The Impact Of Cultural Differences On Sino-US Business Negotiations

The Chinese economy keeps opening up to the world after China's accession to the World Trade Organization six years ago, and the buzzword in business nowadays has been either"globalization"or"integration". In recent years, indicators of global integration have shown remarkable growth. The last century ended with an unprecedented boom in mergers and acquisitions. Globalization has successfully woven different parts of the world into a dynamic entity where communication and negotiation have been playing a major role in all kinds of business transactions.The unprecedented growth of international business has resulted in an in creased volume of face-to-face negotiations between parties of different cultures. The importance of cross-cultural negotiation in today's business environment is reflected in the growing body of negotiation literature. However, there remains much to be done in negotiation research regarding the impact of culturally divergent modes of communication.China is one of the most economically successful countries in the world. Currently, various modes of international business transactions have been strongly promoted by the Chinese government in order to increase international competitiveness. Chinese entrepreneurs with international business potential are attempting to enter potential international markets. As a result of the increasing economic interdependence between China and the United States, China has become one of the major trading partners of the United States. However, the huge cultural differences between the two countries may give rise to potential cultural conflicts and unnecessary misunderstandings. In view of such a situation, this thesis makes an effort to highlight the cultural impacts on negotiation and puts forward several suggestions in reconciling cultural differences.