Successful Sino-Western Business Negotiation: Participants' Accounts of National and Professional Cultures

Abstract

Chinese and Western interviewees related their experiences of culture in Sino-Western business negotiation focusing on the Chinese. Regard ing Chinese cultural influences on negotiations, both groups pointed to the Chinese cultural value of personal relationship and Chinese business practices as major factors and considered communication and social etiquette as a minor factor. Chinese interviewees but not West erners further identified system constraints as a main factor. Profes sional culture elements also emerged as important to Sino-Western business negotiations. The Chinese wanted improvements in their stan dard procedures, professional symbolic systems, instrumental relation ships, and professional ethics, whereas Westerners expressed their need to adapt. Successful strategies by Chinese negotiators focused pri marily on rational, professional approaches while those by Westerners centered on effective coping with Chinese social values.