International Business Negotiations

Description

Business on both a local and international scale depends on negotiations; theyare an everyday factor of the business world, and their importance shows onthe bottom line of every company’s accounts. Without successful negotiations,businesses will ultimately fail and, unfortunately, negotiations breakdownwith disturbing regularity (Bazerman, 1986). In addition, negotiation, a taskthat is already considered to be one of the most difficult in business, becomeseven more difficult when accompanied by the complexity of culture (Tse andFrancis, 1994). Nevertheless, as globalisation increases, both MNCs and SMEsare entering into international negotiations, and the increase in globalisationhas resulted in an increased volume of negotiations between members ofdifferent cultures (George et al., 1998). This issue of International MarketingReview examines some of the topics that are being considered by researcherslooking at international business negotiations. The papers in this Special Issue on “International business negotiations”address some important aspects of the subject. Starting with a review of thepublished research in the area over the last decade Reynolds et al., in“International business negotiations: present knowledge and direction forfuture research” give an overview of current knowledge in the area. Thiscontent analysis of the literature looks at what is considered as vital to international negotiations researchers, identifying five critical areas from themodels in the literature and considering how researchers have addressed eacharea. They conclude that, while many individual contributions are beneficial toknowledge in the field, without the explicit use of an overall framework,research in international business negotiations lacks coherence. The next two papers both look at international business negotiationsbetween western and Chinese negotiators. The first paper by Kumar andWorm – “Social capital and the dynamics of business negotiations between thenorthern Europeans and the Chinese” – considers how the negotiation processis shaped by the negotiators’ level of shared understanding, their affectivebonding and the nature of the relationship between negotiators. Their findingschallenge some accepted wisdom, for instance, that Chinese negotiators areunwilling to share information, and highlight some intra-cultural differences,specifically between older and younger Chinese negotiators. The second of thepapers examining western and Chinese negotiations – “Negotiationapproaches: direct and indirect effect of national culture” by Lin and Miller– finds that culture acts upon the negotiation approach assumed directly, aswell as acting indirectly through relationship commitment and the relativepower of negotiators. Relationship commitment, for instance, leads to a moreintegrated approach to ongoing negotiations and a more open exchange ofinformation. In contrast, those with greater bargaining power are more likely toadopt a coercive approach. Of as much interest, however, is the interactiveeffect found between relationship commitment and relative power, and nationalculture. The final paper looks at a pre-cursor to international business negotiations– training. It is unlikely that a negotiator will enter into internationalnegotiations without some training. In their paper – “A comparative analysisof sales training in Europe: implications for international sales negotiations” –Roma´n and Ruiz consider how training practices differ across differentcultures. They found that while there are differences in the amount spent ontraining, the content of the training does not vary significantly acrossEuropean cultures, even though the method of delivery does differ. N.L. Reynolds and A.C. Simintiras Previously published in: International Marketing Review, Volume 20, Number 3, 2003