| Rather than showing how American negotiators misunderstand, or can better accommodate to, the Japanese (the premise of much previous work in this area), this study accepts the perceptions of those Americans as constituting their own “truth.” Here the expertise of American negotiators is validated and accepted as defining the real-life context within which U.S.-Japan business deals occur and contractual relationships formed. Rather than presuming that a cultural anthropologist can tell negotiators how best to do their jobs, this limited exploratory study is designed to explore the reality within which they function. It is left to other experts in law and negotiation, who it is hoped will utilize this study, to extrapolate suggestions for the future.; The premise of this work is that “truth” exists somewhere between the viewer and the viewed and that it is through these perceptions that actors work to form new normative relationships. As a result, the form business and contractual relationships take are a function not just of the ‘national’ culture of the perceiver, but also of his or her profession. In other words, even as Americans are working together as negotiating teams and reacting to the Japanese, they simultaneously and continually negotiate their own power, legitimacy and autonomy vis a vis each other. Thus, in order to understand the context within which contractually regulated agreements occur, one must understand how all these divergent cultural, professional, legal, economic, and other elements come into play.; This study was restricted to the analysis of open-ended interviews with Americans who had taken part in the negotiation and management of long-term or “Relational Contracts” (partnerships, joint ventures, development deals, etc.) involving a high-degree of interaction. These perceptions were then differentiated by subject matter and the speaker's level of experience (knowledge of Japanese culture) and profession (business people, consultants, lawyers, engineers) to identify possible patterns. |
