Case Studies On Cultural Differences In Sino-German Business Negotiation: An Intercultural Perspective

The thesis is a comparative study on Sino-German business negotiation style from the intercultural communication perspective. Theories applied in the thesis include Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory, Edward T.Hall’s high-and-low context theory, Ting Toomey’s face negotiation theory, along with Stephen E. Weiss’s twelve variables of the intercultural business negotiation. All these theories are integrated into a theoretical framework for the intercultural business negotiation case study.With the deepening trend of globalization, economic cooperation and trade are increasingly developed around the globe. As the second largest economy in the world, China is constantly seeking for cooperation and collaboration with other countries. Germany, the fourth biggest economic unity, is the largest trading partner of China in Europe. The import and export between the two nations are stable and steady. As the economic and trading tie is getting even stronger, Sino-German business negotiation failures occur frequently due to the lack in awareness of cultural differences, and the intercultural studies of Sino-German business negotiations are relatively insufficient.An integration of qualitative and quantitative methodology is implemented in the thesis to study the differences and similarities in the Sino-German business negotiation style. Two real-situation cases of Sino-German business negotiations are conducted in order to work out the distinctive and identical traits of the negotiation style. A questionnaire is designed to support the analysis of two case materials through concrete statistics. The study indicates that Chinese and Germans differ in respect of orientation toward time, decision-making, and nature of persuasion, whereas are quite similar in terms of the uncertainty avoidance, long-term and short-term orientation.