Case study on US and Chinese culture in business life and negotiations.

Sales and negotiations class
2011
Guanxi in Jeopardy – Case Study

Intercultural Research
In order to find out in what way the American culture of Electrowide as opposed to the Chinese culture of Motosuzhou will influence negotiation attitudes and positions, some intercultural research needs to be done beforehand. In assessing these cultures at an informal level as well as a business or formal perspective, I need to become aware that not all actions or behaviours can be directly explained by cultural differences alone. Sometimes it is a party’s incapability of correctly identifying its position or leverage points within the negotiation which causes rudeness or misunderstandings. Given that in this case (Electrowide VS. Motosuzhou) a linguistic barrier has to be overcome as well, makes finding the right conclusions even harder. Therefore I first need to have studied both cultures intensively in order to come up with a revised preparation for a new negotiation.

China
To start with I will talk about The People’s Republic of China. With its 1,300 million inhabitants, ancient history and innumerable traditions and customs it is perhaps the most difficult culture to study and to understand as a Westerner. Nevertheless it is a country that has intrigues us all over the course of history. Giving us many great inventions in the past and probably also in the future, as it is manifesting itself in becoming the world’s biggest economy. The question remains, how did China change so rapidly in the last 20 year considering their high level of Autarky it ones had? But more importantly, with the country becoming more liberated and open, we want to know how much of their original way of thinking is still left in their culture today.

First of all for the Chinese, the honour (or “Mianzi”) is the