论文总字数：49229字

摘 要

随着世界经济一体化的加速发展，中国已逐渐成为最主要的世界投资经济体之一。随着中美两国经贸关系的日益密切， 双方的商务谈判也日趋频繁。但是两国之间的文化差异也一直被认为是在国际商务谈判中一项巨大的挑战。

只有认识到中美文化的差异和对商务谈判的影响，才能发现导致彼此误解或冲突的真正原因，最终才能寻找到有效的沟通渠道，把握谈判方向和进度。无论谈判人员是否具有深厚的谈判知识，表现出专业的谈判素养，都会有主观思想的渗透，这种主观思想正是来自于他所处的社会文化。因此文化因素对商务谈判的影响是不容忽视的。本文梳理了国内外学者对跨文化谈判的理论研究，分别对文化及谈判概念进行分析。本文共分为六个部分：

第一章是一个基本的介绍，包括研究的意义和目的已经所采用的研究方法和本文的主要框架。

第二章介绍了国内外学者对于文化概念的定义以及谈判和跨文化商务谈判的相关理论。并且分别介绍了中国及美国文化的典型特征。另外对于文化与谈判的关系进行简要的分析。

第三章通过对比分析对中美两国在谈判中所遇到的一些文化差异进行了分析，如价值观念的差异，语言和非语言交际的差异以及思维方式的差异等方面。

第四章案例分析与理论分析相结合简述了第三章中的文化差异对谈判目的，决策以及冲突管理的影响。

第五章提出了相应的解决策略，培养对文化差异的认识，尊重中美文化差异，提高语言的使用以及采取换位思考的方式。

第六章是本文的结论部分，总结了论文中讨论的各个要点，并提出文章的不足之处。

关键词：国际商务谈判 中美文化差异 影响

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Purpose and significance of the study

Along with the deepening Economic Globalization, international business activities become more and more frequent. The happening of almost all the economic activities contain various negotiations. As the Economic Environment changed, the international business negotiation can not be mentioned in the same breath. We see that the negotiation space greatens, content increases and the principals of negotiation become diversification, and the strategy of negotiation becomes differentiation and so on. At the same time, the negotiation issues jump out of the limitation of traditional goods, services and technology. “The world is a big table”, to a large extent, the success of the negotiation will determine the success of business activities.

Many factors can affect the business negotiations, in terms of macro, such as economic factors, political factors at home and abroad, the comprehensive strength of the enterprise, the market supply and demand and competition status, etc; in terms of micro perspective, such as the negotiator’s personal ability as well as some uncertain external chances and sudden events. However we all know that people are the main point of the negotiation, the completion of all negotiating work is done through the negotiator’s brain thinking. In this process, people always consciously and unconsciously penetrate their own subjective thought into the negotiation which has a great relationship with his social and cultural backgrounds. And this is the cultural factors that affect business negotiations.

Since the 21st century, the comprehensive strength and economic status of China have increased gradually. The relationship between China and other countries becomes closer and closer. In the process of Sino-US business negotiation, people usually find that cultural differences may lead to different attitudes, purpose, natures and styles and so on. Each stage of the business negotiation is influenced by cultural factors. The goal of this thesis is to reveal the impact of cultural differences on Sino-American business

negotiation. If these differences can be recognized, a basis for mutual understanding and trust can be established, and thus contributes to the bilateral economic cooperation between China and America.

1.2 Methods and Procedures of the Study

China as the developing country and the U.S. as the developed country are important economic and trade partners to each other. The frequent economic trades between China and U.S. make the negotiations more important. Negotiators must grasp each other’s values, ways of thinking, behavior and psychological characteristics and what’s more, they should ingenious use those findings. This will help us obtain desired negotiating results and achieve win-win. More and more researches are focused on the cultural difference in business negotiations. On the basis of this, the thesis chooses this topic to study the influence of cultural difference on Sino-US business negotiation and is expected to be helpful to the Chinese negotiators.

This thesis mainly uses the literature material method, empirical method, reviews and case analysis. Mainly in the way of collecting data and analyze the existing research results. Overall analysis combined with case analysis. From these methods, summarizing the cultural difference between China and America and finding out the solutions to the Sino-US negotiation.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

Before doing any research, we need to understand the main terms of the study. The definition of culture is first acquired to be realized while the relevant theories of cross-cultural negotiations are discussed.

In the domestic and foreign research, the discussion of the definition of culture aroused the interest of many scholars. Lots of humanities such as sociology, political science, philosophy is more or less referring to culture research. In real life, as a high frequency vocabulary, culture is mentioned by more and more people. Therefore, culture has become one of the most controversial term, which is difficult to reach consensus for centuries.

2.1 Definition of culture

Lots of definitions have been formulated for the word “culture”. In accordance with the Concise Oxford Dictionary, culture is “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively”. It relates to intellectual perspective, for instance, dance, art, music etc. when we are talking about Van Gogh, Mozart and so on; we are just talking about culture.

Researchers have given miscellaneous definitions of cultural in different viewpoints. E.B. Tylor (1871) defined culture as “a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) says “Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture system may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand as conditioning elements of further actions.” This definition is accepted by many

people. We can know from the definition that social ideas and values is actually the fundamental of culture.

It’s really difficult to define culture due to the large and encompassing concept. But even the three definitions provided above reveal some commonality. It’s generally agreed that culture is not intrinsic or congenital. Most scholars believe that culture is shared by members of a group. Hofstede, (1989) defined the culture as the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from another. This definition is more related to this study in the case of understanding the cultural differences in the intercultural business negotiations.

Hall, E.T. (1977) has given out the most widely accepted definition that is “Culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, institutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generations in an identifiable group of people.”

In the late 18th century, western appeared a number of cultural study scholars, but due to the limitation of transportation, the early culture researches stay in the thought of national culture. Among them, the most are longitudinal studies, lack of cross cultural comparison. In 1935, Ruth Benedict wrote in his book Pattern of Culture “A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action”.

After World War II, with the increasing of international communication activities, academic circles began to wider attention to cross-culture inquiry. A large number of scholars have carried out extensive investigation and analysis and made out the generalization with the manifestation of differentiation between different cultures. Among them, the more representative is Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory and Hall’s high and low context culture etc.

2.1.1 Typical Chinese culture

The general idea of culture has been broadly introduced. But it’s necessary for us to distinguish the general sense of culture between China and U.S. when we come to study the cultural impacts on the Sino-American business negotiation.

As an old history country, China has been influenced by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. The three cultural threads have influenced Chinese way of living and

thinking. Chinese people follow the doctrine of the golden mean. After thousands of years of history, the deep, steady, modest and cautions have internalized Chinese people’s cultural essence. Implicative, conservative, tolerance and self- discipline have been recognized as the typical Chinese character features. The Chinese are always good at burying their feelings also they have a strong concept of face and guarded hierarchical. In the field of business negotiation, Chinese negotiators highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships because they pay more attention to the long-term cooperative relations. During the negotiation, the single negotiator usually does not have the right to make a direct decision while the decision-making is determined by the group. Nonverbal factors play a very important role in the communication with Chinese negotiators, including posture, eye contact, tone, distance and so on. In the course of negotiation, Chinese negotiators often behave patiently and to a great extent, the talk is based on the past experiences. Above all is the typical Chinese culture.

2.1.2 Typical American culture

The core of American ideology has been shaped on the influence of many factors, such as the western movement, the two world wars and various religions. Americans are exposed, frank and generous and they can talk continuously and straightforwardly. Since the United States is an immigrant country, the mixture of different cultures reflect obviously in this country so the Americans advocate freedom, believe that everyone is equal and at the same time, its hierarchical is also not strong. In business negotiating field, American negotiators have the discretionary decision of the company’s transaction. The US negotiators pay more attention to price, quality and other substantial contents and in the negotiation, the most part of the information is passed directly in clear and specific words and language. They attach great importance to the concept of time is money and its negotiation is based on the master of information and rational analysis.

2.2 Definition and Characteristics of Business Negotiation

When defining negotiation, it’s both simple and complex. In the real life, in fact,

everyone will come across negotiations. In a simple word, negotiation is a communicative activity of human.

2.2.1 Definition of Business Negotiation

Hendon, (1996) mentioned that the word “negotiation” stems from the Roman word negotiari meaning “to carry on business or to trade”. It is derived from the Latin root words neg(not) and otium(ease or leisure). Obviously, the ancient Roman business man would “deny leisure” until the business has been settled.

Ikle has defined negotiation as: “a process in which explicit proposals are put forward ostensibly for the purpose of reaching an agreement on an exchange or the realization of a common interest where conflicting interests are present.”

Business negotiation is a type of negotiation. Any successful business negotiation can not be inseparable from the external environment, internal environment and the influence of three factors and negotiation process. The main elements of the external environment include legal, political situation, exchange rate, foreign government control, ideological and cultural differences. The main factors of the internal environment contain the negotiators’ bargaining power and the nature of the interdependence between each other, the potential conflict in the negotiation, the relationship between the negotiators, the expected result of the negotiations, the direct influence of stakeholders and the style of negotiations.

2.2.2 Definition of International Culture

Intercultural negotiations have multidisciplinary nature, not only involves the theory of psychology, sociology, linguistics, but also can not be separated from the international political economy, negotiation, international trade and other economic practice. Historically, although the international business activities started earlier, the relevant theoretical research began relatively late.

In terms of geographical distribution, the U.S. intercultural research is the most abundant. A batch of new results and scholars spring up such as L.A. Samovar, R.E.Porter, Y.Y.Kim, W.Gudykunst and so on. These studies provided for cross-cultural negotiations with solid theory basis.

The book International Negotiations edited by Victor A. Kremenyuk

macroscopically analyzed the process, subject and object and the influence of the international negotiation according to the content of the cross-culture research.

Rosalie, (1982), conducted the first comprehensive western study on Chinese business negotiating practice in his seminal work Chinese Commercial Negotiating Style, three major sources of difficulty in Sino-America business negotiations are identified: problems that arise from the newness of the relations and the lack of experience on both sides, problems inherent in capitalist enterprises seeking to do business with the socialist economy in uncertain transition and reform, and problems that arise from the differences between the Chinese and American culture.

Domestic research on intercultural negotiation began in the 1970s. In the 1980s, a large number of scholars devoted to the study of intercultural negotiations, lots of foreign outstanding works were translated and introduced into China. However, this part of researches mostly focus on the negotiation, on the comparison, cross-culture awareness is much less. The influence of culture on negotiation doesn’t have a systematic and holistic research system.

Dou, Linwe, (2004) put forward that modes of thinking influenced the cross-cultural communication very much. Western thinking features analysis, logic, abstract and illation while Eastern thinking features intuition, concretization, conclusion and wholeness. By realizing these features, developing multi-modes of thinking is very important in cross-cultural communication.

2.2.3 Characteristics of Business Negotiation

Business negotiations mainly happen in the field of economy. It is a trading process in the purpose of coordinating and improving economic relations. It’s a part of the economic activity; both of the negotiating parties are seeking their economic interests so it has the following features.

First, business negotiations are centering on economic interest. People do the negotiation in order to achieve their goals and interests. Although, the two sides have different cultural background and are restricted by political and diplomatic factors, what they consider is how to obtain greater economic benefits.

The second is the cooperation and conflict in the process of business negotiation.

When the negotiation agreement which is on the premise of all parties is good for both sides, the business negotiation shows the cooperation. But when the negotiators want to benefit as much as possible in the negotiation, both sides can’t afford to make the balance of the interests, the business negotiation will show some conflict.

The last one is that a variety of complex factors should be considered in the business negotiation. Due to the negotiators with different social and cultural background coming from different countries and regions, they are diverse from each other in language expression, values, and ways of thinking, customs and habits. In the process of talk, negotiators need to consider more details about the respect and understanding of culture and customs. It is an important factor ensures business negotiation going smoothly.

2.3 The relationship between culture and business negotiation

Culture is the unique characteristics of different social groups. Cultural values lead attention to important or not important problems which affects the negotiator’s interests and priorities. Cultural norms define the appropriate and inappropriate behavior in the negotiation which affects the negotiators’ strategy. Here are the ways that culture affects negotiation. First of all, the culture influences the basic position of negotiator’s interests and priorities of the issue. In another word, the culture will affect the reason why negotiators hold that position or a question why the problem is more important than another.

Next, the culture influenced negotiator’s strategy at the negotiating table such as the way they begin negotiating, the chosen of direct or indirect confrontation when facing the difference in negotiations, the way they use information, etc. At the time of negotiations, negotiators’ behavior is a kind of strategy and this is based on culture.

Chapter 3 Cultural differences in Sino-US Business Negotiation

In the face to face business negotiation between China and American, a lot of cultural barriers can be met up with such as the different values, ways of thinking, decision-making method and the code of conduct. Avoiding and treating them well can get a fantastic negotiation.

3.1 Difference in values

The different origin between China and America led to the difference between the two countries. The difference firstly performed in the surface layer for example, clothing, diet, etiquette and so on. The second performed in the mode of operation, management style and the way of contract system level. But a deeper is on the difference in values.

Values determine what beliefs and attitudes and influences the way people solve the problem. It also brings people a strong emotional impact. Different cultures have different values. As Albert says, a value system “represents what is expected or hoped for, required or forbidden. It is not a report of actual conducts but is the system of criteria by which conduct is judged and sanctions applied”. (Samovar, Porter amp; Stefani, 2000)

3.1.1 Monochronic versus Polychronic

Americans think highly of time, for them time is money and wealth. It’s an important goal for them to make full use of time. To them, punctuality is a way of showing respect for other people’s time, especially in a meeting. When the negotiation process slow down, they will lose patience and they think that people who do not comply with the concept of time is not enough professional. The Americans always hope to reach an agreement in a relatively short period of time. They would like to de business negotiation from one step to another. For example, they are willing to solve the

problem of price, packaging and delivery in turn and the final agreement is the total of these small agreements. For them, measuring the process of a negotiation is to see how many small problems are solved. From these, we can see that Americans have a culture as Monochronic, they like to put things on the line and solve them one by one.

On the contrary, the Chinese have a concept of Polychronic time. In China, time is regarded more fluid and people do not observe strict schedules. China will use the long-term view and the systematic method to analysis by synthesis and measure the importance of the issues in a wide range. The Chinese often pay more attention to the result of the cooperation and do not have a very strict restriction of the time. They are not willing to regard negotiation as a whole thing to discuss rather than an individual thing. Discussing several topics at the same time is very normal for Chinese. They won’t strictly abide by the agenda and will re-discuss the problems that have been solved by American negotiators. In addition, the Chinese always expect to establish long-term cooperation so they will spend large amount of time in understanding each other’s information, dinner, entertainment, sightseeing and so on. Because of this, the duration of the negotiation will be longer than the expected.

3.1.2 Individual versus Collectivism

In the United States, the idea of independence, freedom and personal equality are quite strong. The concept of individual puts the “self” above all. their communications pay more attention to now，ego and practical action. In American culture, individual can make decisions on behalf of the company. The American negotiators usually have enough power which means that they can directly make a decision to the issue of the negotiations and they expect that the Chinese representative have similar power.

However, it’s quite different with Chinese concept. Chinese traditional view is the Collectivism. Usually, Chinese members are much more than the members of US and its administrative is complex. Even, the negotiators in the negotiating party are not the real decision-maker. In the process of negotiations, the Chinese negotiating groups need to report the result of each negotiating stage to the superior. The superior spend a period of time to agree or come up with new ideas, and then these opinions will be delivered to the negotiating team again. This kind of decision-making mechanism extends the time

of negotiations. The United States are also very disappointed about it and think the negotiators are just errand boys. This sometimes leads to the failure of the negotiations.

3.2 Difference in verbal and nonverbal language

People’s ways of communication includes verbal language and nonverbal language. At present, English has become the main language in the international business. Many people whose native is not English can speak English fluently, but most Americans can only speak English. Quiet a few members of the Chinese negotiators’ oral English is weaker than their reading and writing and they are not good at making a decision or answering in public without preparation. On the contrary, the Americans are good at that. In addition to language, negotators also use nonverbal language, such as the gesture, eye contact, facial expressions, clothing, body touch, the use of time and space etc. similarly, cultures play an important role in this area.

3.2.1 Difference in verbal language

American is a typical low context language country. In this kind of culture, most of the information is made in clear and specific language and words. The U.S. negotiators are accustomed to communicate in the clear, frank and direct way. They like getting through all the problems without ambiguous. On the other hand, China belongs to the high context culture. In the high context culture, nonverbal communication and the indirect expression are one of the important factors to understand and deliver the message. It’s necessary to grasp the implication of word in understanding the meaning of words.

In most cultures, it is considered to be rude and insensitive to talk without chatting in the business negotiation. At the negotiating table, both sides will talk about the topic that has nothing to do with the business, such as the weather, sports, etc. But the Americans will chat in a short period, generally for 5-10 minutes and then getting into the business. Most of the time is used for negotiations. China is inclined to build trust and relationships, most of the time, they spend more time on greetings and chatting. Chatting is an important way for negotiators to understand the other side, usually including the weather, surrounding environment, news and the substantive issues. In

United States, chat should not contain politics, religion, personal income and the discussion of personal life, even if it comes to family, if asked “How is your wife?”, the answer is “ Fine, thanks”.

Learning to speak English, especially some common greeting words and American commonly used language is necessary for Chinese negotiators, such as “please”, “sure”, “thank you”, “nope” and “okay”. In the negotiation, many negotiators enjoy a long speech, in many cases, it’s necessary to interrupt them. Some Chinese negotiators think it impolite to interrupt conversation, actually, because of the U.S. negotiating model is direct, you can hands up or to suspend gestures.

3.2.2 Difference in nonverbal language

In addition to the use of verbal language, nonverbal expression is widely used in the negotiation. Unlike the language and words, it dose not have the clear symbols and meanings, it’s easy to produce misunderstanding. Different cultures will produce different ways of nonverbal communication. Understanding the nonverbal expression is very important.

Chinese commonly use silence which is meant the acceptation or declaring the view to some problem, or disagreeing about some terms to show their politeness and respect. On the other hand, the Americans hold a negative view on the silence, it’s difficult for them to accept and they put it as a refusal. In general, smiling is regarded as happy, but the Chinese sometimes express helpless and disapproval in smile. It’s also very difficult for Americans to understand. When the American negotiators answer “I’m sorry”, they hand out and shrugged their shoulders at the same time. It means “I don’t know”, “I have no idea” and so on. To show this meaning, the Chinese will shake or wave. Thus, if negotiators do not have keen sense of intercultural communication, they will feel confused and even misunderstand.

3.3 Difference in thinking patterns

The difference of thinking patterns is the main obstacle to intercultural communication. Many people mistakenly believe that the one he talking about thinks the same way with him. In fact, when a set of language information in one thinking

organization is delivered to others who decipher or reorganize in a different thinking pattern, it may produce ambiguity or misunderstanding. A speech, in the eye of a thinking model, is logical, clear, well understood and persuasive, while in the other thinking model may become illogical, confused and lack of convincing. Due to the accumulation of history, geography and humanities, thinking patterns of China and America have experienced the different evolution and formed their features. Here are the three different aspects.

3.3.1 Individual thinking vs. comprehensive thinking

Western philosophy adopts the binary opposition of “separation of object and self” and focus on individual thinking pattern which has a clear purpose, planning and opposite sex. Western thinking mode is based on individual. It decomposes complex things into simple elements and studies them one by one. Individuality decides the western thinking mode to focus on analyzing. It strives to pursue a single element from the complicated world and tries to abstract a pure form of a simple concept from the overall.

Chinese culture advocates “syncretism between heaven and man” and focus on the overall thinking pattern. This kind of thinking mode has the characteristic of comprehensive, fuzziness and gay. It takes things as an organic whole to make the intuitive comprehensive. Chinese traditional is habituated to starting from the overall; emphasize the mutual connection and the overall function of things. It pays more attention to thinking about the complexity of the thing and its process, not the internal structure of things.

3.3.2 Linear thinking vs. curve thinking

The Americans are linear thinkers. They think direct expression must be better than the indirect expression when speaking or writing articles and the speaker’s stance should remain consistent. The linear thinking is more straightforward. They are used to saying the first point and then put into the various attributes such as aspect, covering and so on. The emphasis tends to be on details, precision, and pragmatic results.

The Chinese, on the contrary, are curve thinkers. When expressing ideas, the Chinese are in the habit of explaining from the side of peripheral environment. This

way of thinking talks a problem in the way of repeat and development spiral form and points out the information center at last. As a result of their curve tendency, seeing how a decision influences not only the immediate issue but also those outside the matter at hand is very important for them.

Chapter 4 Culture impacts on Sino-US Business Negotiation

Due to negotiation is a dynamic and complex process related to lots of variables. Under the international background, it may be invalid for one party to negotiate with another party with different culture background. Sometimes during the negotiation process, communication breakdown may happen. Discussions are frequently stopped because the negotiators seem to be seeking different logical way. Case studies are carried as a necessary recruitment to further illustrate the disagreement of Chinese and American negotiators under the specific negotiating situation. Therefore, the methods introduce in chapter three combining with case studies has practical meanings in researching on the impacts on Sino-US business negotiation.

4.1 Cultural Impacts on Negotiation Goal

4.1.1 Case description

David Evenson, an American businessman was eager to establish trade ties with the Chinese enterprise. He reached an agreement to import 24,000 two-ounce packages of Chinese tea. The tea came in time for the Thanksgiving Day sales peak. David was impressed by the quality of the tea and the packaging was better than he had expected. However, because of the small size of the transaction, the transaction cost per unit was quite high. In order to get profit from the transaction, David’s accounting department suggested that David cut the price to match other brands first. David decided to go with his accounting department’s price approval. But the marketing representative did not agree and suggested David to cut the price. Finally, the negotiation failed because the Chinese suggested selling in lower price again and David seemed to have lost interest in the project.

(Harvard Business Review, 2012, 07)

4.1.2 Analysis of the case

The American and the Chinese see goal and process of negotiation differently. The Chinese treat negotiation as the beginning of a relation while the American treat it as a task. This case shows the difference between individualism and collectivism on the attitude of relationship pattern. The United States is an individualistic culture and emphasizes individual goals over group goals. Comparing with short-term interests, what the Chinese businessman cares most is the long-term market. Chinese negotiators are much more willing to apply human and financial resources because they believe that their input will finally make a high return. While American businessman makes a decision basing on what is good for them. To Americans, a business relationship means nothing but a benefit. What they care is the shot-term return not the long-term return.

As a result, when David realized that the cost of the green tea was high, he just raised the price because he has shareholders to answer to. So David was unwilling to start out selling at a loss. When David realized that he could not gain profits at the primary term, he was unwilling to continue and returned the goods to the warehouse. The basic reason about this impede in communication is the different thinking patterns between Chinese and America.

4.2 Cultural Impacts on Decision Making

4.2.1 Case description

A Chinese company decided to buy a batch of new automatic equipment from the United States. A group with 16 members including city manager, general manager and so on flew to the United States. The United States arranged the Chinese representative to visit the company and introduce the equipment by professionals. The Chinese visitors had a strong interest and asked questions from time to time. After visiting, the two sides began to negotiating. The Americans found that the Chinese negotiators are not all the ones who visited the factory, but the company’s financial, operation and other aspects of high-level managers. They didn’t have any field of direct experience. Due to this situation, the Americans had to make an introduction again and waited for the Chinese decision. But to their disappointment, the Chinese negotiators did not give out any

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