chapter seven
Cross-Cultural Communication
and Negotiation
McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Cross-Cultural Communication and Negotiation
Six Chapter Objectives:
1. DEFINE communication; examine examples of verbal
communication style; explain importance of message
interpretation
2. ANALYZE common downward and upward communication
flows of international communication
3. EXAMINE language, perception, culture of communication;
nonverbal barriers to effective international communication
4. PRESENT steps to overcome international communication
problems
5. DEVELOP approaches to international negotiations that
respond to differences in culture
6. REVIEW negotiating and bargaining behaviors that can
improve negotiations and outcomes
7-3
Overall Communication Process
• Communication:
The process of transferring meanings from sender to
receiver.
• On surface appears straightforward
• However, a great many problems can result in failure to
transfer meanings correctly
7-4
Verbal Communication Styles
• Context is information that surrounds a
communication and helps convey the
message
• Context plays a key role in explaining many
communication differences
• Messages often highly coded and implicit in
high-context society (e.g., Japan, many Arab
countries)
• Messages often explicit and speaker says
precisely what s/he means in low context
society (e.g., U.S. and Canada)
7-5
Explicit and Implicit Communication
7-6
Major Characteristics of
Verbal Styles
7-7
Verbal Styles Used in
10 Select Countries
7-8
Verbal Communication Styles
• Indirect and Direct Styles
– High-context cultures: messages implicit
and indirect; voice intonation, timing, facial
expressions play important roles in
conveying information
– Low-context cultures: people often meet
only to accomplish objectives; tend to be
direct and focused in communications
7-9
Verbal Communication Styles
• Elaborate and Succinct Styles
– Three degrees of communication quantity—elaborating,
exacting, succinct
– Elaborating style most popular in high- context cultures with
moderate degree of uncertainty avoidance
– Exacting style focuses on precision and use of right amount
of words to convey message; more common in low-context,
low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures
– Succinct style more common in high-context cultures with
considerable uncertainty avoidance where people say few
words and allow understatements, pauses, and silence to
convey meaning.
7-10
Verbal Communication Styles
• Contextual and Personal Styles
– Contextual style focuses on speaker status and
relationship of parties e.g. in work settings status of
the person in position of power would influence
they way he/she speaks to subordinates; often
associated with high power distance, collective,
high-context cultures
– Personal style focuses on speaker and
reduction of barriers between parties e.g. usage of
first name to address others informally are common;
more popular in low-power-distance, individualistic,
low-context cultures.
7-11
Verbal Communication Styles
• Affective and Instrumental Styles
– Affective style common in collective, high-context
cultures; characterized by language requiring
listener to note what is said/observe how message
is presented; meaning often nonverbal; requires
receiver to use intuitive skills to decipher message
– Instrumental style: goal oriented, focuses on
sender who clearly lets other know what s/he
wants other to know; more commonly found in
individualistic, low-context cultures
7-12
Communication Flows
• Downward Communication
– Transmission of information from manager to
subordinate
– Primary purpose of manager-initiated communication
is to convey orders/information
– Managers use this channel for instructions and
performance feedback
– Channel facilitates flow of information to those who
need it for operational purposes
7-13
Upward Communication
– From subordinate to superior
– Purposes: provide feedback, ask questions, obtain
assistance
– In recent years a call for more upward
communication in U.S.
– In Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore upward
communication has long been fact of life (use
suggestion and quality circles to get inputs from
employees)
– Outside Asian countries, upward communication
not as popular
7-14
Communication Epigrams
7-15
Suggestions for Communication
1. Use most common words with most common meanings
2. Select words with few alternative meanings
3. Strictly follow rules of grammar
4. Speak with clear breaks between words
5. Avoid using esoteric or culturally biased words
6. Avoid use of slang
7. Don’t use words or expressions requiring listener to form
mental images
8. Mimic cultural flavor of non-native speaker’s language
9. Paraphrase and repeat basic ideas continually
10. At end, test how well other understand by asking him/her to
paraphrase
7-16
Communication Barriers
1) Language barriers e.g. problems with
translating document
2) Cultural barriers
– Be careful not to use generalized statements about
benefits, compensation, pay cycles, holidays,
policies in worldwide communication
– Most of world uses metric system so include
converted weights and measures in all
communications
– Even in English-speaking countries, words may
have different meanings.
7-17
Communication Barriers
(continued)
• Cultural barriers (continued)
– Letterhead and paper sizes differ worldwide
– Dollars aren’t unique to U.S. Also Australian,
Bermudian, Canadian, Hong Kong,
Taiwanese, and New Zealand dollars.
Clarify which dollar.
7-18
Communication Barriers
(continued)
3) Perception: a person’s view of reality
• Advertising Messages: countless advertising
blunders when words are misinterpreted by
others e.g. from A Swedish Vacuum
manufacturer.
• “Nothing sucks like Electrolux”
• How others see us: May be different than we
think e.g. French sees American as naive
7-19
Communication Barriers
(continued)
4) The Impact of culture: cultural values and
misinterpretation
e.g. as shown in the table below on the cultural value of time to the
Americans that are reflected in the proverbs which may have no
meaning in other cultures. To Americans time is an asset.
7-20
Nonverbal Communication
• Nonverbal communication
– Transfer of meaning through means such as body
language and use of physical space
– Kinesics
• Study of communication through body
movement and facial expression
– Eye contact (oculesics) e.g. staring
– Posture e.g. putting feet's on the chair
– Gestures (haptics) e.g. pointing using thumb and
index fingers
7-21
Nonverbal Communication
• Proxemics
– Study of way people use physical space to convey
messages
• Intimate distance used for very confidential
communications
• Personal distance used for talking with
family/close friends
• Social distance used to handle most business
transactions
• Public distance used when calling across room
or giving talk to group
7-22
Personal Space in U.S.
7-23
Nonverbal Communication
• Chronemics: the way time is used in a
culture.
• two types:
– Monochronic time schedule: things done in
linear fashion
– Polychronic time schedule: people do
several things at same time and place
higher value on personal involvement than
on getting things done on time
7-24
Nonverbal Communication
• Chromatics
- Use of color to communicate messages e.g. it
is common for American to wear black in a
funeral but in India, white is more preferred.
- Yellow roses conveys the meaning of I don’t
like you in Chile but for westerners it conveys
friendship and optimism.
7-25
Communication Effectiveness
• Improve feedback systems in MNCs
using personal e.g. face to face and
impersonal e.g. reports
• Language training (learn the local
language at subsidiary)
• Cultural training
• Flexibility and cooperation
7-26
Negotiating Styles
7-27
Managing Cross Cultural Negotiations
• Negotiation: Process of bargaining with
one more parties at arrive at solution
acceptable to all
• Two types of negotiation:
– Distributive when two parties with opposing
goals compete over set value
– Integrative when two groups integrate
interests, create value, invest in the
agreement (win-win scenario)
7-28
Negotiation Types and Characteristics
7-29
Steps of the Negotiation Process:
1. Planning
2. Interpersonal relationship building
3. Exchange of task related information
4. Persuasion
5. Agreement
7-30
Cultural Differences
Affecting Negotiations
1. Don’t identify counterpart’s home culture too quickly; common
cues such as accent may be unreliable.
2. Beware of Western bias toward “doing”. Ways of being, feeling,
thinking, talking can shape relationships more powerfully than
doing.
3. Counteract tendency to formulate simple, consistent, stable
images.
4. Don’t assume all aspects of culture are equally significant.
5. Recognize norms for interactions involving outsiders may differ
from those for interactions between compatriots.
6. Don’t overestimate familiarity with counterpart’s culture.
7-31
Negotiation Tactics
• Location
• Time limits
• Buyer-seller relationship
• Bargaining behaviors
– Use of extreme behaviors
– Promises, threats and other behaviors
– Nonverbal behaviors
7-32
Review and Discuss
1. How does explicit communication differ from implicit
communication?
2. “He was laughing like hell.” “Don’t worry: It’s a piece
of cake.” What are these expressions and what
communication complications might they present?
3. How is nonverbal communication a barrier to
effective communication?
4. Kinesics or proxemics? Which nonverbal
communication barrier would be greatest for a U.S.
company going abroad for the first time?
5. What might a U.S. based negotiator need to know
about Japanese bargaining behaviors to strike a
best possible deal?
7-33
