Cultural Dominant Negotiation Characteristics

Abstract

The culture of person determines how a person behaves while communicating and negotiating with others. The culture greatly impacts the negotiation goals, communication form whether direct or indirect, emotionalism, forms of agreement, informal or formal style, risk taking behaviour, sensitivity to time , team organization, etc. these factors are compared in Asians and western population in the following paper.

Cultural Dominant Negotiation Characteristics

Introduction

Negotiation refers to the exchange activity between people for the mutually beneficial outcomes. It is an activity that contains the conflict and elements of cooperation.The negotiators cooperate with each other to achieve some joint outcomes. The negotiators must be competitive to discuss the issues. Negotiation is thought as the process of attempting to justify the wills of members, by giving up something they have in exchange for things they want (Waller, Conte, Gibson, & Carpenter, 2001).

Negotiation and conflict are interrelated. Some people negotiate to prevent conflicts or use negotiation to resolve the conflicts. Negotiation refers to everyday exchanges in personal life or business, where agreement is done for buying, selling, taking services or engaging in desirable projects. Negotiation can occur in simple tasks as well as in complex issues.

Negotiation styles depends on the attitude the member take to negotiate. The negotiation models are categorised into forcing style, accommodating negotiation style and compromising style. Sometimes problem solving approach is used, which aims at both parties to win, it is called as collaborative style (Gelfand, Raver, & Holcombe, 2002).

The paper describes how people of different cultures behave differently while negotiating. It tells the different styles of negotiation in Asian and western cultures.

Discussion

In negotiations, when individual or parties reach a conclusion, where their values or interests come in conflict, various methods are developed to resolve the conflict. In negotiations, if one party more dominant than another, then they would attempt to enforce their opinion on the other. Sometimes, both parties may take help of an outside party to solve the issue. The outside party's role is that of a facilitator, which brings the parties together and to make a joint decision. Another tool for negotiation is to involve “arbitrators,” which hears the positions and renders a decision. This joint decision is agreeable and accepted decision, after each party has influenced the outcomes. The outcome is the perceived result that is satisfactory for both parties. It often a compromise of these two parties demands. The negotiations depend on influence, compromise, persuasion, and learning (Gelfand, & McCusker, 2002).

Cultural Influences on the Negotiation Style

The structure of negotiation gives examples of how different cultures can influence the process of negotiation. The structural variables include size of the team, power distribution, the type of issues, the organizational setting, and outside influences. The negotiation styles depends on the ethnicity, race, religion, language, etc (Blount & Janicik, 2003).

The strategies used by the negotiators, during negotiation are also influenced by culture. The strategic choices are related to culture. Certain cultures do not shy from making aggressive ...