Negotiations and Cross-cultural Approaches

Negotiations and Cross-cultural Approaches

            The enormous growth of global businesses in today’s world necessitates the need for companies to use cross-cultural communication in their businesses. Comprehending and using cross-cultural communication is crucial for any business that has a diverse staff or is arranging to engage in global business. This kind of communication entails appreciating how individuals from various cultures communicate, speak, and their perception of the world. During this era where every company has a diverse workforce, there is essence of cross-cultural communication helps in comprehending different beliefs, business customs, and communication strategies.  Several factors may affect cross-cultural communication which include power distance, nonverbal differences, language differences, low-context culture, and high-context culture.

During a face to face meeting with my team representatives from both countries, cultural variables especially the high and low context would affect the communication.  Since the other participants are from china and Mexico, both of whom have high context, understanding the context would help in communicating effectively (Manrai, Manrai, Lascu, & Friedeborn, 2019). Anthropologist Edward T. Hall explains high-context culture as being a communication that largely on circumstantial elements such as people’s relationship, tone of the voice, the status of an individual, and body language. However, the elements are not openly affirmed.

People from high-context cultures tend to have close associations that endure for long periods (Oliver, 2016). Due to the many years of interacting, people tend to understand the rules, how to behave, and how to think.

To ensure that there is effective communication, I have to understand what I am likely to find out when transacting business with people from high-context culture. Misunderstanding when sharing information due to the differences in culture as any party can misinterpret some elements such as gestures. The team participants from the high-context culture are likely not to give out lots of information. This is because they have to develop trust first before transacting business with my company. Thus, there is a high demand for loyalty and long term relationships. There is need to be very keen during the meeting as they provide huge amounts of information through non-verbal means such as facial expressions, pauses, and gestures.

In low-context culture such as in the United States, passing of information is through explicit communication.  In this context, association are normally for a short period, where they start and end quickly. Individual’s identity relies on themselves and their achievements. During an interactions, there is little attention on nonverbal elements (McKay‐Semmler, 2017). People can explicitly express their opinions and ideas in verbal messages. In territoriality aspect, confidentiality is crucial hence people tend to stand or sit far apart. They can also make changes quickly on the scheduled events increasing the rate of temporality. During learning, there is utilization of one source where reasoning moves from specific to general (Manrai, Manrai, Lascu, & Friedeborn, 2019). Understanding concepts relies on frank explanations and directions.

Though cross-cultural communication offers room for global business and prosperity, various barriers in cultural diversity may affect it leading to unpleasant consequences. Ethnocentrism is a major factor where people tend to compare other cultures with their own culture and believe that their culture is the only right one (Wei, 2019). Stereotyping is also an issue as individuals depend on overgeneralized clichés on various cultures (Wei, 2019). However, it is not possible to predict a person’s behavior as people are unique.to avoid verbal and nonverbal misinterpretation, I should educate the team participants about cross-cultural communication and differences that are likely to arise when exchanging information.

By understanding various cultures, cross-cultural communication is the best strategy to use in global businesses. Participants involved in the business are likely to be more comfortable and productive as they understand each other.

 

 

References

Manrai, L. A., Manrai, A. K., Lascu, D., & Friedeborn, S. (2019). Determinants and effects of cultural context: A review, conceptual model, and propositions. Journal of Global Marketing, 32(2), 67-82.

McKay‐Semmler, K. L. (2017). High‐and Low‐Context Cultures. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, 1-5.

Oliver, C. (2016). From Class to Culture: Restricted/Elaborated Codes vs. High/Low-context Communication in Basil Bernstein and Edward T. Hall. 上智大学短期大学部紀要= Sophia University Junior College Division faculty journal, (37), 73-83.

Wei, X. (2019, December). Research on Intercultural Communication Barriers Based on the Differences Between Chinese and Western Rhetoric. In 6th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2019) (pp. 467-470). Atlantis Press.