Negotiating Over the Past Two

Negotiating

Over the past two decades, technology and business have seen very radical changes. Globalization has become an accepted and even desirable phenomenon for businesses. Global communication has become a hundredfold simpler, cheaper and faster than it has been in the past. This has had implications not only for business, but also for culture. In terms of culture, the increased simplicity and immediacy of global communication has connected a variety of different cultures. This has worked together with global travel in order to connect vastly differing cultures. The resultant dilemma is, ironically, effective communication. Having developed for thousands of years without the benefit of today's global scale of communication, differing cultures have developed different systems of communication, ethics, negotiations, and business dealings. In today's fast-paced world, this tends to make effective inter-cultural negotiation difficult.

On the other hand, these cultural connections have also resulted in more tolerant intercultural views. Currently it is generally accepted in many areas of human life that there are many differing ways to view things, and that these views can change in order to serve the best interest of all involved. The work by Lax and Sebenius (1986) appear to address this issue in their work on negotiating practices for managers. This work focuses on integrating existing philosophies of management in order to arrive at a compromise between completely intolerant negotiating practices and those that appear simply naive. More than this, the authors arrive at something beyond mere negotiating to obtain as much as possible from what is seen as the "opposition," or negotiating to keep everybody happy. Instead, it focuses on the individual, his or her strengths and weaknesses, and how these can be utilized in order to arrive at the best solutions not only for those involved, but also (in terms of business) for the collective companies involved. In this way the book addresses the particular cultural differences and challenges involved in business negotiations.

In the light of this, I therefore agree with the statement that integrative bargaining is more useful in today's cultural and business climate than competitive or distributive bargaining. The word "integrative" is indicative of the nature of today's world. No developed country can claim cultural homogeneity. The United States especially for example features many different cultures and different associated businesses to serve the needs and interests of each of these. Indeed, the country itself can be seen as integrative by definition. It is therefore important to make integration rather than competition part of any negotiation situation, as this element most closely matches the most obviously visible nature of the community, as well as the business and cultural values emerging from this community.

Furthermore, competitive or distributive bargaining tends to cultivate resistance, which ultimately results in a less satisfactory outcome for both parties. Various instances of negotiation could be used to illustrate the validity of the statement regarding integrative bargaining. Two persons from different cultures could for example have a conflict of interest regarding where to conduct a business lunch. A Buddhist culture may require one of the persons to search for a vegetarian restaurant, while time constraints may call for the other person to select a less formal restaurant setting. Integrative bargaining would mean that both parties would select an alternative lunch setting that would cater for both vegetarian and time requirements. Another outcome could be that an alternative time be selected for the lunch, so that time constraints would not be a very great issue. The point is that both parties emerge from the situation with a sense of their needs being addressed on an equal basis.

In marriage and other partnership, integrative bargaining has also become an important tool for managing conflict situations. Cultural developments, integration and tolerance no longer call for a husband, for example, to retain sole decision-making power or rulership in the household. Instead, the well-being of all members in a family is taken into account when decisions are made. The same, according to Shell (1999), is true of business. In internal bargaining procedures, the interest and well-being of subordinates are taken into account when arriving at decisions. It should also however be taken into account that different people will have different opinions and interests. The ideal is to use integrative bargaining in order to arrive at an outcome that best serves the collective values and ethics of the company as a whole. In order to achieve this, Shell suggests a focus on the bargaining styles of individuals, and how these can be used to arrive at the most desired situation for the company as a whole.

Part II

Li and Roloff's work focus on the emotions involved in intercultural communication. This is translated to the business situation, and the role that emotions play in the process of business negotiation. Emotions manifest themselves in different ways within diverse cultures. This is an element that should be taken into account when conducting intercultural business communication. Knowledge of each culture's values and concomitant emotional reactions will facilitate the negotiation process. As such, the article also examines the possibility of using emotion as a strategy for effective negotiation.

The chapter begins by examining the different views of emotion and cognition. The authors delineate two opposing opinions; the one that cognition and emotion are necessarily integrated as part of the human experience, and the other that the two phenomena are separate. According to the latter view, emotion is to be excluded from cognitive processes such as negotiation. While this view has been favored for centuries, the study of the emotional component has come to be more prominently researched for its integrative role not only in general life, but also in business communication.

In this capacity, emotion became recognized during the 1990's for its role in cultivating an understanding of how people think about and experience life and business. Emotion could also be used in order to determine the state of mind of negotiators, and to stimulate creative thinking. The authors furthermore make a distinction between the amount of study devoted to positive and negative displays of emotion in the business world. Positive displays of emotion, according to the chapter, has received more attention, as it appears more congruent with the principles of integrative bargaining than negative emotion, which has been studied less extensively.