal Relationship
Building
During relationship building, parties
develop respect and trust for members
of the other team.
In every negotiation, there is the
relationship (you and them) and the
substance (what you and they want).
Many areas of the world have
neither strong nor consistently
dependable legal systems to
enforce contracts. Enforcement
mechanisms are personal.
Exchanging Task–Related
Information
The substance of a negotiation is
interests.
Negotiators should therefore focus on
presenting their situation and needs,
and on understanding their
counterparts' situation and needs.
In negotiating, cross–cultural
miscommunication,
misperception, misinterpretation,
and misevaluation cause
numerous problems.
Persuading
Emphasize creating mutually
beneficial options.
Recognize each party's interests and
needs and satisfy them and all parties
win.
Identify interests more highly valued
by one party than the other and use
those differences as a resource.
Making Concessions and
Reaching Agreement
Use objective criteria in deciding how
to make concessions and to reach
agreement.
Concessions, large or small, can be
made at any time during a negotiation.
It appears that negotiators who make
early concessions disadvantage
themselves.
Negotiation Tactics
Negotiation includes both verbal and
nonverbal tactics.
Both verbal and nonverbal behavior
can cause problems cross-culturally.
Verbal Tactics
Initial offers, promises, threats,
recommendations, warnings, rewards,
punishments, normative appeals,
commitments, self-disclosure,
questions, and commands.
The British Huthwaite study,
documenting successful negotiators'
behavior, analyzed the verbal behavior
of skilled and average negotiators.
Nonverbal Tactics
Nonverbal behavior includes tone of
voice, facial expressions, body
distance, dress, gestures, timing,
silences, and symbols.
Nonverbal behavior is complex and
multifaceted--it sends multiple
messages, many of which are
responded to subconsciously.
Nonverbal Tactics
Negotiators frequently respond more
emotionally and powerfully to the
nonverbal than the verbal message.
Silence
Conversational Overlaps
Facial Gazing
Touching
Summary
 Negotiating
styles vary across cultures.
In preparing to negotiate globally, learn
as much as possible about the other
cultures and then approach the actual
bargaining sessions with as wide a
range of options and alternatives in
behavior and substance as possible.
Summary
 Effective
negotiators have high
expectations and make high initial
offers (or requests), proceed by asking
a lot of questions, and refrain from
making many commitments until the
final stage of the negotiation.
Summary
The most effective negotiators
approach bargaining sessions
searching for synergistic solutions solutions in which both sides win.