论文总字数：26904字

摘 要

经济一体化使国际间的商务往来无处不在，无时不有，成功的国际商务谈判总是要求谈判双方对自己的视野加以调节和改变。作为世界上最大的发展中国家中国和最大的发达国家美国之间的贸易往来越来越受到彼此乃至世界的瞩目，然而中美之间的文化差异对彼此的贸易往来与商务谈判同样有着巨大的影响，中美双方在商务谈判中必须增强文化差异的敏感性,了解在语言沟通、非语言沟通和谈判风格上的差异,了解两国在价值观和谈判风格上的差异，制定出合适的谈判策略，从而为达成协议打下基础。本文通过研究中国与美国之间的文化差异及其对商务谈判的影响，探讨如何正确处理在谈判过程中出现的中美文化差异问题，使中美贸易谈判能顺利进行。

关键词：文化差异; 商务谈判; 影响; 应对策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 Cultural differences 1

2.1.1 The difference of thinking mode 2

2.1.2 The difference of time view 2

2.1.3 The difference of "face" concept 2

2.1.4 Etiquette difference 3

2.2 Studies on Sino-US differences 4

3. Influences of Sino-US Cultural Differences in the Negotiations 5

3.1 Negotiation process 5

3.2 Negotiation method 6

3.3 Negotiation decision 6

4. Suggestions for Sino-US Business Negotiation 7

4.1 Correct greetings 7

4.2 Communication on work-related information 8

4.3 Making a proposal and a persuasion 8

4.4 Making concessions, reaching agreements 9

5. Conclusion 9

Works Cited 11

1. Introduction

Negotiation is a kind of process, which connects all parties to consult, exchange views, seek solutions and reach agreements on common concerns. Negotiation is always seek to meet one’s need, which is not only the motivation, but also the cause of a negotiation.

The culture we’ve said here does not include a person who has no culture, it refers to a way of thinking common to country and the nation, values and beliefs. Culture reflects the national and racial characteristics, it shows a national heritage, and determines their behavior. China has thousands of years of history, which accumulated in colorful culture and long history. However, the United States only has a few hundred years history. Hence, In the process of historical development, China and the United States has formed two different values and ways of thinking. As the influences with cultures, the business negotiation style have big differences.

Cultural differences will lead to cultural conflicts inevitably, especially when a huge difference happens between Eastern and Western cultures. To be honest, these unexpected failures often involve cultural factors. Therefore, to have a successful negotiation, negotiators should have a good understanding on culture and cultural differences. They"d better know how negotiations are affected by culture. Only in this way, the negotiators can predict courses and adjustment countermeasures to promote the success of issues. Therefore, studying the impact process of cultural negotiations is the need of social development, and has important practical significance.

This article is divided into three parts, firstly, this article will introduce the literature of Sino-US business negotiations. Secondly, it will study the impact on business negotiations. Finally, it will discuss how to deal with Sino-US cultural differences in the negotiation process properly.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Cultural differences

Different countries have different prospects. Certainly, different countries have their own customs and folk culture. China, compared to American cultural, has many different features including thinking mode, sense of time, “face” concept and etiquette, etc.

2.1.1 The difference of thinking mode

The difference of thinking mode between China and the United States is mainly reflected in the opposition of holistic thinking and individual thinking. Chinese culture focuses on the overall thinking, the whole thinking is meaning to observe and think about all the things in the world in accordance with the overall point of view, to analysis problems from the general starting point, to focus on thinking about the overall function, complex relationship and operation process of the whole thing. However, Chinese don"t focus on their internal structure.

Americans pay attention to individual thinking, they divided the mess into some small elements to carry out research one by one.

2.1.2 The difference of time view

Chinese time concept is different from that of the American. Chinese culture and wisdom are formed over thousands of years in history. There Chinese don"t look at the time as Americans do. Chinese like look everything in a long term, seem to take it leisurely. However, Americans especially cherish time, pay attention to time and efficiency. This is why Americans become the world"s economic power in several hundred years. In the American enterprise, departments at all levels have a clear responsibility, and they have specific division of labor. (Wan 46) Therefore, the negotiation of information collection and decision-making are relatively fast.

2.1.3 The difference of "face" concept

First, Chinese advocating the whole world as one community and everyone should be selfless, so they have harmonious interpersonal relationship. But Americans often take themselves as the center, they always take personal interests for the first place. And the American people"s interpersonal relationship is relatively indifferent to the Chinese people; Second, Chinese people don’t want to lose "face". In business activities, if you want to make a choice in the two, "face" and "interest", most Chinese people tend to choose “face"，but the US people will not hesitate to choose the "interests"; Third, Chinese like to stress "within the cylindrical side", while American stress "foreign square". It is precisely this "face" view makes Chinese people do not necessarily follow the principle of pre-work, they will make the appropriate adjustments follow the progress of the situation in order to achieve the desired objectives. In America, once the Americans have made the rules, they will be in strict accordance with the provisions of the implementation. No matter how big the difficult is, they will complete the scheduled target according to the rules.

2.1.4 Etiquette difference

The differences of Chinese and American etiquette are mainly embodied in the aspects of language habits, and this aspect will be divided into four small areas. First, the meaning of the language is different. For people who engage in business activities, the real meaning of English words should be mastered and used correctly. In order to avoid the laughing stock of external business activities or even causing misunderstandings and unhappiness. For example, Chinese believe that the dragon is a great and auspicious incarnation. Americans, however, believe that the dragon is a symbol of evil and cruelty. Second, the frequency of the use of respect and humility is different. Chinese commonly used Jingqian language, while Americans rarely use it. If a Chinese man is praised, he often say "you flatter me" or some other Jingqian language. But Americans will often say "thank you" to show his accept on others’ praise. Third, greeting frequency is different, Chinese more accustomed to greeting language. When they meet business partners, they will become very hospitable, and like to ask all sorts of questions. Through conversation, they can understand each other"s background, experience, personal preferences and so on. The collection of these materials helps to understand partners, which will be easier to put forward the most suitable business cooperation program. Americans rarely use the language of greeting. They take little care of the ways of commercial greetings and chatting. And they just pay attention to work efficiency. When they meet, just say hello to each other, hand warmly, do a simple introduction, and then will cut the theme. Because they think that time is money and success is due to efficiency; Forth, the style of speaking is different. Chinese businessmen speak more formal and serious in workplace, especially in formal business activities. While the American businessman likes to show his easy-going and sense of humor everywhere at any time.

2.2 Studies on Sino-US differences

With the deepening of Sino-US economic exchanges, intercultural business negotiation between China and the United States has become an inevitable process of economic cooperation. "Cross-cultural business negotiation is not only an economic activity, but also a cross-cultural communication." (He 21) "Different cultures determine different business negotiation styles, different style of business negotiations also reflect the different cultural backgrounds." (He 22)

Through reading a lot of literature, people can find that there are three main differences between Chinese and American negotiating styles. The main reason for these differences lies in the cultural differences between China and the United states. "Due to the different history and culture of China and the United States, the Chinese and American negotiators have a great difference in the way of thinking, values and legal concepts." (He 38) "Due to China and the US’s different cultural backgrounds, manners in the negotiations, life ways, habits and hobbies are all different." (Wan 46) "Negotiators from two different cultural backgrounds have different values and ways of thinking, which leads to different negotiating styles." (Pang 126)

It can be seen that currently scholars have different ideas about the factors which influenced Sino-US business negotiations, but they all put forward that cultural differences are the important factor affecting Sino-U.S. business negotiations. In recent years, many experts and scholars have done a lot of research to the differences of Sino-US business negotiators. So what are the differences in the end exist in Chinese and American negotiating styles? What are the reasons leading to the existence of these differences? What ways can help us overcome these cultural differences? According to the previous research, people can see that current scholars who’ve studied about the identification of Sino American business negotiating style factors, though somewhat different, have all raised that cultural difference is an important factor which affects Sino US negotiation style. Therefore, when studying the Sino US business negotiation style, we must pay attention to the study of the cultural background, in order to understand and overcome the differences in business negotiation style better, and to promote a healthy development of Sino US business relations.

3. Influences of Sino-US Cultural Differences in the Negotiations

Due to the influence of different cultures, the style of business negotiation between countries also has great different. Westerners tend to break down complex negotiations into smaller problems and then solve them in turn; But in many eastern cultures, the negotiation is adopted a holistic approach. Therefore, in international business negotiations, to improve the efficiency of the negotiation, it is very important to strengthen negotiation management and deal with problems in cultural differences for those business partners with different cultural backgrounds. In the practice of negotiation, many negotiators often have no understanding or attention to the important influence of culture on the way of negotiation. Some negotiators may have noticed the "different" or "obscure" negotiation ways in a foreign culture, but they do not think it is important. Some people think facts and data are universal and they blindly believe that foreign negotiation is to speak with facts and data. Similarly, when it comes to foreign countries, some negotiators will pay attention to the similarities between the two cultures and ignore their differences to maintain harmonious relations with each other. (Cao 326)

In business negotiations, if you do not attach importance to the differences of other side"s culture, it is easy to lead to lose in negotiations. After China join the WTO, it has become more and more frequent with the economic and trade exchanges between countries in the world. Gradually, negotiations are increasingly showing its status in social and economic life.

As a world economic power, the United States is an important trading partner of China. But the cultural differences between the two countries have a great influence on negotiations, so that talks cannot be carried out smoothly. So it is very necessary to study the influence of Chinese and American cultural differences on Sino US negotiation.

3.1 Negotiation process

Different communication methods because of different culture. In some places people choose to use a direct and simple way to talk with each other, but in other areas, people will use more complex way to talk. Americans don’t crisp or circle. Just because Americans have this kind of simply attitude, when negotiating with the Americans, one’s idea should be directly expressed, in other words, "yes" or "no" must be clear. When it comes to Chinese, people are very face saving, they do not want to say "no" to anybody or anything. They think it"s rude to refuse others, which will embarrass others, even make others be angry. So when negotiate with the Chinese businessman, try to express as gently as possible and avoid making an ultimatum. The impact of cultural differences on the negotiation process is also reflected in the non-language communication. There are great differences in the use of body language and action language, and the same action language can even convey the opposite message. In addition, everyone has their own private space, when others invade our private space, we will become extremely restless. But due to culture, the scope of this private space is different. Generally speaking, a person who emphasizes on individualism needs greater place than that on collectivism. For example, the talking distance between Americans is nearly 1m, but it is usually 0.5 ~ 1m for Chinese people. (Mu 15)

3.2 Negotiation method

Generally speaking, the negotiation has two ways, horizontal and vertical. Horizontal negotiation is to spread in landscape approach. You should list all the involved issues first, and then you should discuss the topics, at the same time, you will make some progress. Vertical negotiation means that after determining all the issues, you will discuss each issue in turn. In international business negotiations, American is the representative of the vertical negotiations who tend to start with specific terms. For American people, a kind of transaction process is actually a series of trade-offs and concessions for a series of specific terms. While Chinese people often have horizontal negotiations who tend to start with the general terms. For Chinese people, negotiation is a kind of process, in which all sides reach some consensus on the general terms first, then they will guide and determine the next talking process.

3.3 Negotiation decision

It is important to know how decisions are made and who each other in the negotiations has the right to make an evaluation. Culture is one of the important factors that influence the decision making. Decision making can be divided into two kinds: from- top- to- bottom and from- bottom- to -top. (Hu 177) The culture of the United States is straight into the subject, not equivocate. In the United States, people make decisions from top to bottom. The main person in charge of the negotiations holds all the power and energy to complete the task, so they can complete the negotiations as fast as they can; However, The Chinese culture is humility, paying attention to the interests of the group. In China, people emphases on joint participation and group decision-making, which leads that all members should agree and make decisions from bottom to top. So it takes a long time for Chinese to make a decision.

4. Suggestions for Sino-US Business Negotiation

International business negotiation process generally consists of 4 stages: First, greeting with others; Second, communicating with the other party negotiations about negotiation information; Third, proposing and try the best to persuade others; Finally, Two sides in the negotiations should make corresponding concessions and finally reach a consensus agreement. Due to the big cultural differences between China and the United States, when Chinese negotiate with Americans in an international business negotiation, the following suggestions would be helpful:

4.1 Correct greetings

Chinese negotiators should talk with the American on the table about something that has nothing to do with business, such as weather, travel, entertainment, sports, politics, etc. (Hen 148) When it comes to weather, we would better use: “Beautiful day，isn’t it? It looks like it is going to snow.” When discussing the news we often say;” Did you catch the news today? I heard on the radio today that they are finally going to start building the new bridge.” The Americans say some greetings before the negotiations to be friendly or polite, and most of the talk will be over in ten minutes, then they will enter the negotiation phase quickly. So Chinese negotiators should pay attention to control the time. Because Americans are straightforward, but Chinese are humility and subtle. If this difference is eliminated, communication will be more efficient and convenient, which will reduce a lot of trouble.

4.2 Communication on work-related information

Before the formal business negotiations, the all parties will introduce their staffs who are related to the work of the negotiations. In the United States, generally speaking, they should introduce young people to older people first, to introduce the low status to the high status, to introduce non-famous persons to those who have famous titles. However, in China, people often introduce older people to young people first, introduce the high status of the people to the low status, introduce famous people to those who don’t have a famous title.

Case: Chinese negotiators participated in business negotiations in America, and the United States President personally met everyone. Zhang Ming is the Chinese Negotiating company"s translation. In the introduction of staff, he introduced Chinese negotiators to US negotiating team leader: “Mr. Smith，he is CEO．”

Case analysis: Zhang Ming violated the introduction order of the Americans. He should introduce Chinese people to the United States CEO negotiations first. However, Zhang Ming, introduced Smith president who had a higher status to the Chinese negotiators in turn. It is obviously a kind of communication failure. And the word “he” is not a polite use in front of Mr. Smith.

Because of the cultural differences in different countries, social etiquette is also different. In order to avoid problems in the process of Sino-US business talks, the Chinese negotiators should note the way to introduce themselves and others when working with the exchange of information.

4.3 Making a proposal and a persuasion

In cross cultural business negotiation, the proposal has an important role to decide whether the two sides can reach an agreement. In English, when one want to make recommendations and proposals to the other, he often use "suggest" and "recommend".

For example: “We suggest that you can visit the factory.” To suggest is the process to convince and change others, which is the stakes of the negotiations. In China, the "controversy" content is relatively small in people"s proposed stage. In order to save face, they often choose the implicit and polite way, which will make them spend a lot of time and energy in exchange of information.

On the contrary，In American culture, people respect freedom, fair competition and equal value. The purpose of the negotiation is to put forward different opinions to find the problem and solve the problem quickly.

For example, we often see American businessmen get into fierce arguments because of some disagreement, just because they all want to convince others. The Americans are also easy to change the idea of negotiations, and sometimes it seems likely may be more childish compared to other cultures. (Xu 23). Americans used to talk to the point on the table, they hope the problem can be exposed, so that to solve the problem. Finally, they promote the negotiation from exchanges stage to persuasion stage, so as to promote the acceleration of the negotiation process.

4.4 Making concessions, reaching agreements

Americans have a strong logical thinking ability. They always know what the steps of doing a thing should be. Americans often use sequential decision making methods. This method is to decompose a large task into a series of small tasks. During the course of the negotiations, Americans will be divided into various details of the negotiations, and classify details according to different categories to discuss sequentially. They will make corresponding concessions and commitments in the negotiations. The final agreement is the sum of a series of small agreements. So Americans in the negotiation process will be arranged on details and crushed one by one. Each category has its own procedures and methods to solve the problem. In cross cultural business negotiations, China should pay great attention to the difference between the currency exchange rate and the weight of the goods.

5. Conclusion

International business negotiation is not just a simple business activity or the signing of a contract, it is a complex process on cultural differences between different countries. Different cultures give people different customs, habits, thinking modes and values. Accurately grasping other country’s language and customs in the cross cultural business negotiations is of great benefit to both sides’ talks. On the contrary, if these work is not in place, unimaginable adverse effects may happen, which will lead to deadlock or even break-down in negotiations. According to the previous studies on international business negotiations, it is not difficult to draw the following conclusion:

Firstly，Because cultural differences in international business negotiations have a very important impact, we must get our high attention. Only in this way can we guarantee the business negotiations move smoothly and occupy a favorable position in talks; Secondly，language cultural difference is a major problem in cross cultural business negotiation. We should understand the customs and language habits of the United States before we carried out cross-cultural business negotiation between China and the US. Try to reduce the difficulty of international business communication. So we should put ourselves to understand all aspects of culture in that country, and be fully aware of the impact it brings.

Works Cited

Casse, P.,S. Delo. Managing Intercultural Negotiations. Washington D,C: Sietar, 1991.

Foster, Dean Allen.Bargaining Across Cultures:How to Negotiate Business Successfully Anywhere in the World.Boston: Mc Graw-Hill, 1992.

Hendon, D.W., Hendon, R.A., Herbig, P. Cross-cultural Business Negotiations. London: Praeger

Publishers, 1999.

Moran,R.T.Q.Stripp,W.G.Dynamics of Successful International Business Negotiation.Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1991.

Tony Fang.Chinese Business Negotiating Style. California: Sage Publication, Inc., 1999. Tung, Rosalie L. U.S.China Trade Negotiations. New York: Pergamon Press Inc., 1982.

贺玲.《跨文化视角下的中美商务谈判研究》.大众商务，2009.

[Helin.” Sino American business negotiation research from the perspective of cross culture” Public commerce,2009]

林海.《文化差异对中美商务谈判的影响》.零陵学院学报,2005,(01).

[Linhai.” The influence of cultural differences on Sino US business negotiations” Journal of Lingling College, 2005,(01).]

刘媛媛.《从跨文化角度分析中美商务谈判的成败》.北京交通大学,2007.

[Liuyuanyuan,” Analysis of the success or failure of Sino US business negotiation from the perspective of cross culture” Beijing Jiaotong University,2007]

繆国毅. 《中美商业谈判风格比较》.华东经济管理,1993.

[Miuguoyi,” Comparison of Chinese and American business negotiation style” east china economic management,1993]

许力生.《跨文化交际英语教程》.上海：上海外语教育出版社,2004.

[Xuliseng,” Intercultural Communication English Course” ,Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press,2004]

吴晓创.《国际贸易谈判中的“时间观”》惠州学院学报(社会科学版),2003,(3).

[Wuxiaochuang,” Time view in international trade negotiations” Journal of Huizhou University (SOCIAL SCIENCE EDITION) 2003,(3).]

万宏阳.《从谈判风格论中美商务谈判的差异》. 湖北省社会主义学院报,2006.

[Wanhongyang,” On the differences between Chinese and American business negotiation from the negotiating style” Hubei Institute of socialism, 2006]

赵伟君.《中西文化冲突与我国跨文化商务谈判对策》.商业研究，2002,(22).

[Zhaoweijun,” The conflict between Chinese and Western culture and the Countermeasures of China"s cross cultural business negotiation” Business research, 2002,(22)]

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：26904字