Japanese and american negotiators: overcoming cultural barriers to understanding

Japanese and American negotiators: Overcoming cultural barriers to understanding

Negotiating: Japan US
Styles • Collectivism
• Hierarchy • Individualism
• Egalitarianism
Strategies •Indirectly communication
• More Attention to power relationships • Directly communication
• Less attention to power relationships
Techniques • Less Information sharing
• Weak BATNA • Information sharing
•Strong BATNA

The differences between countries affect in every aspect of life, like the way of interaction of negotiators while they are negotiating with negotiators of other countries. Thenegotiators of each country that differs in culture, language, beliefs, etc have their specific styles, strategies and techniques to negotiate. The negotiators of Japan and the US are an example of them.In negotiating styles could be found collectivism versus individualism. In collectivism cultures such as Japan, the definition of self and personal goals is highly interdependent with groupmembership and the social obligations are very common. In the other hand there are individualistic cultures such as the U.S., where the definition of self is independent of group membership, goals may beindependent from the group, and emphasis is given to satisfying personal needs over social obligations. Therefore, individualistic negotiators may be more likely to emphasize self interest when enteringinto negotiations. Negotiations between Japanese and US negotiator could turn interesting while the group of US negotiators expose their individual work; the group of Japanese negotiators is representedfor one person that introduces the goals of all the team in collaboration.

Another style in negotiations is the hierarchy versus egalitarianism. In a hierarchical culture such as Japan, power isassociated with a party’s status in the social structure and generally may be viewed as fixed across negotiations. However, in an egalitarian culture such as the U.S., power differences are less...