CROSS CULTURE ESSAY.

Cross Culture Essay.

Cross Culture Essay.

Over the past decade, two important economic alliances have been forged among the countries of North and South America: NAFTA, an alliance involving the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and Mercosur, which joins Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. These alliances are intended to promote trade and growth between the participating countries while positioning the regions strategically in the new global marketplace .One of the challenges born from these and other international trade agreements is the need to understand and manage differences in business styles due to cultural and economic factors. Countries from North and South America have typically been described as having differing negotiating styles and ethics. These differences include the importance placed on relationship development, negotiating strategies, decision making methods, spatial and temporal orientations, contracting practices, and illicit behaviours such as bribery. Clearly, not understanding the negotiating conventions and expectations of one's foreign counterpart can lead to surprises, frustrations, and missed opportunities .Much of the research to date on cross-cultural negotiating styles and ethics has focused on benign or unspecified situations in assessing national similarities and differences. Yet each negotiation occurs with a specific opponent, over a specific set of issues, and in a particular location or context that can potentially influence attitudes, behaviours, and outcomes of the negotiation. To better understand the dynamics of the negotiating process, situational factors need to be taken into account .This paper reports on a cross-national study of the differential effects of issues, opponent, and context on perceptions of the appropriateness and likely use of five categories of negotiating tactics or behaviours representing a range of acceptability The participants in the study were drawn from the two largest countries in North and South America - the United States and Brazil - countries which are likely to become major trading partners over the coming years. The five categories of tactics/behaviours included: traditional competitive bargaining, misrepresentation of information, bluffing, information collection, and influencing an opponent's professional network. The results of this study have implications for firms preparing their representatives for negotiations, particularly in new or emerging international partnerships, as well as for evaluating the feasibility of a universal code of business ethics.

While there may well exist a set of core human values that cut across most cultures, there is also a moral gray area in which cultural differences and situational exigency can create uncertainty and surprise. Dealing with this uncertainty and surprise requires a justification of the relativist and absolutist perspectives, particularly in cross-cultural transactions. Grace and Cohen (1995) argue that individuals within a society can differentiate between what is and what ought to be, managing the former while striving for the latter. Thus, descriptive and prescriptive (normative) ethical reasoning can co-exist at some level. According to attribution theory, responsibility for one's actions is ascribed to internal or external causes depending upon whether or not the individual behaves differently in different situations (distinctiveness) and whether or not others behave similarly in this situation ...