Organizational Behavior and International Business Managers
With regard to Organizational behavior, describe the main role that international business managers may play in the negotiation arena and the importance of developing cross cultural management skills.
Managers nowadays find themselves in a new business order and hierarchy, the national borders are becoming lighter everyday, but still in this globalized days the profession requires some expertise regarding cross cultural management, there are some aspects in the negotiation that still deals, in everyday bases, with the culture, specially since cross cultural negotiations are being done more currently.
A small previous research about culture might be enriching to the negotiation process, mainly because some cultures tend more to use some negotiation approaches, this doesn’t happens in every occasion, but if it does it will gave the negotiator a huge advantage in the table.
A clear example of culture in negotiations are the Chinese way of doing business, probably you have heard about the Guanxi, Business men in China rather get to know the other party’s interests, and get closer to the other negotiator(s) in the firsts rounds of negotiating, which usually happens in informal scenarios, than to get straight to business. Those small details might seem non important to us, but when you want to have a cross cultural negotiation you better start re-evaluating your perspective.
The manager needs to study previously the culture they’re engaging with, a previous study and knowing the other party’s background ensures a more balanced negotiation, and less intercultural difficulties, another recommendation that is made really often is the discretion, the negotiators need to think about what they’re about to say or do, those words, or gestures might compromise the outcome.
Another culture is critic in the negotiating table, the organizational culture; the negotiator has to be an ambassador of the company overseas, they need to reflect what the company stands for, they’re the company’s face, so everything that comes out from the negotiator is previously evaluated, not only what information he holds, the way he speaks, but also the looks, the gestures and the social behavior has to be taken into account.
Those are just small tips that are taken into account at the time to deal with different cultures, maybe there are hundreds of them, but those are crucial, and comprehend some others.
Image taken from:
http://www.mftrou.com/image-files/conflict-management2.gif
Bibliography:
Mead, Richard. 2004. International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions London: Blackwell Publishing. Chapter 1.
Very good post
ReplyDeleteas a contribution:
Always is important to know the negotiation style of the commercial partners when trading with them, but more important is to know their culture before taking decisions toward any country, for example, the colombian enterprise Nacional de Chocolates began to export the jet chocolate bar, however, they report low sales due to 2 reasons:
- the package was blue labeled (color of death in china)
- presentation of 4 squares (number of death in china)
for issues like that, is important to develope cross cultural skills in order to not making mistakes in a trading process, and the manager plays a vital role in this.
Nice examples of negotiation, and i think that we always have to be aware of the different cultural, religious and in some cases economical styles, as a recommendation the negotiatior have to be more open and flexible and also try to make a multicultural team for the negotiation, this can make the difference somethimes.
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