Business Negotiation: An International Perspective

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Introduction

International Business Negotiation is a process through which parties shift their initial contradictory positions to a point where agreement reaches.

International Business Negotiation is fully a part of the managerial process and helps the business to implement their strategies and plans. International business negotiation involves all international business transaction and it also helps in developing agreements between two or more parties or groups in order to provide direction and set of laws for their future behaviour. Negotiation also helps in finding the solution for common problems.

In negotiation, parties can quit the process at anytime and in negotiation both the parties modify their views and thoughts in order to come close to each other. Negotiation is also know 'integrative bargaining' which is win-win negotiation where parties comes out with good outcomes and attracts more investors to invest and negotiation have different culture backgrounds because of many countries.

The process of negotiation is always influenced by contextual factors and when negotiation is discussed, it is presented as culture issue.

Pervez N. Ghauri and Jean Claude Usinier,1999 International Business Negotiation 2^nd Edition, Elsevier Ltd

Critical Evaluation:

(ref: Russell . B . Sunshine (1990). Negotiation for International Development. Martines Nijhoff Publishers)

Impact of culture on Negotiation

CULTURE VALUES

Basic Beliefs                                    Norms                                             Customs

Culture has the negative impact on the negotiation from both the sides i.e. sender of the negotiation message and receiver of the negotiation message.

In business negotiation many people are from different cultural backgrounds, so sometimes they do not share their views, which affect the negotiation. So during the negotiation process there are many cultural misunderstandings, different results and also the lack of trust between the parties.

Culture affects the negotiation because of the distance between the partners and also the difference in the economical and educational system. Culture helps in shaping the basic beliefs, norms and customs give rise to many economic and political barriers in the negotiation process.

Negotiation is the outcome of many actions and these actions are affected by the culture because it creates problems in decision-making, in setting goals, and implementing of strategies at the time of negotiation producer.

E.g. America and Japan contributes about 40% of Development Assistance Countries. But negotiation between America and Japan is not effective because of many cultural differences. Culture of America and Japan are totally different in principles, norms and negotiating behavior. So there culture has a deep collision on the negotiation process.

CONCLUSION

Negotiation takes place between two countries or two different cultures. So effective negotiation can be carried out by following ways.

• Should be responsive to own culture before making surveillance of cross-culture.
• Study and gather the information about the negotiating technique and cultural surroundings of the opposite party's.
• At the time of negotiation, both the parties should decide the subject and after deciding the subject parties should put their own culture's into practice and should wait for each other's response.
• Both the parties should identify those responses which are similar in order to avoid conflicts.
• Should present the negotiation process in such a way which engages the cultural preferences of both the parties.
• Both the parties should check their cultural assumptions and should pay attention to each other's objectives carefully.
• Parties should modify their negotiating behavior in order to avoid communication conflicts.
• Both the parties should show respect and courtesy for their own culture, so that the interaction will be carried out successfully.
• Parties should be more flexible in order to make their attitude respectful.