INTRODUCTION
As the process of the globalization keeps going forward and the era of information
has already brought significant influences to our life, the world is becoming, not from
a geographical perspective, smaller and the international communication becomes
more frequent. Such cross-cultural contact becomes stronger both in depth and
width and leads to the desire and demands for communicating with each other
among the individuals from different regions, societies and cultures. The
business-oriented communication is the most common one among the varied of
international communications. In business, a kind of communication, which is called
business negotiation, is inevitably required to proceed on the business and then
reach to an agreement. Owning to the globalization, the cross-cultural business
negotiation is highlighted with an unprecedented level. The cross-cultural business
negotiation is not only an economic activity but also a kind of cultural exchange
among different nations and therefore many cultural factors should be considered in
the international business negotiation. The cross-culture communication is
undoubtedly crucial while there are still many problems and conflicts occur in the
business and negotiation. In order to solve these cultural problems and achieve a
successful business negotiation, the concept of Cross-Cultural Training is raised by
some scientists as the key solution. The Cross-Cultural Training is defined as formal
efforts to prepare people for more effective interpersonal relations and for job
success when they interact extensively with individuals from cultures other than
their own (Brislin & Yoshida, 1993). The essay will give a brief definition of
cross-culture communication and the cultural factors influencing the business
negotiation first. Secondly, examples of the cultural conflicts will be showed to
illustrate how does the culture makes influences on the business. Thirdly,
Cross-Cultural Training will be discussed as the main part of the essay.
HOW DOES CULTURE INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS NEGOTIATION AND THE CULTURAL
CONFLICT EXISTING IN THE BUSINESS
A bottom-up sequence of the elements in the business negotiation is made by
Vincent Guy and John Mattock in which the cultural background is stay at the bottom
of all the other elements which are the characteristic of the company, personal
character, skills, occasion and the way of the negotiation. The important position of
the cultural factors in a business negotiation leads to a series of influences that
cultural factors will bring to the business negotiation. There are ten areas of the
cultural influences in the business negotiation stated by (LIU fengxia, 2005).:
(1) Negotiation goal – contract or relationship? American treats the contract as the
goal of a business negotiation while Asian tends to establish relationship.
(2) Negotiation attitude – win-lose or win-win game? Asian is always apt to the
latter.
(3) Personal style – causal or formal? According to the investigation, 83% American
prefer the causal style while 54% Chinese, 52% Spanish and 58% Mexican want to
be formal in the business negotiation
(4) Communication – directly or being ambiguous? It is found that German and
American like coming straight to the point while the French and Japanese like
beating about the bush.
(5) Sensitivity to time – whether be punctual or not? Compared with Latin, German
is always punctual.
(6) Emotionalism – high or low? Latino and Spanish seem to be more enthusiastic
than British and German.
(7) Form of agreement – specific or general? For the most part, American prefer the
specific contract since the serious contract is the goal of their negotiation while
the Chinese is more likely to reach to an agreement which depends on the
relationship between two sides.
(8) Building an agreement – bottom-up or up-bottom? For the French, they would
like to make a framework of the contract and then reach to the agreement step
by step. For the American, it must be a process with compromise and giving in.
(9) Team organization – making decision by the leader or group work? Some culture
choose the leader to make a final decision like American and only 45% Japanese
like making decision by group work.
(10) Risk taking – high or low? Most of the American reckons that they would like to
take risk in business negotiation while Japanese seldom show their wish of taking
risk.
The above illustrates the elements on which the cultural factors will bring influences
and such influences are able to result in many cultural conflicts. A company of Brazil
is late in the negotiation with a company of US and the company of US keeps
pointing out the fault of the company of Brazil, which makes the company of Brazil
feel shameful and therefore sign on the contract soon out of guilt. After that, it is
found by the company of Brazil that there are many unfavorable terms in the
contract and they have no choice but receiving. It seems that the company of US
takes use of a strategy but it is, in fact, a problem caused by the difference of the
culture since the American pay more attention to the time than that of the Brazilian
and the American takes the chance to achieve what is most important in a business
negotiation --- profit.
CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING IS A KEY FACTORSFOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
NEGOTIATION
As is showed in the example above, cultural conflicts will result in an unsuccessful
business negotiation and some studies have found that the business negotiation
between different cultures often fail because of problems related to cross-cultural
differences (J. Stewart Black and Mark Mendenhall, 1989). Such conflicts are
probably led by cultural shock which is to describe the problems met by people who
go from one culture to another (Dharm P. S. Bhawuk &Richard W. Brislin, 2000).
Culture shock offered practitioners with a legitimate reason to provide cross-cultural
training since it would result in the avoidance, if not elimination, of culture shock
(Dharm P. S. Bhawuk &Richard W. Brislin, 2000) and therefore improve the
performance of the expatriates in business activity and negotiation. As Black and
Mendenhall (1990) state, cross-cultural training designed for expatriation is helpful
for expatriates to develop performance or learn appropriate behaviors to achieve
better adjustment in foreign countries through observing and experiencing different
cultures directly or indirectly (Hyoung Koo Moon, Byoung Kwon Choi, Jae Shik
Jung,2012). If expatriates experience cross-cultural training, they will be easily
available for information or knowledge on how to communicate and interact with
people and on what the socially acceptable behaviors are in the host country (Black
et al.,1991; Deshpande & Viswesvaran, 1992). Therefore, expatriates can improve
their cognitive and interpersonal skills on how to deal with cross-cultural business
and negotiation (Littrell, L.N., E. Salas, K.P. Hess, M. Paley, and S. Riedel,2006). Taking
the Cross-cultural Training before cultural interaction helps to relief the severity and
duration of culture shock. An appropriately designed CCT programme can improve
the businesspeople of his adaption to the new cultural situation (Jie Shen* and Brant
Lang, 2009). In 1983, Brislin et al. raised the several cross-cultural training
methodologies which then become popular: (1) fact-oriented training which is the
most basis type of Cross-Cultural Training in which based the trainees will be
available to various facts or information about the culture of the host country (J.
Stewart Black and Mark Mendenhall,1989); (2) attribution training, communicate
with the culture assimilator to enable trainees to internalize values and standard of
behavior of the host culture; (3) cultural awareness training, is to provide the
expatriate deep understanding about the concept of culture and cultural differences
through teaching awareness about the home culture (Christian Hånberg, Gabriel
Österdahl, 2009); (4) cognitive-behavior modification, to make trainees know about
what activity is rewarding or punishing and thus they can focus on the rewarding one
and deal with the challenge better (Christian Hånberg, Gabriel Österdahl, 2009); (5)
experiential learning, to personally be a participant and learn about a specific host
culture; and (6) interaction learning, is designed for trainees to feel more
comfortable with host nationals and to understand life in the host country in details
(Doris M. Eschbach, Gerald E. Parker and Philipp A. Stoeberl, 2001).
Evaluation
By taking Cross-Cultural Training, the businesspeople can improve their adjustment
to a new cultural environment and thus they are able to not get cultural problems
when they are involved in a cross-cultural business negotiation. People who receive
the Pre-Cross-Cultural Training will do better in identifying the cultural elements of
the host country such as the concept of time, values, characteristic of language and
taboo, which can lead to a successful business negotiation without any
misunderstanding and confusion.
Nevertheless, there are many companies being blind to the effect of the
Cross-Cultural Training because it needs money to be invested on and such
investment will not be profitable in a short-term period of time. According to the
research conducted by Doris M. Eschbach, Gerald E. Parker and Philipp A. Stoeberl
(2001), the cost of failed intercultural business negotiation have been estimated up
to $500,000 and the results of the study demonstrated that comprehensive
cross-cultural training does reduce the time necessary to achieve sound adjustment
and to achieve cultural proficiency and reduces the time necessary to become
effective and productive in the business negotiation (Doris M. Eschbach, Gerald E.
Parker and Philipp A. Stoeberl, 2001). As the Cross-Cultural Training is prove to be a
effective way for the businesspeople to get better performance in international
business negotiation, more and more companies should focus on the investigation
and investment on the Cross-Cultural Training.
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