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An Analysis of Intercultural Negotiations between the East and West

Cohen South
N8884102
Jan Gruenhagen
1632 words

Executive Summary:
This report provides an analysis and evaluation of an intercultural negotiation between USA’s Brown Casual Shoes and China’s Chung Sun Manufacturing, provides a literature review of a prominent theory from the field and suggests recommendation to improve the process of intercultural communication between these two countries and companies.

As the Case Study was identified as subpar negotiation, all issues from the Case Study were allocated into Intercultural, Verbal and Nonverbal.

Following this, Hofstede’s Cultural Model was introduced …show more content…

As per Chinese culture, the foreigner should always leave first when a meeting is finished (UONI, 2011). Mr Browns misunderstanding of this could have caused discomfort for the Chinese.
Mr Brown’s perception that the initial meetings with the Chinese would have resulted in a negotiation early was a fundamental misunderstanding – as he failed to realise that the Chinese often forge relationships with individuals before partaking in business (Goodman, 2013).

2 Intercultural Verbal Communication Issue
Although Mr Brown and his team participated in lots of small talk with Mr Deng, further small talk could be encouraged to avoid causing offence and giving the impression that the negotiators only care about time – and not forging a lasting relationship (UONI, 2011).
An additional verbal error made by Mr. Brown was his failure to hire a interpreter. In China, this is often viewed as a sign of disrespect for their culture (Fang & Faure, 2010). This lack of an interpreter and an overall lack of comprehension of English could have been the reason for the large amount of questions rather than the impression formulated by Mr. Brown that they were not serious about the business (World Business Culture, 2013). Furthermore, the fact that Mr Brown and his team didn’t make the effort to learn any Chinese at all for the negotiation might give off the impression that they are ethnocentric about their culture (Goodman, 2013).

3 Intercultural Nonverbal Verbal

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