East meets West: Negotiating interculturally

Along with the prospects of success and benefits, negotiations in any business environment bear definite risks. They require thorough preparation, patience, time, and flexibility. Negotiating with people from different cultures might sometimes feel like sitting at a poker table, with all participants following their own rules, which remain mysterious for the rest. The result of this game is obvious: Pretty soon, both parties will be frustrated and confused.

Text by Elena Groznaya

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East meets West: Negotiating interculturally

Research shows that around 70 percent of intercultural negotiations fail not simply due to technical difficulties – such as the lack of adequate preparation and planning, participants’ involvement, etc. – but rather by culturally-conditioned factors. Even when both parties speak the same language (mostly English in the present-day business environment), discuss the same topic and share basically the same interests, all this appears to be insufficient to really understand each other and to come to the appropriate conclusions for both sides.

Intercultural communication, and hence intercultural negotiations, requires a bit of so-called cultural sensitivity. This does not simply include appropriate greetings, table manners, dress and business card etiquette, etc. Real intercultural sensitivity requires understanding of thought patterns, hierarchy of values and relativity of what “the right ...