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Culture-Based Negotiation Styles
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In an anonymous article, a Japanese writer describes United States negotiators as hard to understand. One of the reasons for this, we are told, is because "unlike Japanese, the Americans are not racially or culturally homogenous."[1] While it is difficult to characterize any national or cultural approach to negotiation, generalizations are frequently drawn. These generalizations are helpful to the extent that the reader remembers that they are only guides, not recipes. Any generalization holds true or not depending on many contextual factors including time, setting, situation, stakes, history between the parties, nature of the issue, individual preferences, interpersonal dynamics and mood. Any generalization will apply to some members of a group some of the time. This is best seen by considering generalizations about groups to which you belong. If you hear that women or men tend to negotiate in this way, or Americans in another way, what effect does it have on you as a member of these groups? If you want to answer, "Actually, it depends," you are among the majority, for most of us resist easy categorization and broad classifications. At the same time, it can be useful to back up and attempt to see ourselves and others from a distance so that the patterns and habits that define what is "normal" in negotiation can be examined for what they are: culturally bound and culturally defined common sense. In this essay, some generalizations about cultural and national approaches to negotiation will be outlined. These may help negotiators and mediators prepare for negotiations by raising the kinds of differences that occur across cultures, and pointing out possible pitfalls of lack of attention to cultural factors. They should be taken as a series of starting points rather than definitive descriptions, since cultural groups are too diverse and changing contexts too influential to be described reliably. Before outlining these generalizations, a caveat: most of the ways of studying culture, communication, and negotiation are derived largely from Western concepts. When a U.S. or Western European instrument to measure assertiveness in negotiation is translated into Japanese, for example, it retains Western assumptions about the nature of assertiveness. A Japanese idea of assertiveness that included avoidance as an adaptive and appropriate strategy could be easily missed, labeled as unassertive because of cultural assumptions about the natures of assertion and avoidance. Because of the lack of good studies that take an intercultural approach (using a variety of starting points and currencies in developing the research itself and a multicultural team to carry it out), the generalizations that follow are limited. More research is being done on culture-specific approaches by insiders of various non-Western cultures, and some intercultural research is also being conducted -- these should be carefully examined as they become available.
Cultural Approaches to Negotiation
In this section, various ways of analyzing cultural differences will be discussed as they relate to negotiation. The analytical tools come from the work of several well-known intercultural experts, including Hofstede, Hall, Kluckholn, Strodtbeck, and Carbaugh.[3] It must be emphasized that there is no one right approach to negotiations. There are only effective and less effective approaches, and these vary according to many contextual factors (See Culture and Conflict Resolution, Cultural and Worldview Frames, Cross-Cultural Communication, and/or Communication Tools for Understanding Cultural Differences). As negotiators understand that their counterparts may be seeing things very differently, they will be less likely to make negative judgments and more likely to make progress in negotiations.
Time Orientations
Two different orientations to time exist across the world: monchronic and polychronic. Monochronic approaches to time are linear, sequential and involve focusing on one thing at a time. These approaches are most common in the European-influenced cultures of the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia. Japanese people also tend toward this end of the time continuum. Polychronic orientations to time involve simultaneous occurrences of many things and the involvement of many people. The time it takes to complete an interaction is elastic, and more important than any schedule. This orientation is most common in Mediterranean and Latin cultures including France, Italy, Greece, and Mexico, as well as some Eastern and African cultures.
Negotiators from polychronic cultures tend to
Negotiators from monochronic cultures tend to
Another dimension of time relevant to negotiations is the focus on past, present, or future. Cultures like Iran, India, and the Far East are categorized by Carbaugh as past-oriented. The United States, he indicates, tends to be oriented to the present and the near-future. Latin America leans toward both present and past orientations. As detailed in other essays, indigenous people in North America combine a past- and future-oriented approach to time that stretches seven generations forward and back. Negotiators focused on the present should be mindful that others may see the past or the distant future as part of the present. Negotiators for whom time stretches into the past or the future may need to remember that a present orientation can bring about needed change.
Space Orientations
Space orientations differ across cultures. They have to do with territory, divisions between private and public, comfortable personal distance, comfort or lack of comfort with physical touch and contact, and expectations about where and how contact will take place. In Northern European countries, personal space is much larger than in Southern European countries. For a German or a Swedish person, for example, the Italians or the Greeks get too close. An American etiquette manual advises this about personal space: "When you meet someone, don't stand too close. (Remember the angry expression, "Stay out of my face!") An uncomfortable closeness is very annoying to the other person, so keep your physical distance, or he'll have to keep backing off from you. A minimum of two feet away from the other person will do it."[4] Certain cultures, including Mediterranean, Arab, and Latin American, are more tactile and allow more touching. Asian, indigenous American, Canadian, and U.S. cultures tend to discourage touching outside of intimate situations. Certain cultures allow cross-gender touching, including the United States, while same-gender touching is less acceptable. These rules change in Japan, where women are frequently seen holding hands, but not men. In the Mediterranean, it is common to see men holding hands or touching in public, but not women. Greeting rituals fit with these patterns, so awareness of local norms is important for negotiators. Space also relates to comfort with eye contact and attributions related to eye contact or lack of eye contact. In United States and Canadian dominant culture settings as well as many Arab cultures, eye contact is taken as a sign of reliability and trustworthiness. In North American indigenous settings, eye contact may be seen as disrespectful and inappropriate. Similarly, in Asian settings, looking down is usually interpreted as a sign of respect. Beyond these generalizations is a great deal of complexity. Lederach observes, for example, that in Central America, a slight movement of the eyes may indicate embarrassment, showing respect, or disagreement."[5] Seating arrangements for negotiations should take norms for space into account. In general, Americans tend to talk with people seated opposite them, or at an angle. For the Chinese, these arrangements may lead them to feel alienated and uneasy. They may prefer to converse while sitting side by side. There are large differences in spatial preferences according to gender, age, generation, socioeconomic class, and context. These differences vary by group, but should be considered in any exploration of space as a variable in negotiations. Nonverbal Communication Closely related to notions of space is nonverbal communication. In intercultural studies, Japanese negotiators have been observed to use the most silence, Americans a moderate amount, and Brazilians almost none at all.[6] Touching may convey closeness in some contexts and create offense in others. For example, in Mexico, a hug may reliably communicate the development of a trusting relationship, while a German negotiator might experience a hug as inappropriately intimate.[7] Facial gazing, or looking directly into the face of a negotiating counterpart, is more common in Brazil than the United States, and even more infrequent in Japan.
Power Distance Geert Hofstede is an organizational anthropologist from the Netherlands who did his research within large, multinational corporations. It should be applied to negotiations outside commercial settings with care, but it is useful to look at it because of the dimensions of difference he identified across national cultures. Hofstede uses the idea of power distance to describe the degree of deference and acceptance of unequal power between people.Cultures where there is a comfort with high power distance are those where some people are considered superior to others because of their social status, gender, race, age, education, birth, personal achievements, family background or other factors. Cultures with low power distance tend to assume equality among people, and focus more on earned status than ascribed status. Generally, the more unequally wealth is distributed, the higher will be the power distance in any national setting. According to Hofstede, national cultures with a high power distance include Arab countries, Guatemala, Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, and India. Negotiators from these countries tend to be comfortable with
Countries with a low power distance include Austria, Denmark, Israel, New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Britain, and Germany. Negotiators from these countries tend to be comfortable with
Uncertainty AvoidanceAnother of Hofstede's categories has to do with the way national cultures relate to uncertainty and ambiguity, and therefore, how well they may adapt to change. Generally, countries that show the most discomfort with ambiguity and uncertainty include Arab, Muslim, and traditional African countries, where high value is placed on conformity and safety, risk avoidance, and reliance on formal rules and rituals. Trust tends to be vested only in close family and friends. It may be difficult for outsider negotiators to establish relationships of confidence and trust with members of these national cultures. Hofstede identified the United States, Scandinavia, and Singapore as having a higher tolerance for uncertainty. Members of these national cultures tend to value risk-taking, problem-solving, flat organizational structures, and tolerance for ambiguity. It may be easier for outsiders to establish trusting relationships with negotiating partners in these cultural contexts. Masculinity-FemininityHofstede used the terms masculinity and femininity to refer to the degree to which a culture values assertiveness or nurturing and social support. The terms also refer to the degree to which socially prescribed roles operate for men and women. Hofstede rated countries and regions such as Japan and Latin America as preferring values of assertiveness, task-orientation, and achievement. In these cultures, there tend to be more rigid gender roles and "live to work" orientations. In countries and regions rated feminine such as Scandinavia, Thailand, and Portugal, values of cooperation, nurturing, and relationship solidarity with those less fortunate prevail, and the ethic is more one of "work to live." Of course, it is important to remember that associations with gender vary greatly across cultures, so that elements considered masculine in one culture might be considered feminine in another. Negotiators may find it useful to consider the way gender roles play out in the cultural contexts of their negotiating partners.
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