Unit 5 DB IBC

Negotiations and cross-cultural approaches

Elias Munoz

Colorado Technical University

Unit 4 IP – Communication and the Global World

Professor Sisay Teketele

1/31/2017

Global business

Negotiations and Cross-Cultural approaches

Our fast food franchise was officially approved for operations in Israel, China, UAE and Mexico. Each country will contribute to the building and production expense of the franchise. The United States has been mandated with the responsibility of hiring local management team from each country to ensure that the operations of the company starts off seamlessly. An important meeting has been scheduled in the United States to elaborate on the companies objectives and to allow the representatives from each of the countries to know and interact with each other. To avoid culture shock we will conduct a cultural background of each of this country and find a more suitable way in which to conduct the meeting so that each of the representatives can interact smoothly with the rest.

Starting with Israel, Israelis are very direct and feel free to say what is on their minds in most cases. Indirect communication may be confusing and perceived as avoiding the true message (Hofstede, 2017). Similarly, informality and directness between fellow citizens show that relationships with fellow citizens is similarly to that of an extended family. Israel are very outspoken during negotiations. Religion and old practices is also held in high regards. The Israeli culture places an enormous emphasis on hospitality and most of them will make an effort to be accommodating to other cultures. In china, hospitality is also placed in high regard and most Chinese will always make an effort to be accommodating. Unlike Israel, Chinese have high sense of hierarchy of leadership and a lot of respect is often accorded to the two management (Huang, 2016). In Mexico, considerable reliance is placed on personal relationship rather than business contact as compared to the USA. Therefore it is often important to secure friendship with Mexicans business people before entering into negotiations. Arabs are more conservative in their culture and religions as compared to Americans and Mexicans. However they are also very accommodating and value personal relationship during negotiations (Business, 2016). Therefore developing personal and friendly relationships will be a very important factor during the negotiations as it is held in high regard in all of the countries.

In Israel, USA and China, the degree of uncertainty avoidance is very high as people tend to work to control the future. In UAE and Mexico however, the degree of uncertainty avoidance is low and this may bring about culture clash during the negotiations. Similarly, ethnocentrism might bring about cultural differences during the negotiations. Arabs, Israel’s and Chinese believe that their cultural group is somehow superior to the others. Americans and Mexicans are quite considerate to the other peoples’ culture. Ethnocentrism might bring about differences specifically between Arabs and Israelis during the negotiations. In terms of communications, there might be a difference between the Israelis, Americans and Chinese since Israelis and Americans are quite direct and out spoken while Chinese are much conserved and tend to retain their feeling during conversations (Hofstede, 2017).

Communication in the global team

To ensure ease of engagement and collaboration during virtual meeting and future negotiations we must employ various communication strategies. One strategies will be to educate the members of the global team on the verbal and non-verbal language of the opposite culture to avoid misinterpretation and barriers to communications. This can be done through business seminars. This process can involve teaching the team members on how they can be accommodative with the culture of the others for the good of the company.

There are various ways in which people of different cultures seek connection and establish relationship using social media. One way is through creation of a social media group with a particular objective and goal in which people from various culture share that goal. This is a good way of building relationship with others. The other way is to develop friendship though social media that will allow individuals to be more accommodative to the cultures of others (Business, 2016).

Technology does allow individuals to develop trust for team building. For instant, technology has allowed people from various part of the world to connect on a regular basis. Nowadays virtual meetings can be held between team members despite their location at a particular point in time. Since people are to constantly meet and share their ideas and culture a strong relationship is built which is very essential for team building.

In case of potential conflict arising from the cultural difference among the project team there would be various way in which to manage it. One way is to have a mediator who can harmonize the conflicting cultures and convince the warring sides to work together. Secondly is to hold regular seminars and company retreats involving members from all the culture whereby the individuals can interact with each other and be educated on the importance of accommodating the cultures of each other. Similarly it will be helpful to continually remind the teams’ members of collective goal of the company to prevent potential conflict.

Business. (2016, may 13). Cross_cultural?Internattional Communication. Retrieved from Reference for Business: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Cos-Des/Cross-Cultural-International-Communication.html

Hofstede, G. (2017, jan 28). Cross Culture. Retrieved from Geert Hofstede: https://geert-hofstede.com/israel.html

Huang, J. (2016, Novemeber 14). Four Strategies to Negotiate with the Chinese. Retrieved from Connecteast.