How Cultural Differences Influence Business Negotiation Strategies

Multi-lateral contacts among countries are expanding in the world today, and intercultural communication is increasing with each passing day. Along with its entering into the World Trade Organization, China has established economic relations with many nations. International business negotiation is regarded as more and more important, which requires that the members from the business negotiation team not only master specialized knowledge, but also attach importance to their cultural background knowledge. Negotiation strategies are the demarche and mode of the conduct for a business negotiation. They come into being with what a negotiation needs and are enriched by the penetration of the negotiation. Obviously, negotiation strategy plays an important role in business negotiation.As we know, business negotiation cannot be separated from culture. Business negotiation is a series of actions, and culture is a lubricant to the process. Knowing about the other sides'culture will yield twice the result with half the effort. Every nation in the world has its own unique culture and all the nations have not only commonality but also individuality in their cultures. Also, different cultural values could bring barriers and problems in business negotiation. Therefore, it is an important issue in business negotiation theory and practice to deal with cultural differences in business negotiation appropriately. It is obvious that the impact of cultural differences on business negotiation strategies is worth studying. This thesis discusses how cultural differences influence business negotiation strategies (as an example, the cultural differences between east and west) in the following aspects: (1) the manifestation of cultural differences on pragmatic principles;(2) some pragmatic strategies and the language usage in business communication; (3) and some examples of business negotiation strategies from different cultures (a comparison of American and Chinese strategies for example). Because there have been only a few specific studies on the subjects of cultural impact on business negotiation strategies, especially the studies above-mentioned aspects, the research on this subject is more and more important. It would be helpful for negotiators to deal with the affairs flexibly in...