An Analysis Of Nonverbal Communication In Intercultural Business Negotiation

In the past 20 years, business negotiation has been a much debated research topic, especially in applied linguistics and in communication science, whereas nonverbal components of intercultural communication, which are crucial to success in business, have not been given enough attention.As there is a tendency for every cultural group to believe that their own nonverbal behavior is universally correct, misunderstandings , even conflicts can arise easily during negotiations . This paper tries to focus on these cultural clashes, in order to show how the functions of nonverbal communication, such as uttering emotions, showing personal attitudes, giving information on personality, are to be observed in intercultural business encounters, so as to increase general awareness of the whole nonverbal side of the communication process, as well as to set up a database for further research.After a survey of some trends on business communication especially concentrating on the results of research by Hofstede, a survey of research on nonverbal communication will be given. Both aspects will be linked in an analysis of a video-recorded business negotiation. The analysis may lead to some essential hypotheses for further research and to some preliminary conclusions concerning the functions of nonverbal communication in business negotiations with special emphasis on the expression of emotions.The videotaped business negotiation used in this paper is based on the Kelley-game. The Kelley- game was developed by H. H. Kelley in the United States in the mid sixties and has since the been widely used, especially throughout the USA, for empirical analyses of business negotiations. It seems to be a suitable medium for the disclosure of nonverbal and pragmatics, because the different levels of discourse involved show up. The validity of the use of the Kelley-game or of any other simulation for analytical purposes is of course questionable. One major aspect is: business companies normally do not accept observers when negotiations are carried on and prices are discussed for confidential reasons. Furthermore, onlookers may present a psychological blockage. Thus, simulations are not necessarily mere games played without seriousness, but they can count as "quasi-authentic", where interaction is artificially arranged but where inside this interaction natural communication develops. Another argument for the use of a simulation (the Kelley-game)is that it is quite simply structured but the outcomes are not necessarily so.Finally, it has to be added that the different enactments become comparable and can be used for an outline of the negotiating strategies of different national and /or cultural groups. This comparability could never be encountered when analyzing "real life" negotiations because they would all start from different preconditions.This study is a very first, still intuitive interpretation of one video-recording and as a trial exercise it is of course far from being completed. Still, these first tentative results nevertheless show that it is legitimate to do further research .A lot of questions remain undiscussed, more elaborate information are needed, but already the present analysis may contribute to making negotiators or future negotiators aware of the dangers of negligence of nonverbal signals during their communication.