Impacts of cultural differences on international business negotiation

Abstract
With political and economic globalization, international trade is accelerating, and the business negotiation is becoming more and more frequent. However, because of the cultural differences in different nations or regions, some unnecessary misunderstandings between negotiators frequently appear, which influences the business negotiation process and even the outcomes of negotiation. As aresult, studying the cultural differences has become an indispensable part in business negotiation.
At first, the thesis introduces the cultural differences and the causes leading to the differences, and then deals with the impacts of cultural differences on international business negotiation from five aspects: communication process, thinking pattern, negotiation structure, negotiation style anddecision-making process. At last, the thesis gives some reasonable suggestions to negotiators on how to make a cross-cultural business negotiation. The objective is to cultivate negotiator’s cross-cultural awareness and ability, to improve negotiator’s comprehensive ability of language, and to make business negotiation successful.
Keywords cultural difference，international businessnegotiation，impacts
Contents
1 Introduction……………………………………………
2 Cultural Differences ………………………………
2.1 The Definition of Culture………………………
2.2 Causes of Cultural Differences ………………
3 Impacts of Cultural Differences
on International Business Negotiation……………
3.1 Communication Process……………………………
3.2 Thinking Pattern……………………………………
3.3 Negotiation Structure……………………………
3.4 NegotiationStyle…………………………………
3.5 Decision-making Process…………………………
4 Recommendations for Chinese negotiators………
4.1 Preparation for Negotiation……………………
4.2 Cultivation of Cross-cultural Awareness……
4.3 Trade-off Strategy…………………………………
Conclusion…………………………………………………
Acknowledgements…………………………………………
References…………………………………………………

1 Introduction
Under the economic globalization tendency, business negotiation has more and more frequentlyappeared in the international and intercultural business environment in recent years. Cultural difference may be one of the most important factors contributing to the international business negotiation. It is well-known that different countries have different cultures. Consequently, cultural difference appears, and it can have a great impact on the whole international business negotiation. Thegreater the differences are, the greater the barriers of communication, and the more likely the failure of the negotiation is. To negotiate successfully, cultural differences between the concerned parties must be identified and bridged.
The impacts of cultural differences on international business negotiation are so essential that, so far, there are many people who study the subject, such as“Intercultural Negotiation in International Business” (Salacuse, 1999), “Cultural Differences in International Negotiating” (Gulbro, 1998), “Cultural Factors Influencing International Business Negotiation” (Zhou Juanmei, 2003), “What is Culture? Anyway. English Readings of International Business Culture” (Qi Meilin, 2004) and so on. Domestically, the study of negotiation usually focuses on the strategicdimension of the negotiation progress and on business relationships between the concerned parties, tactics, bargaining strategies, contingency positions and so on (Wang Qingnan, 2006; Wang Yuping, 2004).
However, what makes someone a good negotiator in one culture may not work well in another. People tend to interpret and judge their negotiation opponents on the basis of their own culturalbackground and not take cultural differences seriously. In fact, understanding the impacts of cultural differences on the international business negotiation can give a good help to negotiators.
This thesis is mainly a comparative study of impacts of eastern and western cultural differences on the international business negotiation. The objective is to improve the knowledge...