CULTURE AND NEGOTIATION

CONTENTS

 Culture……………………………………...1

      Layers of culture…………………………1

      Culture and society………………………2

      Introduction to culture and negotiation….3

Hofstede’s dimensions of culture………….4

      1-Power Distance………………………..4

      2-Individualism/Collectivism…………....5

      3-Masculinity/Femininity……….……..   5

      4-Uncertainty Avoidance………………..5

      5-Long/short-term orientation…………...5

      Hofstede’s dimensions’ table…………….6

      Geert Hofstede analysis to Turkey .……...8

Cross-Cultural Negotiation…………………9

     Basis of relationship……………………….10

     Information of Negotiations……………….10

     Negotiation Styles…………………………10

   a-) U.S. Approaches to Negotiation………....11

  b-) African Approaches to Negotiation….......12

  c-)Japanese Styles of Negotiation……….…...12

  d-) European Styles of Negotiation……….....13

  e-) Latin American Styles of Negotiation…..13

Negotiating Globally………………………..14

 Negotiation Contingencies: Characteristics

 of the situation leading to success or failure....15

       

         1)Location……………………………....15

         2)Physical arrangements…...…………...16

         3)Participants…………………………...16

         4)Time Limits…………………………..17

         5)Status differences…………………….17

Negotiation Process………………………….18

Negotiation Strategy:A Culturally

                        Synergistic Approach ………...18

Negotiation Tactics…………………………..19

          1)Verbal Tactics…………………………20

          2)Nonverbal Tactics……………………..20

Dirty Tricks……………………………………..21

 

Whose style to use………………………………22

Qualities of a good negotiator …………………24

Conclusion……………………………………….25

       Build a model……………………………..25

       Observe……………………………………25

        Analyse…………………………………….25

        Act accordingly……………………………26

        Useful tips…………………………………26

References..............................................................28



CULTURE

What is Culture? 

         The word culture has many different meanings.  For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food.  For a biologist, it is likely to be a colony of bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient medium in a laboratory Petri dish.  However, for anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns.  Edward B. Tylor said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."  Of course, it is not limited to men.  Women possess and create it as well.  Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology.

Culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is a fragile phenomenon.  It is constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds.  Our written languages, governments, buildings, and other man-made things are merely the products of culture.  They are not culture in themselves.  For this reason,  can not dig up culture directly in their excavations.  The broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns--they are things that were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills.


Layers of Culture

There are very likely three layers or levels of culture that are part of your learned behavior patterns and perceptions.  Most obviously is the body of cultural traditions that distinguish your specific society.  When people speak of Italian, Samoan, or Japanese culture, they are referring to the shared language, traditions, and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from others.  In most cases, those who share your culture do so because they acquired it as they were raised by parents and other family members   who have it.

The second layer of culture that may be part of your identity is a subculture.  In complex, diverse societies in which people have come from many different parts of the world, they often retain much of their original cultural traditions.  As a result, they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture in their new society.  The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest of their society.  Examples of easily identifiable subcultures in the United States include ethnic groups such as Vietnamese Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans.  Members of each of these subcultures share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience.  As the cultural differences between members of a subculture and the dominant national culture blur and eventually disappear, the subculture ceases to exist except as a group of people who claim a common ancestry.  That is generally the case with German Americans and Irish Americans in the United States today.  Most of them identify themselves as Americans first.  They also see themselves as being part of the cultural mainstream of the nation.

The third layer of culture consists of cultural universals.  These are learned behavior patterns that are shared by all of humanity collectively.  No matter where people live in the world, they share these universal traits.  Examples of such "human cultural" traits include:

  1. Communicating with a verbal language consisting of a limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences
  2. Using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior citizen, woman, man)
  3. Classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships and having kinship terms to refer to them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin)
  4. Raising children in some sort of family setting
  5. Having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus women's work)
  6. Having a concept of privacy
  7. Having rules to regulate sexual behavior
  8. Distinguishing between good and bad behavior
  9. Having some sort of body ornamentation
  10. Making jokes and playing games
  11. Having art
  12. Having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation of community decisions

While all cultures have these and possibly many other universal traits, different cultures have developed their own specific ways of carrying out or expressing them.  For instance, people in deaf subcultures frequently use their hands to communicate with sign language instead of verbal language.  However, sign languages have grammatical rules just as verbal ones do.


Culture and Society

Culture and society are not the same thing.  While cultures are complexes of learned behavior patterns and perceptions, societies are groups of interacting organisms.  People are not the only have societies.  Schools of fish, flocks of birds, and hives of bees are societies.  In the case of humans, however, societies are groups of people who directly or indirectly interact with each other.  People in human societies also generally perceive that their society is distinct from other societies in terms of shared traditions and expectations.

While human societies and cultures are not the same thing, they are inextricably connected because culture is created and transmitted to others in a society.  Cultures are not the product of lone individuals.  They are the continuously evolving products of people interacting with each other.  Cultural patterns such as language and politics make no sense except in terms of the interaction of people.  If you were the only human on earth, there would be no need for language or government.

When we think of culture we often think of the national cultures reported in the international media. However, culture is much broader and encompasses the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of diverse ethnic groups, clans, tribes, regional subcultures or even neighborhoods. Culture also differentiates people by religious or ideological persuasions, professions and educational backgrounds. Families also have cultures, as do the two largest cultural groups in the world, men and women. Companies, organizations and educational institutions also demonstrate unique cultures. With all of these cultural variables, and significant variations within cultures, how can we develop any common understanding, general hypotheses or conclusions about how a particular person or group from any one culture might behave in negotiations or conflicts?

  Fig 1 and 2

Yet specific cultures do contain clusters of people with fairly common attitudinal and behavioral patterns. As indicated in Figure I above, these clusters occupy the middle portion of a bell-shaped curve (Trompenaars, 1994).

However, every culture includes outliers - people who vary significantly from the norm. While still contained within the range for their culture, their views and behaviors differ significantly from that of their peers and may even look similar to other cultures. For instance, a businessman or engineer from a developing country who was educated in England may have more in common with his or her peers in Europe than with his fellow countrymen (see Figure II).

For this reason, we must be wary of generalizations about how people from a specific culture may think or act. Rigid notions about a group's cultural patterns can result in inaccurate stereotypes, gross injustice to the group and inaccurate (and possibly disastrous) assumptions or actions. Common cultural patterns found in a group's central cultural cluster should be looked upon as possible, or even probable, clues as to the ways a cultural group may think or respond. But the hypothesis should always be tested and modified after direct interaction with the group in question. You may well encounter an outlier who seems more similar to us than we ever expected.

Introduction to Culture and Negotiation

Similarly, people interacting with people from other cultures often feel 'lost'. Lacking familiar attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, procedures or structures that shape day-to-day interactions, people in cross-cultural situations often get disoriented, make mistakes and spend time and energy merely surviving rather than understanding and appreciating the differences they encounter. They also often fail to negotiate the most favorable agreements possible or to resolve serious conflicts due to cultural misunderstandings.

Negotiators need general principles to guide their negotiation strategies and a culture 'map' that helps them to:

  • Identify the general 'topography' of cultures - the beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, procedures and social structures that shape human interactions;
  • Identify potential hazards, obstacles and pleasant surprises that negotiators might miss if they did not have a trusty guide;
  • Select responses that will promote successful interactions and outcomes. Unfortunately, few analytical frameworks identify, interpret and respond to cultural differences. Few maps describe how different cultures solve problems, negotiate agreements or resolve disputes.

HOFSTEDE’S DIMENSIONS OF CULTURE

Although the term culture has taken on many different meanings, we use it to refer to the shared values and beliefs held by the members of a group. Cultures are considered to be stable over time. Hofstede conducted the most comprehensive and extensive program of research identifying and exploring different cultural dimensions in international business. Hofstede examined data on values that had been gathered from over 100,000 IBM employees from around the world; to date, over 53 cultures and countries have been included in this study. Statistical analysis these data suggests that five dimensions could be used to describe the important differences among the cultures in the study.

These dimensions are:

1)POWER DISTANCE

The power distance dimension describes “the extent to which the less powerful members of organization and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. According to Hofstede, cultures with greater power distance will be more likely to have decisions making concentrated at the top, and all of the important decisions will have to be finalized by the leader. Cultures with low power distance are more likely to spread the decision making throughout the organization and while leaders are respected, it is also possible to question their decisions. The consequences for international negotiations are that negotiators from comparatively high power distance cultures may need to seek approval from their supervisors more frequently, and for more issues, leading to slower negotiations process.

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Countries that are high in power distance include Africa, Malaysia, Guatemala and Panama. Negotiators from these countries tend to be comfortable with :

  • Hierarchical structures,
  • Clear authority figures,  
  • The right to use power with discretion.

Countries with a low power distance include Great Britain, Austria, Denmark, USA, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany. Negotiators from these countries tend to be comfortable with

  • Democratic structures and flat organizational hierarchies,
  • Shared authority,
  • The right to use power only in limited circumstances and for legitimate purposes.

2)INDIVIDUALISM/ COLLECTIVISM

The ...

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