Finances the Style of Chinese

Finances

The style of Chinese negotiating is very different from that traditional in most Western, and even Japanese, business settings. Although China's extensive building and modernization process has altered its traditional negotiating system, it still remains uniquely Chinese. What is interesting is that instead of seeing China alter its negotiating style in order to compete in the global economy, which is currently Western dominated, the Western nations are altering their negotiating style in order to compete in the emerging Chinese marketplace. Instead of the typical Westernization of a new market economy, as occurred in Japan, in China there is a unique China-ization of the market place, which is changing how business is done on the global scale, and giving the Chinese the upper hand.

Since China's implementation of the open-door policy and its emergence into the global community, much work has been done on the uniquely Chinese negotiation style. However, much of this information is based on stereotypes and traditions that are no longer dominate in Chinese culture. For example, most Western studies focus on the importance of relationships and trust in the Chinese negotiation process. However, although these were important components in traditional negotiation styles, they are no longer as central in the new, global China. For this reason, in order to truly understand the Chinese negotiation style and how it compares to those found in the Western world, one must get past the stereotypes and look towards modern China.

For example, a collectivistic society is typically preoccupied with high-context communication while an individualistic society is often characterized by low-context communication. (Gudykunst and Stella, 1991, p. 96). China, as a whole, is a collectivists society and thus uses high-context communications. This means that the fashion in which they transmit information is dependent on whether it is "in the physical context or internalized in the person." (Hall, 1976, p. 91). In other words, Chinese typically communicate in an implicit way. As such, in Chinese society one will observe people placing the greatest emphasis on interpersonal relationship in which they communicate with in an "indirect, ambiguous and roundabout way." (Gudykunst, 1991, p. 51).