Keywords: cultural background; Cultural barriers; values
With the advent of the "information age", the economic development of all countries in the world is becoming more and more interrelated and interdependent, and the cultures of all countries and nationalities are also blending with each other, further promoting cross-cultural exchanges around the world.
First, cultural barriers in cross-cultural business negotiations
With the increase of international trade and the deepening of economic globalization, business activities between people from different cultural backgrounds have become increasingly frequent, so cultural barriers in cross-cultural negotiations have gradually attracted people's extensive attention. The following cases reflect the cultural barriers in cross-cultural business negotiations from many aspects. ?
Convo is a Canadian company that produces printing equipment. The company sent two business representatives to a small town in the north of Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, China to negotiate with a printing equipment company. Charlie Burton, president of the company, is traveling with Phoebe Raines, marketing director. The company has never sold equipment outside Canada before, and they are very satisfied with the warm hospitality of the Chinese side. Manager Li personally picked up the plane at Shanghai airport, then drove 90 kilometers to this town and arranged for them to stay in a newly-built hotel. A few hours later, the host gave a banquet to entertain them, and important government officials attended the banquet. This red carpet reception makes them very optimistic about the sales prospects.
The next morning was sightseeing. They were eager to start negotiations, but they had a rest after lunch. In the afternoon, employees of an English company came to tell them that they would be arranged to see a song and dance performance in the evening. On the third day, I can finally sit down and negotiate, and the process is very slow. First of all, the two sides briefly introduce themselves. Canada believes that this has nothing to do with sales. The Chinese side provides translation. Although the friendliness of translation makes Canada feel comfortable, the translation link makes communication slow. The Chinese side also spent a lot of time talking about the Canadian trade representative who had been to the small town before and asked him. Burton has never met a trade representative, so he has nothing to say. When it was Canadian's turn to speak, they were surprised to find ten representatives of China sitting across the table. The representative of China always smiled and nodded in agreement. Burton and reinas have prepared enough data to prove that their company's output will double in five years. The last two returned to the hotel with confidence. ?
The next day, the representative of China added four more people and asked them to explain the statement again. They began to feel depressed. China asked them to explain the technical details. The two Canadian representatives did not participate in this high-tech technical activity, which is the core of this equipment. After explaining as much as possible, the Canadian representative returned to the hotel exhausted. ?
The next day, one of the representatives from China pointed out that what they said was inconsistent with what the production director engineer said when he was in Canada. China has seized this point. At lunch, the representative of Canada quickly faxed to Canada to ask for details and explanations. The scene in the afternoon made Burton and reinas a little uneasy. During the negotiation, a middle-aged woman hurried into the negotiation room, whispered a few words to the leader of China, and then he immediately got up and left. No one explained this. ?
The next day, Canada received a fax to discuss yesterday's problem again. This process is very slow. China appreciates the high quality of Canadian products, but he is worried that once the products are damaged, they will not be repaired. They want Canada to provide maintenance training services. The Canadian side suggested that sending someone to work in China for several weeks or months would increase huge expenses. They think there will be no problem with the equipment, and China is fully capable of maintaining it. ?
Finally, the negotiations entered a substantive stage: price. This is the most difficult stage. China asked for a 20% discount. The Canadian side thinks that this negotiation is too rough. They insist on the original price, which is reasonable, but the roller parts can be discounted by 3%. ?
Although the Canadian representatives heard that it would take a long time to negotiate in China, they thought that one week was enough. But time flies, and they will return to China in two days. They began to ask what caused the two sides to fail to reach an agreement, and what other issues needed further discussion. During the final negotiation, they tried their best to get China to discuss the key unresolved issues, but China seemed unwilling to do so. ?
Before the farewell banquet began the next afternoon, the two sides still failed to reach an agreement. The price problem has been basically solved, but the payment method has not been solved. This is a difficult problem to solve. China cannot guarantee the payment plan, because the final decision rests with the municipal government. Nevertheless, Manager Li smiled and mentioned the future cooperation, the past friendship between China and Canada, and many things they learned from Canada. They re-signed the letter of intent signed in Canada nine months ago. The representative of Canada returned disappointed, but he hoped that the two sides would further discuss the sales by fax or e-mail. ?
Two weeks later, Canada was dismayed to learn that China had bought equipment from a Japanese manufacturer. Their equipment is of high quality and reasonable price. What caused the negotiation to fail?
Second, the analysis of the causes of cultural barriers in cross-cultural business negotiations
Under the single cultural background, the negotiation process is predictable and can be accurately grasped. However, cross-cultural negotiation is uncertain and more challenging, because cross-cultural negotiation is a negotiation between different ways of thinking, communication and behavior. The main reason for the failure of cross-cultural negotiation lies in the lack of understanding of the other party's cultural background and the neglect of the influence and function of cultural differences on negotiation. The reasons for the failure of the negotiation in this case are analyzed one by one. ?
(1) Do China people pay attention to cultivating relationships?
The focus of China people's negotiation is not the subject of negotiation, but the establishment of long-term cooperative interpersonal relationships. Therefore, at the beginning of the negotiation, the two sides talked about a wide range of topics and social activities, and did not enter the negotiation topic until the two sides established mutual trust and enhanced mutual understanding. For westerners, the focus of negotiation lies in substantive content, not interpersonal relationship. ?
Orientals, represented by China, attach great importance to feelings and human feelings in interpersonal communication. On the one hand, this stems from the ancient culture of China people and the spirit and concept of harmonious coexistence, friendly exchange, unity and mutual benefit. This attitude and interpersonal relationship is conducive to further cooperation between the two sides and to the success of the transaction for businessmen. In this respect, this concept and behavior has its beneficial side. This is why people in China always ask for gifts first, and businessmen in China always entertain each other first, and then talk about business. ?
Lionel. Davis put it well: "At banquets, people often talk about food and exchange some very formal words of respect or friendship. From the perspective of low-context culture, what people talk about is not personal and does not contain much information. People are just following a set of etiquette rules more accurately than other occasions. This includes toasting each other and using some cliché s suitable for the relationship and scene at that time. ..... The conversation was pleasant and relaxed, and diners from high-context culture interpreted this scene as: the relationship between them has developed to the point where they can start talking about business or finish talking about business. "
"Contract belongs to the file type of low context culture. For westerners, the meaning of a contract lies in words. Before signing a contract, westerners will definitely read the fine print, which means that they will pay close attention to the details of the contract to ensure that there are no hidden unfavorable clauses in the special legal clauses used to write the contract. Once agreed, the contract is firmly binding on both parties, and even if there is an accident after signing the contract, it cannot be broken. For example, if the market situation changes and one party suffers losses, the signatory from a low-context culture will not use it as a reason to change the contract. This attitude seems unfair to contract parties from high-context culture, who are always used to considering the factors of situational events. If a westerner gains more benefits from the contract than he expected in advance, he will only consider himself lucky all the time. If he loses money, he will think he is unlucky. " ?
"If there is a dispute between the two parties to the contract, the communicators in the low-context culture will try their best to resolve their differences by referring to the terms of the contract. However, communicators in high-context culture are more likely to consider public relations factors and situational factors other than precise contract terms. In fact, for communicators in high-context cultures, situational factors are more important than strict contract terms. " (Davis, 2004:68-69)?
From the above discussion, we can clearly see that westerners with a strong sense of legal system and China people with a strong sense of human feelings are quite different when dealing with their relations and disputes. Of course, we should also see that in recent years, with the deepening of China's reform and opening up and the sustained development of social economy, people are trying to abandon the harmful extreme view of human feelings while retaining the beneficial factors in the concept of human feelings.
(2) Westerners pay attention to time and efficiency?
Westerners took the lead in entering the era of industrialization in history, with advanced technology and economy. So far, the level of productivity has been rapidly improved. Every minute means that new products come out and new values are generated. The resulting fast-paced work and life make them deeply feel that "time is money", and the endless pursuit of as much profit as possible is their goal. Because of this, they must save and use every minute to create the greatest value, so they attach importance to harmony. However, the development of science, technology and economy in the East is relatively backward, and the mode of small-scale peasant economy, which has long been dominated by agriculture, leads to a slow pace of production and life. In particular, they pay more attention to form and etiquette and spend time on red tape, so they are far less precious than westerners and have a poor concept of punctuality. Appointment time, plan, etc. Often changed at will. In this regard, Samova commented:
"When people from different cultural backgrounds come together, it is also important to apply the concept and practice of time. Most people in western culture look at time according to linear space. We are bound by time. Our schedules and work arrangements dominate our lives. Germans and Swiss have a better sense of time than we do. For them, trains, planes and meals a day must always be on time. But there are many cultures that are not like this. In their view, it is the activity rather than the clock that determines people's actions. " ?
(3) Do China and the West have different values?
Westerners especially admire individualism, which stems from the concept of private ownership of means of production and property under the western capitalist system. Samova, an American scholar, said: "Most people from some African countries or regions, Cuba and China will think that enterprises and means of production should be collectively owned by the state or the people. On the other hand, some people born in the United States or Canada believe that the means of production should be owned by an individual with sole ownership, or by several people with the same ownership, or by many people running a joint-stock company. " In capitalist society, earning as much assets and money as possible has become the goal of most people, thus gradually forming the concept and behavior of "individualism" centered on individuals. In the eyes of westerners, individualism means that the interests of individuals should be supreme, and all values, rights and responsibilities come from individuals. It emphasizes personal initiative, independence, expression of personal wishes and personal privacy. In western countries, especially the United States, personal consciousness is very strong; Personal rights, property, privacy, occupation, goals, etc. Being placed above others, collectives or even countries is absolutely inviolable; The consciousness of the collective or team is relatively weak.
Collectivism, also known as collective standard, collective consciousness or team concept, refers to the concept of attaching importance to collective interests, collective strength and collective role, relying on the collective, paying attention to cooperation and advocating unity and struggle. Generally speaking, poor and backward countries (especially non-capitalist developing countries), nations or races usually advocate collectivism, and even African-Americans under the influence of American culture respect collectivism. Triandis estimates that 70% of the world's population lives in a culture characterized by collectivism (Triandis, 1990:48). This may be because they are all vulnerable groups. The long-term lagging development of economy, science and technology not only leads to the weak economic foundation of the country, but also greatly reduces the ability and opportunities of individuals, making individuals rely more on the collective strength of the country, others or social organizations whether they are fighting against nature or seeking their own survival and development in society. ?
In China, for thousands of years, China's ideology and culture, especially Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, has always emphasized the tradition of "harmony is the most important thing", respected "harmony between man and nature" and paid attention to human feelings, affection and solidarity, which is one of the important reasons why China people attach importance to and rely on family, group and social forces.
Different cultures, nationalities and countries have different levels of individualism or collectivism, which is also a continuum. People in some countries have a stronger sense of individualism, while people in some countries have a stronger sense of collectivism. Among them, the more developed the economy, the stronger the individualism; The less developed the country, the stronger the sense of collectivism. ?
Three. conclusion
With the deepening of economic globalization, people have realized that the main reason for the failure of cross-cultural negotiations lies in the lack of understanding of the other party's cultural background and the neglect of the influence and role of cultural differences in negotiations. Under the single cultural background, the negotiation process is predictable and can be accurately grasped. However, cross-cultural negotiation is uncertain and more challenging, because cross-cultural negotiation is a negotiation between different ways of thinking, communication and behavior. First of all, we should face up to and identify with various national cultures other than our own; While continuing to carry forward the excellent cultural traditions of our nation, we should respect the cultural traditions, social customs and local customs of other nations, and learn and even accept the excellent cultural traditions of other nations with an open mind. Secondly, we should deeply understand and seriously study the connotation and essence of other national cultures, find out the similarities and differences between our national culture and other cultures, study the inherent laws of cross-cultural communication, master the knowledge, skills and correct strategies of cross-cultural business negotiation, and properly use these skills and strategies to succeed in cross-cultural business negotiation.