Comparison Of Trust, Risk And Problem Solving Approach In Sino-Brazilian Business Negotiation

This study investigates the influence of propensity to trust (PTT), propensity to risk(PTR) and perception of counterpart's negotiation strategy on negotiator's ownproblem solving approach (PSA) in Sino-Brazilian business negotiation context. Itproposes a business negotiation model of its own to explore the relationship amongculture, personality and negotiation based on the previous literature. The purpose is tocompare the differences between Chinese and Brazilian negotiators in terms of trustand risk taking behavior and the effects of personality variables and negotiator'sperception of counterpart's strategy on their own negotiation strategy. The studyutilized questionnaire and case study as research methods.Through a survey among two sample groups?Chinese and Brazilian industrialexporters, it was found that for the Chinese sample, both the positive influence of PTTon negotiator's PSA and the negative influence of PTR on negotiators PSA weresupported. For the Brazilian sample, the positive influence of PTT on negotiator'sPSA was not justified and the negative influence of PTR on negotiators PSA wassupported but the support was not so strong. For both sample groups, perception ofcounterpart's PSA had the strongest influence on negotiator's PSA. Both groups ofnegotiators were very likely to reciprocate their counterpart's cooperative behavior.Comparing the two sample groups, Chinese negotiators were more trusting thanBrazilian negotiators and Brazilians were more risk averse than their Chinesecounterparts and used more PSA in negotiation. The differences between the culturalgroups may due to the different cultural traits of the negotiators.The study then used a case study to illustrate the findings of the survey. Many aspectsof the case were consistent with the findings. The Brazilian party was found to bemore risk averse and they used more PSA than the Chinese party. The perception ofcounterpart's negotiation strategy did positively influence the negotiator's PSA.However, how much the two sides trusted each other were difficult to measure.Finally, the paper gives some suggestions on how the Chinese negotiators shouldbuild trust with their Brazilian counterparts and enhance mutual problem solving inthe negotiation process.