Custom essays on In what ways might the American style of negotiations be misinterpreted in another culture?

Cross-cultural management plays an important part in negotiations among people of different nationalities. Sometimes misunderstandings may appear, and in this respect competitive strategy and cross-cultural management should be evaluated in the context of global changes (Deresky, 2003, p. 57). Misunderstanding during negotiations may appear due to the cultural differences that are observed on the following levels: language, non-verbal communication, system of managerial values, the process of thinking and decision-making (Graham, 1980, p. 45). The order of these factors plays an essential part, as problems become more subtle and therefore more difficult to solve. Thus, for example if one person speaks English and another speaks French, the American will be definitely misinterpreted. However it is not difficult to avoid this situation hiring the third person who speaks either English or French. Translation problems are not rare during international negotiations. If the languages of the participants of the negotiations are distant in linguistic meaning of this word, some problems will definitely arise. Nevertheless the problem is obvious and thus can be easily solved or even avoided.
Non-verbal communication can greatly influence the results of negotiations. The participants of negotiations can extract more information about the interlocutor, his thoughts and intentions not through his words but through his gestures, mimics and movements. Ray L. Birdwhistell states that two-thirds of the message is conveyed non-verbally (Crockett, 2007, p. 73). If, for instance, the French interlocutor constantly interrupts the American one, the latter may misinterpret it and get offended, if he is not aware of the fact that French
people are more impatient. Americans do not have a habit to interrupt, so they may be misinterpreted as inattentive or even ill-disposed towards the other interlocutor.
As to the managerial values (competitiveness, objectivity, punctuality and equality), they are strongly held by the major part of Americans during negotiations. That may also cause different misunderstandings. Americans prefer to make decisions based on hard, proven facts. Objectivity is extremely important for them, so the representatives of some other nations (Russian, for example) may easily misinterpret them. Besides, the representatives of other nations may be surprised at such features of American people as competitiveness and individualism. Geert Hofstede emphasized that Americans scored the highest among all the cultural groups on the individualism scale (Hofstede, 2001, p. 21). It especially concerns the representatives of Asian cultures, who are accustomed to have family business that involves the major part of the adult representatives of a family. These differences in the viewpoints may also become the reason of cultural misinterpretation between American people and people, who belong to other culture. Besides, American people are known to value their time more that anyone in the world. Sometimes someone may even speculate in this respect. However this may cause a lot of misunderstanding between the interlocutors, if the other partner is Russian or, for instance, Spanish.
As for the process of thinking and decision-making, American people also prefer to do it in their own way. Thus, they prefer to divide the task that is large into small parts. They consider it to be easier to discuss and to come to the proper solution, rather than try to grasp everything at once and lose some important details. That feature distinguishes them from the Asian people, who prefer to discuss everything at once and only then to make some conclusions.

Of course, it is very difficult to anticipate everything and read other people’s minds. It is almost impossible as all people are different not only due to their nationality but also because of the differences in viewpoints and attitude towards different things. Still the importance of cross-cultural study cannot be exaggerated in this aspect, as it is one of the most important studies that can give a clue as to how to gain a success in negotiations with Americans in particular and with many other nationalities in general.