Cross Cultural Communication and Negotiation

• Cross Cultural Communication and Negotiation
• Intercultural Communication
• “intercultural communication occurs whenever a message produced in one culture must be processed in another”
• Samovar and Porter (1997) cited in Arasaratnam andd Doerfel ((2005)
• Communication Arena
• country to country
• company to company
• with Host Country Nationals, Third Country Nationals and local community
• Across culturally diverse teams
• With customers, clients and suppliers
• In negotiations
• Communication process model
  Adapted from Buchanan and Huczynski (2010)
• Questions on context
• Similarity/difference of the norms and values?
• Level of language competence?
• How formal is the interaction?
• Communication behaviour?
• The politics of language
• High and Low context Orientations

Context around culture is critical to meaning:

• The degree to which information is explicit, vested in words, precise and unambiguous……… low context

= the listener know little and needs to be told all

• The degree to which information is implicit, vested in shared experience and assumptions and conveyed through verbal and non verbal codes…. high context

 = listener is already contextualised and needs to read cues carefully
Hall, E (1976) Beyond Culture, Doubleday. New York IN Kakabadse, N.K and Kouzmin (2001) Low and High Context Communication patterns: Towards Mapping Cross Cultural Encounters. Cross Cultural Management. Vol 8 no 2

• Low Context

Low-context societies:

• speaker says precisely what he or she means
• people often meet only to accomplish objectives
• message is explicit
• High context

High-context societies:

• Messages highly coded, indirect and implicit
• voice intonation, timing, and facial expressions important in conveying information
• Explicit and Implicit Communication
• Verbal Communication Styles
  International Management: Culture Strategy and Behaviour (2005)
  Hodgetts, Luthans and Doh
• Elaborating style:
  • high-context cultures
• Exacting style:
  • Focus on precision
  • the right amount of words
• Succinct Style

high-context cultures
few words and allow understatements, pauses, and silence to convey meaning.

• Negotiations and Culture
• Stages of Negotiation (Graham 1986) cited in Gulbro and Herbig (1999)
• Non Task (building rapport…)
• Task
• Persuasion
• Agreement
  • Negotiation style and Culture

Gulbro and Herbig (1999) found in their research, (using Hofstede’s dimensions) that

• Collectivist cultures spend more time on non task and building rapport , positioning, planning before debriefing after negotiations
• Higher power distance cultures spend less time in compromise
• High masculine cultures spend less time persuasion stage
• High uncertainty avoidance cultures spend more time in the agreement phase
  • Communication Barriers
• Language barriers
• Perceptual barriers
• Cultural barriers
• Misinterpreted non Verbal cues
• Non Verbal Communication
• Body jewellery, tattoos
• Eating, chewing, spitting, sneezing
• Oculesics
  • Eye contact and gaze
• Kinesics
  • Body movement and facial expression
• Proxemics
• Proxemics: your space or mine?

?

• Personal Space in the U.S.
• Non verbal communication
• Chronemics
  • How time is used:
    • Monochronic…. linear chain of doing things
      • UK, USA Canada and Australia
    • Polychronic….many things at same time. Higher values on personal involvement than getting it done on time.
      • Latin America, Middle East
    • Time and timings
    • Relationship building
    • A “window of opportunity”
    • When to eat and drink
    • Punctuality
    • Private and public time
    • Non verbal communication
    • Chromatics:
      • The use and meaning

of colour

• Significance and symbolism
• Clothing, flowers, décor
• Implications for product design, advertising, gifts, dress

• Observe this week…….
• Identify non verbal behaviours which you usually find:
  • annoying            hostile friendly loving   neutral
• Identify 3 specific examples of your own territorial behaviour
• Think about the physical distance you are comfortable and uncomfortable with.
• What meanings are conveyed through touch?
• What meanings do you derive from others touching you.
• Consider how this may be interpreted or misinterpreted in a business organisation

Spend the next week observing communication patterns, body language and watch your space!