Earlier this year, I sent on an article about Cross-Culture Communication Skills from the Harvard-PON website, which we subscribe to. Read on for a summary of that article...

This article covers cross-culture communication skills for business executives doing negotiations, and is therefore, also a highly-recommended read.

Highlights:

• Sometimes culture matters a lot, sometimes not at all!
• How much it matters depends on the international experience of the negotiator(s).
• Negotiators without much international experience rely on Cultural Schemas -- low-effort, ready-made template explanations/predictions of the behaviors of the other party (Example: Americans without much international understanding explain OTHER'S behaviors in terms of personality traits ( i.e. the seller is 'greedy' ), rather than in terms of situational factors (i.e. the seller's bargaining position).
• Culture can lead to certain choices in processes, and therefore, outcomes; however, we must weigh culture in relation to other factors ( i.e. give culture much LESS weight if we can find out that the other party is VERY internationally-experienced). In a nutshell, don't culture-stereotype without reason!
• Communication skill (especially CONSTRUCTIVE communication skill) is much more important at the bargaining table than one's passport.
• To prepare for a cross-cultural encounter, then, you must: (1) Research the other's background/expertise, (2) Enlist an advisor from the other's background culture (IF the other isn't very international), and (3) Use international protocols to clarify understanding, and to avoid embarrasments or making offenses
• If you must hire a translator, be careful to vet the translator properly, and control carefully their behaviors during the negotiation.
• Teams and Individual negotiators have varying degrees of success in different cultures, depending on the specific task. For example, when negotiating for a new deal, US teams outperform US individuals, while Taiwanese individuals outperform Taiwanese teams. When negotiating to resolve a dispute, however, the results are opposite. Culture may play a role here to explain these results.