Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict

Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict

Culture-Based Negotiation Styles

By

Michelle LeBaron

July 2003

In an anonymous article, a Japanese writer describes United States negotiators as hard to understand. One of the reasons for this, we are told, is because "unlike Japanese, the Americans are not racially or culturally homogenous."[1] While it is difficult to characterize any national or cultural approach to negotiation, generalizations are frequently drawn. These generalizations are helpful to the extent that the reader remembers that they are only guides, not recipes. Any generalization holds true or not depending on many contextual factors including time, setting, situation, stakes, history between the parties, nature of the issue, individual preferences, interpersonal dynamics and mood.

Any generalization will apply to some members of a group some of the time. This is best seen by considering generalizations about groups to which you belong. If you hear that women or men tend to negotiate in this way, or Americans in another way, what effect does it have on you as a member of these groups? If you want to answer, "Actually, it depends," you are among the majority, for most of us resist easy categorization and broad classifications. At the same time, it can be useful to back up and attempt to see ourselves and others from a distance so that the patterns and habits that define what is "normal" in negotiation can be examined for what they are: culturally bound and culturally defined common sense.

In this essay, some generalizations about cultural and national approaches to negotiation will be outlined. These may help negotiators and mediators prepare for negotiations by raising the kinds of differences that occur across cultures, and pointing out possible pitfalls of lack of attention to cultural factors. They should be taken as a series of starting points rather than definitive descriptions, since cultural groups are too diverse and changing contexts too influential to be described reliably.

Before outlining these generalizations, a caveat: most of the ways of studying culture, communication, and negotiation are derived largely from Western concepts. When a U.S. or Western European instrument to measure assertiveness in negotiation is translated into Japanese, for example, it retains Western assumptions about the nature of assertiveness. A Japanese idea of assertiveness that included avoidance as an adaptive and appropriate strategy could be easily missed, labeled as unassertive because of cultural assumptions about the natures of assertion and avoidance. Because of the lack of good studies that take an intercultural approach (using a variety of starting points and currencies in developing the research itself and a multicultural team to carry it out), the generalizations that follow are limited. More research is being done on culture-specific approaches by insiders of various non-Western cultures, and some intercultural research is also being conducted -- these should be carefully examined as they become available.[2]

Additional insights into culture based negotiation styles are offered by Beyond Intractability project participants.

Cultural Approaches to Negotiation

In this section, various ways of analyzing cultural differences will be discussed as they relate to negotiation. The analytical tools come from the work of several well-known intercultural experts, including Hofstede, Hall, Kluckholn, Strodtbeck, and Carbaugh.[3] It must be emphasized that there is no one right approach to negotiations. There are only effective and less effective approaches, and these vary according to many contextual factors (See Culture and Conflict Resolution, Cultural and Worldview Frames, Cross-Cultural Communication, and/or Communication Tools for Understanding Cultural Differences). As negotiators understand that their counterparts may be seeing things very differently, they will be less likely to make negative judgments and more likely to make progress in negotiations.

Time Orientations

Two different orientations to time exist across the world: monchronic and polychronic. Monochronic approaches to time are linear, sequential and involve focusing on one thing at a time. These approaches are most common in the European-influenced cultures of the United States, Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia. Japanese people also tend toward this end of the time continuum. Polychronic orientations to time involve simultaneous occurrences of many things and the involvement of many people. The time it takes to complete an interaction is elastic, and more important than any schedule. This orientation is most common in Mediterranean and Latin cultures including France, Italy, Greece, and Mexico, as well as some Eastern and African cultures.

Negotiators from polychronic cultures tend to

start and end meetings at flexible times,

take breaks when it seems appropriate,

be comfortable with a high flow of information,

expect to read each others' thoughts and minds,

sometimes overlap talk,

view start times as flexible and not take lateness personally.

Negotiators from monochronic cultures tend to

prefer prompt beginnings and endings,

schedule breaks,

deal with one agenda item at a time,

rely on specific, detailed, and explicit communication,

prefer to talk in sequence,

view lateness as devaluing or evidence of lack of respect.

Another dimension of time relevant to negotiations is the focus on past, present, or future. Cultures like Iran, India, and the Far East are categorized by Carbaugh as past-oriented. The United States,