Intercultural Negotiations

1. Intercultural Negotiations in
Business
By: Jeong Eunseol, Samantha Cruz, Marcela Cogo, Angelina
Jakusjeva, Lorine Oke

2. Outline
● Evaluate countries on aspects
● Powtoon
● Conclusion

3. What are the similarities and differences when
negotiating across Russian, North American and
South Korean cultures?
Topics: tone of voice, attitude, negotiation style, etiquette, greeting, business card,
emotion

4. United States
● Monochronic
● “When you meet someone, don’t stand too close.”
● Eye contact taken as sign of reliability and trustworthiness
● Tend to talk with people seated opposite them, or at an angle
● Moderate amount of nonverbal communication
● Low PDI and UA
● Preparation and planning skill
● Thinking under pressure
● Judgement and intelligence
● Verbal expressiveness
● Product knowledge
● Perceive and exploit power
● Integrity
● competitive in their approach to negotiations, including coming to the table with a fall-back position but beginning
with an unrealistic offer
● energetic, confident, and persistent; they enjoy arguing their positions, and see things universally -- i.e., they like to
talk about broad applications of ideas
● concentrate on one problem at a time
● focus on areas of disagreement, not areas of commonality or agreement
● like closure and certainty rather than open-endedness or fuzziness

5. Russia
High context
Personal connections as an integral part of negotiations in russia
High PDI
High UA
Polychronic
Russians focus on general goals, but don’t pay enough attention to the means of achieving them
caution and lower risk
not very inclined to compromise, but for the sake of establishing long-term relationships they will be willing to make serious concessions
they will focus its strategy not in being the ones who benefit more, but in losing less than the counterpart
The handshake is common, and an eye contact is very important
The Russians are sometimes very careful about what they say, speaking metaphorically and symbolically. Sometimes they quote
famous Russian poems or songs, and it may not be very easy to translate them.

6. South Korea
Confucian values
Kibun
Hierarchy
Punctuality
depends on personal relationships
. Traditional culture favours harmony rather than confrontation
Negative questions are understood differently and ‘yes/no’ questions are unreliable
don’t expect important decisions to be reached in the initial meeting
A week without communication is interpreted as lack of interest and/or termination of a project.
The top-down management style of South Korean companies means it is important to show respect for authority
Eating is an important component of building relationships and ‘bonding’ in Korea

7. South Korea
Business Etiquette
1. Modesty and humility
2. Avoid criticizing someone in public
3. Try thinking of alternative ways of going about expressing your opinion or concerns.