Reading Assignment: Cross Cultural Negotiations This article analyses and presents the French negotiation style. After reading the article please do the following: Write a 1 page paper. A. You should assume that the description is accurate. In that case, what adjustments an American negotiator might need to do if he is about to go to France to negotiate a large deal? THE FRENCH NEGOTIATION STYLE INTRODUCTION The word "negotiation" is rooted in the Latin negotium, meaning "not leisure" (which means that what is not leisure is business). In Old French, "negociacion" meant "dealing with people." Both definitions, though archaic, are right on the mark because the fact is that all dealings between people (whether social or business) constitute negotiation. This means that everyone has to negotiate in its everyday life. In our globalizing world, it is important to understand other cultures to take the most out of our international relations. Moreover, France is one of the pillars of the European Union and number one worldwide in the tourism sector, therefore a meaningful partner on the global trade scene. It seems very important that France’s business partners understand the way the French negotiate to obtain more easily what they want, and in a friendlier way. In our survey we’ll start with an overview of the French culture and the French particular negotiating style that we’ll try to compare afterwards with the Harvard Negotiation Style Concept to see what could be improved in our negotiating methods. I. FRENCH NEGOTIATION STYLE 1. The French Culture and Values France is a modern and very diverse country, and one can only admit the deep influence that France’s culture has had on western countries for the last hundred of years, especially in art, literature and philosophy. The French are proud of their history and their prominent culture is influenced by a mix of cultural and historical differences. One of the characteristics of the French culture is the centralisation. France has a long and notable history of centralisation reflected in its geography, transportation system, Government and business. France is organised pretty much around Paris. In business, centralisation is reflected in the concentrated authority. It is especially true in SMEs, where the personality of the manager/founder strongly influences the life of the company, because he/she has difficulties decentralizing power. To be successful in business in France, it is necessary to understand the culture. Culture has indeed an impact on the values, which in turn affect the attitude, which eventually influences behaviours. Let’s see, through the model of Geert Hofstede (1970’s), which are the French values regarding business. We use this model here to make our analysis understandable, since it has become a well-known standard. Power distance: France is getting more moderate. As Hofstede studied France for his model, it was the only country scoring high on power distance. Nowadays, t ...

1. Reading Assignment: Cross Cultural Negotiations
This article analyses and presents the French negotiation style.
After reading the article please do the following:
Write a 1 page paper.
A. You should assume that the description is accurate. In that
case, what adjustments an American negotiator might need to do
if he is about to go to France to negotiate a large deal?
THE FRENCH NEGOTIATION STYLE
INTRODUCTION
The word "negotiation" is rooted in the Latin negotium,
meaning "not leisure" (which means that what is not leisure is
business). In Old French, "negociacion" meant "dealing with
people." Both definitions, though archaic, are right on the mark
because the fact is that all dealings between people (whether
social or business) constitute negotiation. This means that
everyone has to negotiate in its everyday life. In our globalizing
world, it is important to understand other cultures to take the
most out of our international relations.
Moreover, France is one of the pillars of the European Union
and number one worldwide in the tourism sector, therefore a
meaningful partner on the global trade scene. It seems very
important that France’s business partners understand the way
the French negotiate to obtain more easily what they want, and
in a friendlier way.
In our survey we’ll start with an overview of the French culture
and the French particular negotiating style that we’ll try to
compare afterwards with the Harvard Negotiation Style Concept
to see what could be improved in our negotiating methods.
I. FRENCH NEGOTIATION STYLE
1. The French Culture and Values
France is a modern and very diverse country, and one can only
admit the deep influence that France’s culture has had on
western countries for the last hundred of years, especially in art,
literature and philosophy. The French are proud of their history

2. and their prominent culture is influenced by a mix of cultural
and historical differences.
One of the characteristics of the French culture is the
centralisation. France has a long and notable history of
centralisation reflected in its geography, transportation system,
Government and business. France is organised pretty much
around Paris. In business, centralisation is reflected in the
concentrated authority. It is especially true in SMEs, where the
personality of the manager/founder strongly influences the life
of the company, because he/she has difficulties decentralizing
power.
To be successful in business in France, it is necessary to
understand the culture. Culture has indeed an impact on the
values, which in turn affect the attitude, which eventually
influences behaviours. Let’s see, through the model of Geert
Hofstede (1970’s), which are the French values regarding
business. We use this model here to make our analysis
understandable, since it has become a well-known standard.
Power distance: France is getting more moderate. As Hofstede
studied France for his model, it was the only country scoring
high on power distance. Nowadays, the hierarchy is usually to
be respected. Even though employees can bypass their
bosses, it is not often the case, and they often have to ask for
their bosses assent before taking a decision.
Individualism VS Collectivism: the French love uniqueness and
freedom of opinion both in society and in business. The
individualism is therefore a very important cultural
characteristic.
Achievement VS Nurturing: the French place more interest in
quality of life (nurturing) than on their career (achievement).
It’s obvious in the way they defend their rights concerning their
5-week paid holidays and other social advantages and benefits.
Uncertainty avoidance: the French pay a lot of attention to rules

3. and regulations. Moreover, the French don’t like ambiguity and
they try to reduce them by establishing formal rules in order to
avoid ideas and behaviours they don’t desire.
Long term VS Short term orientation: France seems more short-
term oriented: the French look more in the past and try to keep
their social system the way it is, even though it will need
reforms pretty soon. However, companies try to be more long-
term oriented, through commitment to sustainable development
and other future-oriented actions.
Now that we’ve seen what the French culture consists in
concerning business, let’s see thanks to this what the typical
French negotiator looks like.
2. The typical French Negotiator
According to our culture, and also to some comments made by
other countries such as the USA, Sweden and Finland, a French
person while negotiating has the following characteristics:
· Intellectual style: the French are very intellectual and have a
high level of culture. They also are very creative and political.
The problem, as seen by other countries, is that it makes them
arrogant and they feel intellectually superior to their negotiating
partner.
· Nationalistic and self-centred: Frenchmen always try to find a
solution for France. Most of the time, they give the impression
to be fighting for France during a negotiation. This is because
they are proud of their country, its history and what it nowadays
represents (see previous part on culture).
· Non-verbal communication: the body language is used a lot
through the gestures and the facial expressions while talking.
· Verbal communication: most people prefer speaking French,
because they don’t feel comfortable with English or have a
feeling of inferiority when speaking English with their
counterpart. If there is a real language problem, it’s good to let

4. the Frenchman speak French and the counterpart speak English
or another language and have someone who understands the
subject translate. In addition, it is very important to start the
negotiation by trying to know the counterpart and not by getting
to the business right away. It also is important to keep in touch
afterwards through e-mails, phone calls etc. Furthermore, when
a Frenchman says “yes”, you can usually trust it. But when he
says “no”, it often means that the negotiation should go on, and
not stop right at that time.
· Formality: it appears in different aspects of one’s behaviour.
First, the French are formal in the way of talking: they don’t
use the “tu”, the informal you, and they usually expect the same
behaviour in return. Moreover, it is important to be correctly
dressed while negotiating with Frenchmen. It is a sign of
respect.
· Bargaining techniques: the French don’t bargain more than
any other western country and they like to discuss the price just
because they like to discuss every little detail while negotiating.
Here we find the high uncertainty avoidance developed in the
previous part.
· Attitude to female negotiators: they don’t make any difference
between men and women. The person across the table is judged
for what he/she represents and not whether it’s a man or a
woman.
· Type of decision: the hierarchical organisation of French
companies has a high influence on decision-making. If the
Frenchman is high in the hierarchy, he will have a lot of
independence to make decisions. However, a person lower in
the hierarchy will have to ask his superior for agreement on the
decision to take, and the superior will take the final decision.
We see here the problem of power centralisation in the hands of
a few executives, and the power distance.
· Personal relations: French people don’t like to talk a lot about
private life, but they like when the other person shows interest
in the French culture, and why not speak French! Business

5. lunches are not as common as they used to be.
As we have seen, the French culture has a great influence on
their negotiation characteristics, especially because of national
pride. We’ll describe now in which way the French culture
influences the ten negotiation factors of Salacuse.
3. How culture influence 10 Negotiation Factors
According to a survey made by Salacuse in 1998 entitled “Ten
ways that culture affects negotiating style: some survey
results”, there are ten negotiation factors that can be influenced
by one’s culture. We are here relating these factors to the
French culture to see what its influence is.
1. Negotiating goals: the contract seems to be more important
than the relationship, even though keeping in touch is a good
thing after the negotiation.
2. Attitudes to the negotiating process: a win-win situation
seems to be wanted by French negotiators.
3. Personal styles: as we’ve seen on the previous part, the
French are formal and considers it as a sign of respect.
4. Styles of communication: indirect, because of the use of
complex sentences while speaking. That’s why the French feel
uncomfortable speaking English, because they can’t use as
many language ellipses and images as they do in French.
Moreover they use the non-verbal communication a lot.
5. Time sensitivity: fairly low, because most of the French are
always late.
6. Emotionalism: neither high nor low, because the French don’t
show their emotions too obviously but don’t keep everything to
themselves either.
7. Agreement form: the French prefer specific form of
agreement because they like to go over details while
negotiating, so they’d rather have a detailed contract with all
the possibilities. The important part in the negotiation is the

6. deal and not the relationship.
8. Agreement building process: they prefer a top-down
agreement, which means to start agreeing in general principles
and then go over the details.
9. Negotiating team organization: even though the French are
fairly individualist and seek often a solution “a la française”,
they still want a negotiating team based on consensus.
10. Risk taking: in this survey, French are said to be fairly high
risk takers, probably because of their creativity and also their
feeling of intellectual superiority. But this is not the feeling we
have. The French always like to discuss every little detail
during the negotiation, which considerably reduces uncertainty
and, of course, the intensity of the risk taken. So we could say
that French are risk takers but in an environment they know
fairly well.
These ten factors are really influenced by the French culture
and should be taken into consideration while negotiating, as
well as the typical French negotiator portrait.
III. AN APPROACH OF THE FRENCH NEGOTIATING
STYLE THROUGHOUT THE HARVARD CONCEPT
In this particular section, we will try to compare the French
Negotiating Style with the principles of the “negotiating on the
merits” developed by the Harvard Negotiation Project. It is
indeed of much interest to analyse whether or not the French
Style described below fits with those four principles, namely:
· Separating the people from the problem
· Focus on interests, not positions
· Invent options for mutual gain
· Insist on using objective criteria
Such a comparison might thus help us to find out for each point
if our French negotiation style faces difficulties regarding this
well-known theory, as well as if French managers/leaders’
methods need to be challenged.

7. 1. Separating the people from the problem
It is definitely important to make a clear separation between
people and issue during a negotiation, to prevent emotions from
creating difficulties. We can here compare the French
Negotiation Style with the four areas of concern in this process:
· Emotions: Even if they don’t show their emotions too
obviously, French negotiators tend to project their feeling onto
the negotiation partner. They often believe the negotiation is a
war. Many observers claim that they seek to impress, convinced
of their own intellectual and cultural superiority. Therefore it
might happen that French people try to win this “battle” against
the negotiator, not treating people and issues separately enough.
· Perceptions: French people tend not to be able to perceive
things in their partner’s way. They are said to be quite self-
centered so they believe their own point of view is the right
one. It is quite hard for them to develop empathy.
· Personality: The problem is more or less the same than with
the emotional factor. It seems to be quite hard for us to not to
focus on the other’s personality. French nevertheless begin to
understand that they have to focus on the topic at stake instead
of the personality
· Communication: French people do not make any effort to
speak their partner’s language. They are not very good at
languages (only a few of them can speak something else than
English) and prefer to speak French in international
negotiations. But most of time they would listen actively their
negotiation partner, which is definitely a good point.
As we can see French negotiators are maybe not the best ones to
follow the 1st rule of the Harvard Concept, mainly because of
their self-centeredness. They should sometimes listen to Keld
Jensen and Iwar Unt that underline in their book that “If you
want to do better at negotiating, you have to start with
yourself.”
But one cannot but admit that they often manage to build a trust
relationship during negotiations, since they honour agreements

8. and promises, always keeping their word. They keep goals in
mind at all time and justify their decisions.
2. Concentrate on interests not positions
French managers usually concentrate on interests and not
positions. As we pointed before, they are really eager to clarify
interests at the very beginning of the process and also during
the whole negotiation. In France, clear aims are indeed very
often defined prior to every negotiation. French negotiators set
goals and won’t stop the negotiation until these goals are
reached. And after this, that is during the negotiation process,
we are used to get others to speak their mind, both using verbal
and non- verbal tools such as acknowledgment, eye-contact,
nodding or clear and direct questions.
It is yet interesting to notice that French also pay much
attention on principles, which can sometimes be a problem to
concentrate on interests rather than positions. A very good
example of this being the fact that French decided in 2005 that
on principle they would not sign the Warsaw Democracy
Summit's final declaration, because it was not an accurate
portrayal of the French definition of democracy. Although
French interests would not have been damaged by signing,
principle was paramount.
To sum up, we may say that in general, focusing on interests is
part of our negotiation style. French managers like to work in a
clearly defined frame and won’t stop it until a decision is taken.
That’s why they define negotiation aims as much as possible
when starting a negotiation and thus respect this second priority
of the Harvard Concept. This is a great chance in negotiating
with us: no matter how long it will take, a negotiation won’t
stay “open” (an agreement will most of the time be reached).
3. Invent options for mutual gain
The French are generally well prepared to negotiate and
extremely creative, meaning full of plans and new ideas, which
is a very positive quality for negotiators. They are more
argumentative than many of their counterparts, inventing

9. options and solutions which can satisfy both partners. Thus the
French view debate as a simulating part of the negotiation, and
consider that an effective negotiation should include logical
proposals, logical arguments, and logical counterproposals. The
French may seek proof that all points have been taken into
consideration and so they may push points to an extreme. New
ideas, even these not on the agenda, may be discussed.
The French tend to be more risk-averse than Americans for
instance, so more time will be spent on assessing the pros and
cons of each outcome. As a result, one may feel that the French
are talking in circles and not getting straight to the point.
Moreover, French negotiators are willing to listen to the ideas
and interests of the partners during the negotiations, so as to be
able to stand back from the partners’ answers and then adapt to
these new proposals by assenting or going even further.
Nevertheless, the French are often considered more aggressive
and confrontational than other European negotiators. In general,
the French will take a slightly extreme position and stick to it
until the last moment, before relenting at the end to demonstrate
flexibility. As it is said before, French negotiators give a huge
importance to their interest and the interests of their companies,
so they could often lay the emphasis on pushing for that
position until it is either accepted or is no longer viable, and the
effort made to ensure that France does not leave the bargaining
table without gaining something for its trouble.
As we can see, French managers and negotiators follow quite
well the third principle of the Harvard Concept but the
arrogance and pretensions they often show during the
negotiations may ruin many possibilities of good relationships.
4. Insist on using objective criteria
To reach a common “win-win” agreement, both sides have to
adopt a positive attitude towards each other and stay as
objective as possible, in particular in the solutions they
propose.
Both sides have interests in the negotiation that is why

10. negotiators often use standards that are commonly accepted to
go further in the negotiation process. Thus,
they understand the same things and are sure of using at least at
first no subjective criteria. Examples of these standards could
be expert reports, market information, or for instance the
BATNA. And actually French negotiators usually agree on the
fact that the price is not a part of the negotiation but the result
of it.
French negotiators usually stick to that strategy, using official
data, and then dealing with less objective questions such as the
role played by some managers, to eventually reach the final
goal.
Important to notice is that patience is not considered as a virtue
by the French, because “the French do think quickly, decide
quickly, and act quickly” according to Hall&Hall, 1990. They
can speak a lot, give many ideas and proposals, but if the
partners don’t really conciliatory for instance, the French could
become aggressive and pressing. In international negotiations,
the French may be tempted to adopt bargaining tactics that seek
to maximize their influence, often frustrating their interlocutors
and sometimes resulting in unsuccessful negotiations even with
friend. And actually one study found the French to be very
aggressive, using threats, warnings and interruptions to achieve
their goals, meaning that they may nevertheless include
subjectivity in their negotiation process.
Thanks to this we can say that the French managers and
negotiators tend to use objective criteria during the negotiation
process but are often suggesting some more subjective rules,
and even sometimes pressing to impose them.
CONCLUSION
The French negotiation style is not so far from the one of our
European neighbours, even if we have some national
particularities. French businessmen are often criticized
concerning a few points but everyone admits they are fair and
loyal, which is certainly the most important asset to build truly

11. and friendly relationships in the long term. And we all know
such relationships greatly facilitate successful negotiations. Of
course French businessmen could improve in different fields of
the negotiation process (being more open-minded …) but every
country style has its pros and cons. French people like
negotiating and are not that bad at it, an example of
this being the fact that during year 2005 France was the country
hosting the most numerous Mergers & Acquisitions operations.
It also is very interesting to compare the way we negotiate with
the famous Harvard Concept. It helps to show us how we can
improve during the whole process, from the definition of aims
to their achievement. Other models can besides be great assets
to do so. Like K. Jensen pointed “you should view the
negotiation from a multidimensional perspective, and not let
yourself be fooled by simplistic and one- dimensional
explanatory models, in which one’s behaviour is always right,
and others always wrong.” But theory is not all. You can learn
tips and tricks to negotiate throughout it but the best way to
improve is certainly (as we saw during the seminar) to practice
and stay open to any kind of advice your business partners can
give you, whatever their nationality.
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Write a 2 to 3 page paper based on Knowledge sharing within
two (2) companies.

12. Comparing their transfer of knowledge.
Idea sharing, within the company from top-to-down and vice
versa.
The purpose of sharing the information: I.E at General Electric,
they share information, for the purpose of replicating another
manager, within 2 years of the employees arrival, therefore the
current manager must share information with his predecessor.
Find the purpose of sharing.
Pick any two companies and compare their reasons for
knowledge sharing, how they share the knowledge and why?
The company’s have to be different company’s who are not in
the same field. Eg. An accounting firm and an electrical
company.
Compare the mediums which each company shares information,
whether through memo’s or emails.
Focus on there knowledge sharing, how its done, why its done.
The differences.
These must be real companies. Based on actual facts.