INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS, NEGOTIATING, & CULTURE
International business, on a macro level, is conducted within a framework of trade agreements derived from negotiations among governments. When a government, in such a negotiation, wins concessions from another government, these concessions are typically harmful to consumers in the country whose government "won" the concession.
Such concessions are usually agreements by other countries to limit the intensity with which foreign firms will compete in the export market. These concessions help special interests such as domestic firms by shielding them from competition, but harm the majority interests of the nation by imposing higher costs on domestic consumers. This is demonstrated through sugar prices in the U.S., or the retail price of rice in Japan – both of which are well in excess of world market rates (Boudreaux, 1995). A negotiation model which encompasses cultural dimensions could be an appropriate means for effectively obtaining a balance between special and majority interests of each nation in international business agreements. Ideally, a global trade framework should take into account differences in cultural dimensions, and attempt to use them as a negotiating asset in the pursuit of mechanisms to facilitate an integrative outcome oriented system of international business.
Culture, defined as "the collective mental programming of people in an environment," (Hofstede, 1980), refers to a conditioning of a group of people which will influence a lifetime of thought processes, behavior, and actions. Culture is an ingrained behavioral influence which affects the way collective groups approach, evaluate, and negotiate opportunities for international business. This paper attempts to examine the issu ...