文化差异对中美商务谈判的影响

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摘 要

随着我国经济的发展和世界贸易的显著增长，中美贸易蓬勃发展。国际商务谈判作为核心过程，正变得越来越普遍。但由于文化的差异，谈判双方难以驾驭复杂又高危的商业谈判。

中美双方的文化差异源于双方世界观、谈判方式、思考模式和社会结构的差异。这些社会差异给双方商务谈判带来困难，甚至障碍。如何使得中美跨文化商务谈判进行得更顺利、流畅，是摆在中美谈判者面前的问题，也受到了不少学者的关注。

本文以Geert Hofstede的文化维度理论作为基础理论框架，尝试对文化差异对中美商业贸易产生的影响进行比较研究。整篇文章可以分为五个章节。 第一章是简介，包含了背景、目的、意义和文章的框架结构；第二章对文化理论以及Geert Hofstede文化维度理论进行综述，还讨论了文化对商业贸易的总体影响。第三第四章是文章的主体。第三章从文化根源、个人主义与集体主义、权力距离、不确定性规避以及阳刚指数与阴柔指数这几个角度对比中美文化。第四章通过案例研究分析文化差异对中美商业谈判的影响。结尾总结了整个研究，并针对中美贸易中的中国商人和有意向进一步了解中国市场的美国人提出建议。

关键词： 商业谈判，文化差异，影响

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Ⅰ

English Abstract Ⅱ

Chinese Abstract Ⅲ

Table of Contents Ⅳ

List of Tables Ⅴ

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Objective of the Study 1

1.3 Significance of the Study 2

1.4 Layout of the Thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 What is Culture 4

2.1.1 Definition of Culture 4

2.1.2 Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Values 4

2.2 Impact of Culture on Business Negotiation 5

Chapter Three Comparison between Chinese and American Culture 6

3.1 Different Roots of Chinese and American Culture 6

3.2 Individualism vs. Collectivism 6

3.3 Power Distance 7

3.4 Uncertainty Avoidance 8

3.5 Masculinity vs. Femininity 9

Chapter Four Impact of Cultural Differences on Sino-US Business Negotiation: Case Studies 11

4.1 Case Study Ⅰ 11

4.2 Case Study Ⅱ 11

4.3 Case Study Ⅲ 12

Chapter Five Conclusion 14

References 15

List of Tables

Table 1. Percentile Ranks for Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions for the United States and China by Cultural Cluster 5

Table 2. Collectivism Index between Chinese and the United States 7

Table 3. Power Distance Index between Chinese and the United States 8

Table 4. Uncertainty Avoidance Index between Chinese and the United States 9

Table 5. Masculinity Index between Chinese and the United States 10

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

With the advancement of trade globalism, the trade among countries has become more and more frequent and business negotiations are a pivotal part of the trade. All over the world, there always exist conflicts and confrontations among individuals, groups and countries because of the huge gap between their thinking, feeling and working. Therefore, to solve the problems effectively worldwide, it is necessary to understand these differences.

Business negotiation is not a process of pursuing own needs, but a process of continuously adjusting each other’s needs striving for reaching an agreement although their opinions and interests might not match. There are many factors that contribute to the problems in the business negotiations like education, politics, economic factors, cultural differences and so on, among which, cultural differences play a significant role in the practical operation of business negotiations.

China, the biggest developing country, and the U.S., the biggest developed country in the world have ever-increasing business relationships. The frequent business activities lead to the rapid growth of communication, especially business negotiations. As a result, scholars are now paying more attention to details so as to have a better understanding of the different cultural elements.

1.2 Objective of the Study

This is one of the important factors leading to a more cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural study promotes our communication with other cultures, and international business negotiations attract great attention in the field of cross cultural communication.

Every person has their own unique way of living, thinking and feeling, which is cultivated during their whole life. This is what Geert Hofstede defined as mental programs. However, although great differences exist in people’s mind, we can still follow some rules, which can be a basis for people to understand each other. The purpose of this thesis is to help people around the world to deal with a different cultural context in business negotiations.

As people know, each country has its own culture, and each culture is different from others. Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another (Hofstede, 1991). Individuals’ behaviors depend on their experience directly, while experience comes from the relationship between surroundings and individuals themselves. People live as society members rather than just as individuals. Moreover, the duration of a society far exceeds that of a life, so trying to understand the society is a good way to know more about business negotiators. That’s to say, a better understanding of the culture of a society benefits the business negotiations between two companies.

1.3 Significance of the Study

This thesis will adopt three cases of Sino-US business negotiations. The reasons why the two countries are chosen as the research targets are the following. First, they have completely different religious beliefs which exert a subtle influence on citizens. Research on the two cultures contribute to promoting the mutual understanding between the East and the West. The United States is a representative of western culture while China stands for eastern culture. Second, China has great market potentials as the largest developing country and many American companies are flourishing into China. Meanwhile, Chinese businessmen are emerging into the USA, the largest developed country.

The thesis, through case studies, tries to explore the cultural differences that can leave deep impacts on the Sino-US business negotiations and to offer valuable suggestions for those negotiators. At last, the author makes conclusions to this research and proposes limitations and future research direction. It is my hope that the thesis will help to bridge up the gap between business negotiators from China and the USA.

1.4 Layout of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the background, objective, significance and layout of the study. Chapter 2 reviews briefly the researches on culture, especially Geert Hofstede’s Cultures and Organizations, and talks about the impacts culture have on business negotiations. Based on the 5 dimensions from Cultural and Organizations, Chapter 3 analyzes the differences between Chinese and American Culture, including different roots of Chinese and American culture, individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity vs. femininity. In chapter 4, impacts of cultural differences on Sino-US business negotiation are analyzed by case studies. The last chapter concludes the study by summarizing the findings and offering suggestions to businessmen from China that are going to negotiate with those from the USA. At the same time, American business negotiators who want to get into the Chinese market can also gain insight here.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 What is Culture

2.1.1 Definition of Culture

The modern term “culture” originates from “cultura”, a Latin word, but is not introduced into publications until middle of the 19^th century. Culture was defined as “the total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, institutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generations in an identifiable group of people.” (Edward Hall, 1977) Culture is distinguished into subjective culture and objective culture. (Triandis, 1994)

Culture is complex and dynamic, including both material and spiritual culture. Every aspect in our daily life actually reflects culture. Because each country has its unique culture, culture provides insights into a different society. From negotiators’ perspectives, culture affects the values and behaviors of all the people who live in the particular environment. It works as a shared system of values, ethics and thinking modes (Triandis, 2000).

2.1.2 Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Values

From 1970s, countries have been fighting each other in the field of economy, so many scholars tended to conduct their researches in cross-cultural communications. Meanwhile, the mainstream of these researches was empirical research. The representative is a Dutch scholar Geert Hofstede. Hofstede, as a human resource manager in IBM, once led a research project on cultural differences in over 70 subsidiaries of IBM all over the world. His works divided cultural differences into 6 dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, long-term orientation and indulgence. His study focused on personal values when people were in certain working settings.

The huge amount of data provides great support to Hofstede’s theory framework. People can analyze and understand countries’ cultural differences to solve cultural conflicts based on the 6 dimensions. These dimensions show meaningful relationships with important demographic, geographic, economic and political national indicators (Triandis, 1982).

The table below presents Hofstede’s cultural dimensions related to the United States and China. They can further provide a better understanding of how the two countries differ from each other from culture’s perspective.

Table1: Percentile Ranks for Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions for the United States and China by Cultural Cluster

Source: https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/

2.2 Impacts of Culture on Business Negotiation

All the participants in a business negotiation stand for benefits of different countries, districts and individuals. They each have totally different social culture and economic background. The more elements get involved, the more complex business negotiations would become. The material culture, social structure, educational system, languages, religious beliefs and values of a country or a district exert great influence on the corporations. And people living in different cultures differ from each other in their lifestyles, consumer tendency and product design and so on. All these aspects mentioned here should be taken into consideration in business negotiations.

The way in which culture influences business negotiations depend on various aspects. For example, what is the goal of negotiation? Signing contracts or building relationships? What is the negotiating attitude? Win-lose or win-win? What is the personal style, formal or casual? What is communicative style, straightforward or euphemistic? Do the negotiators prefer a detailed agreement or a general one?

Chapter Three Comparison between Chinese and American Culture

3.1 Different Roots of Chinese and American Cultures

It is commonly believed that the United States and China have different cultures because their historical backgrounds and social developments vary.

Philosophy is of paramount importance to culture development. Chinese prefer a comprehensive way of thinking which actually comes from traditional culture. This kind of thinking mode went across the Book of Changes, Confucianism and Taoism, Cosmism and Neo Confucianism. In the process of business negotiations, Chinese negotiators tend to determine the principals first and details second. Americans prefer linear thinking. Just like other westerners, Americans’ thinking mode actually originates from ancient Greek philosophy. With the development of science and technology, western people value logics even more. They usually pay great attention to details so they prefer to begin discussing a contract with details.

The varied cultures are also influenced by natural environment. Different natural environments have influence on people’s living styles, which in turn have influence on people’s customs and behaviors. China is influenced by land culture and small-scale peasant economy. People value peace and harmony. On the contrary, Greek culture, the origin of the United States’ culture, is ocean culture. People there are curious.

3.2 Individualism vs. Collectivism

The key to understanding the differences between negotiating goals is to realize the individualism and collectivism. Collectivism in Chinese culture has much to do with Confucianism. The central ideas of Confucianism are kindness and righteousness. To be kind requires people to get involved in the society and to be righteous asks people to behave correctly. So maintaining good social relationships is important to Chinese negotiators.

Individualism is nucleus in American culture, which is related to their religious belief. Individualism started from the first day European immigrants stepped on the America continent. The historical root of individualism is Protestantism. Then, Westward Movement, Industry Movement and Immigration Waves promoted individualism.

Table2: Collectivism Index between Chinese and the United States

Source: https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/

Based on the table above, individualism index in China is 20, while that in the United States is 91. The two values differ the most. However, the table above does not show whether Americans lack team spirit or Chinese lack personal goals. The difference only represents the choice people may make when they face conflicts between personal benefits and collective benefits. Chinese see themselves as group members and give priority to the groups. In comparison, Americans discuss openly and directly as individuals.

In China, people are willing to sacrifice their time for work to achieve success as a member of the group, which is related to collectivism. On the contrary, Americans emphasize success as individuals because they insist on individualism.

3.3 Power Distance

Power distance means the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally (Hofstede 1997).

Table3: Power Distance Index between Chinese and the United States

Source: https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/

We can notice from the table above that Chinese society is one with higher power distance. The higher value in power distance means Chinese have a formal style of interaction. Chinese prefer to build relationship based on status or title. And the higher power distance the country had, the harder inferiors can raise an objection. On the contrary, the lower, the easier. So Chinese care less about the inequality existed in the society.

The Americans are in a low power distance culture. Society with low power distance usually lacks the sense of hierarchy in communication and takes formalities as a barrier to build relationship. So the American negotiators have a much more informal style. They feel comfortable and believe this kind of style demonstrates their sincerity. The American society weakens the concept of hierarchy. Also, the American business society is based on contracts, bringing equality to every aspect of social life and thus leads to the lower power distance.

3.4 Uncertainty Avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance is a society’s tolerance for uncertainty.

Table4: Uncertainty Avoidance Index between Chinese and the United States

Source: https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/

According to Hofstede’s cultural value theory, uncertainty avoidance index in China is 30 while that in the United States is 46. The difference between the two values is small, but Hofstede’s explanation is of great difference.

Chinese are willing to accept vague words which make westerners unable to understand the true meaning. There are several reasons why Chinese people prefer vague language. One is Chinese people value harmony very much, so they will try to reduce the harm to others caused by direct expressions. The other one is that Chinese people want to reduce as many unexpected results as possible.

Compared to Chinese, American people will make detailed and complex rules and regulations to avoid uncertain elements in order to protect individual’s benefits.

3.5 Masculinity vs. Femininity

Masculinity is the extent to which the use of force is endorsed socially (Hofstede, 1984).

Table5: Masculinity Index between Chinese and the United States

Source: https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-hofstede/6d-model-of-national-culture/

Based on the table, the masculinity value in China is 66, while that in the United States is 62. The two countries are both success-oriented. In this kind of society, gender roles are distinct and men are encouraged to be brave and ambitious. The masculinity index is also called achievement-relationship index to avoid sexism (Rouse, 2002).

Chapter Four Impact of Cultural Differences on Sino-US Business Negotiation: Case Studies

4.1 Case Study Ⅰ

In this case, China National Tobacco Corporation and an American company called Celanese who produced industrial chemicals conducted a business negotiation trying to establish joint ventures.

In the first period, the problems mostly existed in the differences in communication styles, language usage and legal requirements. Chinese insisted on making the outline first and details later which was completely the other way in Americans opinions. Chinese team valued the building of a friendly and harmonious relationship while the American team required that both the groups adopt the attitude of open and straightforward. Also, the Chinese team opposed to getting lawyers involved in this negotiation. In the second period, the two groups had several conflicts when they were in the process of drawing up the agreement. Members in the American team didn’t hesitate to raise objections, which was not acceptable to Chinese. In the third period, Chinese members did not keep the time, used dialects in meetings and so on. American businessmen were not used to this kind of business negotiation.

All these problems mentioned above show the differences between Chinese and American in negotiation goals, styles and attitudes, sensitivity to time, negotiation format and the degree to which people took risks.

There is no denying that the two teams got trapped because of cultural conflicts. However, they tried to solve those problems using communications.

4.2 Case Study Ⅱ

In the 1980s, Chinese Ministry of Culture and some US cities made a contract to exhibit Chinese archeological treasures in America. The two negotiating teams tried to find a better insurance company to insure the exhibition. The Chinese insisted on working with the Chinese People’s Insurance Company which promised to provide insurance of 2 million dollars. The US negotiators thought the So-and-so’s Company offered a 1.5 million dollar insurance policy. American people thought the later would be a better deal. However, Chinese negotiators had to follow their superiority’s instructions. At last, the American team persuaded the Chinese team to adopt their suggestions.

Later, the American chief negotiator commented on the negotiation saying that, in the west, people would insist on dealing with the same problem without dropping. In China, whenever people meet difficulties, they would drop them but come back to resolve them later. The two negotiators would give a bit of ground so you can make progress.

This case illustrates the contrast between the resolutions adopted by the American and Chinese negotiators. The Chinese negotiation team preferred to postpone the meeting schedule and turn to higher authority for help to resolve the problems rather than making decisions themselves. So, it was inevitable to face the delays on the Chinese side.

The American team tended to lay all the problems on the tables to deal with them directly and efficiently. Moreover, the side of the Chinese made a concession as a disguise gesture to attract the American side to make some concessions as well.

In this case, we can see that China has higher power distance than the United States. When the negotiation came across a problem, the Chinese negotiators said that they wanted to wait for their higher authorities to make decisions and they chose to delay discussion and shift to minor problems. On the contrary, the American negotiators tried to figure out a better choice.

4.3 Case Study Ⅲ

The president and the marketing director of Canwell, an American manufacturer of wallpaper printing equipment visited a Chinese factory trying to conduct a business negotiation on a deal to sell wallpaper production machine. The whole Chinese negotiation team offered comfortable accommodation, wonderful banquet and even sightseeing around, which greatly pleased the two American representatives. On the contrary, the American team members were eager to begin the discussion as soon as possible.

At first, the American representatives thought the process, although very slow, must be successful. But in the following meetings, the two American negotiators were asked to explain the details. Then the problem arose. The Chinese team found several discrepancies between the descriptions given by the former American manufacturing directors and the two representatives, so they thought they were given inaccurate information. From the American representatives’ opinions, they both were not experts.

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