浅谈商务活动中的交际与技巧--商务英语本科学位论文

中国某某某某学校学生毕业设计(论文)

题目：浅谈商务活动中的交际与技巧

姓名：0000000

班级、学号：000000000

系(部)：经济管理系

专业：商务英语

指导教师：0000000000

开题时间：2009-4-10

完成时间：2009-11-3

2009年11月3日

目录

课题浅谈商务活动中的交际与技巧一、课题(论文)提纲

二、内容摘要

三、参考文献

|On Communications and Skills in Business Activities

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Abstract:As a dispensable and crucial part of business activities, international business negotiations refer to the process of consultation that through the exchange of information and negotiation which is based on the various components of trading so as to make a deal successfully. Business negotiation is playing a more and more important role in the exchange of international intercourse. After China’s involvement in WTO, the affairs that come to international business negotiations are growing at a swift speed. Thus, the issue that how to guarantee the priority in business negotiations and improve the ability of intercourse and the skills is been putting on the agenda. There are several factors that affect the business negotiations, which include politics, economy, and culture. In this passage, I’ll make an emphasis on the cultural angle and then analyze the cultural factor that influence business negotiations under the backgrounds of countries’ different culture and a variety of their negotiating styles, so that we could learn more about every country’s advantages and disadvantages to promote its own intercourse talent and skills purposely and protect their legal interests in international business negotiations.

Key words: international business negotiations, culture, negotiating styles, skill

0.Introduction

According to the conference at 20：09 on March 26th, it was defined that International Business Negotiation, in fact, signifies a process of consultation, which refers to the negotiations on information exchange and the trading behavior of various elements with each other to achieve a certain business transactions in different countries or different regions of the parties among the international business activities.

Business negotiations is an important part of business activities, not

only for the reason of exchange and cooperation based on the economic interests between the negotiating parties, but also for the both sides of the collision between different cultures and communication. Because of the officers involved in the negotiations coming from different countries and peoples, the international business negotiations are influenced by their respective countries which include such aspects as national politic, economy, culture and other factors, and particularly, the impact of cultural factor can not be ignored.

Different cultures in different societies affect the negotiators’ styles. Therefore, in business negotiations, understanding the negotiators’cultural factors means an awful a lot. After China’s accession to the WTO, with the negotiations which involved in international business growing increasingly, the proposition on how to negotiate business was put on the agenda which should be aware of. The issue on the cultural differences to business negotiation process has become a very important and complicated respect. From a trade point of view of cost, effective cultural communication can save costs as well as achieve the desired purpose on the interests. Thus, as negotiators, they should understand the cultural backgrounds of the negotiations to make sure the success of the negotiations.

Next, let’s take a glimpse of the cultural factor that affects the business negotiations.

1. The cultural factor’s effect on the international business negotiations.

English philosopher Francis Bacon pointed in the book《Negotiations theory》that: All of us should learn to get well along with others. As a saying goes: “Barry of different wind, ten-mile different from convention”, for the existence of significant differences in historical traditions, political systems, economic status, cultural background,

customs and habits of the respective countries in the world, When making cross-cultural business negotiation, negotiators should pay more attention to the cultural differences between countries and seriously study the cultural backgrounds of the others’, including their characteristics. So, to gain the triumph of negotiations and the economic benefit, various negotiating styles and related cultural factors that affect the negotiations should be learned widely and deeply.

The reasons include the followings.

1.1 Language and non-verbal behavior

In business activities, owing to the obvious difference in languages, correspondingly, solving this kind of problems relatively seems much simpler. The use of kinds of language behaviors’manners which are looked as the exchange of information of skills does have some sort of differences. If the negotiators don’t take time to understand them, they will easily misunderstand the message of opponents’and it is likely to have a side effect on the negotiation goals.

However, the cultural differences on the non-verbal behavior are more subtle which can not readily be aware of.

Objectively, culture differences exist in the communication skills’differences such as a silence stage, chipped in doubt on the frequency and time, and so on. In business negotiations, the dye site staff have a more subtle non-verbal way to send or receive a lot of information which comes more important than the information of language, while these signals will be simply misunderstood, worse still, such kind of error can’t be easily realized and found out, then it will inevitably affect the normal business relationship.

1.2Customs and practices

In international business negotiations, there often exist a numerous formal or informal social activities which are frequently influenced by the cultural factors and restrict the conduct of the talks. For example, during the international business negotiations, social activities, for instance, the Arabs usually ask people to drink coffee and it is considered a very rude behavior if the guests don’t drink. What’s worse, it will create a big trouble. It was said that an American businessman refused the invitation, and finally the American lost a cooperation opportunity.

1.3Different ways of Thinking

In business negotiations, ways of thinking are often subject to conflicts between negotiations from different cultures. Let’s take the Oriental Cultures and Anglo-American’s Culture as an example.

The Oriental Cultures prefer the imaging thinking, comprehension and the unity, while the abstract and analytical thinking and confrontation which are more crucial in Anglo-American’s.

Therefore, negotiations from different cultures will take on the differences in decision-making, it maybe lead to the conflicts in decision-making methods and overall decision-making parties.

1.4 Values

In business negotiations, differences in values are hidden more deeply than in other aspects of culture, so it’s more difficult to overcome.

It is mainly embodied in the side of objectivity. Continuous competitions and differences in the concept of equality can also cause misunderstandings, the Americans perform in a more objectively way, their only focuses are on the economic interests and achievement performance, not impersonality. What’s more, they do have a strong concept of time that time means money. Yet difference between equality of competition is not good to grasp, ether. Nevertheless, Americans

wholly hold an equal view on interests, which is opposite to the Japanese’s.

From what mentioned above, we can figure out that differences in values also affect the negotiations.

1.5 Interpersonal relationship

Successful negotiations require the smooth exchange of information, while different cultural backgrounds will make the international business negotiations’information exchange face many obstacles and conflicts. Therefore, business negotiators must develop a good interpersonal relationship between the opponents and maintain good communication with each other to guarantee the smoothness of the negotiation. For example, openness and emphasis on humane consist of the French’s human natures, considering this, they always treasure the interpersonal relationship with others in the process of communication. So you can’t only keep your mind on business during the negotiations, otherwise it would be thought to be too dull to ruin the success of the negotiations.

After understanding the cultural factors in business negotiations, we can conclude that we should focus on the negotiators’styles and understand what measures should be taken if we want success.

So, next, it’s time for us to emphasize the different negotiating styles and techniques adopted by.

2.The negotiating styles embodied in the international business negotiations.

Negotiating style refers to the attitude which is performed frequently by negotiators, the behavior and the implicit characteristics in the negotiations. For the diversified properties of inequality among the various ethnic groups of politic, economy, culture, scientific and technological development in the world community, so in international trade, negotiations form some distinctive lifestyles, spending habits,

values and cultural backgrounds and such similar things, and the negotiation styles are with distinct characteristics and also bring the negotiating partners a huge impact of thinking. Thus, negotiators should be conscious of the different negotiating styles, so as to take purposeful action and seize the appropriate negotiation strategy to achieve successful negotiations.

Different negotiating styles:

Under the influence of cultural differences, merchants from different countries have different negotiating styles, the following to a few countries’ negotiating styles are represented.

2.1Chinese negotiating style

From a whole, Chinese people can fully embody their great kindness and hospitability in daily life. If you are sincere, they will pay you in good faith and they’ll put you as a true friend as long as you treat them as friendly buddies. Generally speaking, only if your initiation is good, even if you’ve done something wrong, it will soon be able to be forgiven for the rooted Confucian culture in China for it pays much attention to forgive others and Chinese always held such a point of view that people are not as perfect as saints, no one will inevitably make mistakes, thus, what importantly matters lies in your recognition and promptly correctness to faults, not that kind of so-called blame and apology. Chinese people are very known to how to respect others since they all along believe in one truth, namely, “Respect for others, that is respect for oneself”. Therefore, at negotiating table, they wholly will not be arrogant, and use the threat of coercion. They prefer to completing things in a friendly and cordial atmosphere.

2.2German negotiating style

Germany is the world’s leading industrial nation, despite the subsequent reunification of East and West Germany, there are still many

differences, from the whole national characteristics point of view, the German’s features include: strong confidence, cautiousness, conservativeness, rigidness, rigorousness, full of plan, vigorousness, strong sense of discipline, etc. And among which, honesty and integrity are the most appreciated qualities.

So the German negotiating style shown in the negotiations are: preparation of fully refined, carefully research. On the other party, boreness of rambling, etc. Germans are also very arrogant. They stress the importance and viability of their proposal and not willing to make a concession to the opponent.

2.3Japanese negotiating style

In the style of a large number of negotiators, the Japanese are the most personal and charming ones and experts all over the world are also by default. While ,this comes from its culture’s and history’s feature of lacking of resources and its dense population, even more, the Japanese culture has been deeply influenced by Chinese culture which Confucian thought, hierarchy, Zhongxiao-thinking are profoundly rooted in the patriarchal concept of the Japanese heart. Despite all of these, Japanese has its own unique characteristics: good understanding of etiquette and manners, emphasis on interpersonal relationship, strong hierarchy, introvertness, non-gullibility to people, filled with responsibility and something like these.

So the negotiating style demonstrated in the negotiations is with the properties of a strong sense of specific and careful decision-making, stress on interpersonal relationships and reputations and difficult concessions, etc.

2.4American negotiating style

Several points that the United States is one of the most developed countries all over the world in the fields of economy and technology,

English is almost a common language in international negotiations and more than half of world trade is in dollars, which make Americans proud of their own country and develop a strong sense of pride and honor. Then it contributes to forming the characters of Americans which are made up of outgoing character, random, frank, cheerful, expansive, self-confidence and determination, good communication, informality, the pursuit of material life, full of adventure and the sense of competition.

Meanwhile, the negotiating style they demonstrate in the negotiations has its own characteristics: strong self-confidence, self-recognition.

Therefore, having learned about the different negotiating styles in the different countries and according to their characteristics, we’d better take corresponding policies to attain success in the negotiations.

3. The skills in international business negotiations

3.1 Learn to listen to and comprehend others.

Business Negotiator’s fatal defect is the great deal of interest to his own words, but not others. Imagine if both sides are the views of such difference for each other, then the talks can also turn out to be a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Therefore, one can not talk about his own situation in full flight, but when others begin, his mind was to ponder what to say next. So even what the opponent said is just the topic you are much familiar with, talking to each other and concentrating on their issue and speaking can not to be ignored. In fact, it is not exactly to say that you will be more proactive as you talk more in the negotiating. While an excellent negotiator actually is the one who spend more time listening attentively to other’s speech, what’s more, he/she should make eye contact to others positively and make an appropriate facial expression that you are focusing on listening in order to encourage the speaker. Another critical point comes that you’d better make a note to help remembering in

case some crucial information will unexpectedly be missing for the memory of approximation of human being’s is limited. By doing this step, on one hand, it will contribute to putting forward questions on some issues for us after the speech and making full analyses and understanding the precise meaning of the speech on the other hand, so as to increase the bargaining chips of the negotiating. As a whole, “talks”is a task and “listen”is an ability , and “know how to listen”is a prerequisite as a successful negotiator.

3.2 To understanding the flexibility

Anything can not be completely in accordance with expectation to develop as there are no precise rules of them. In the negotiating process, when encountering the thorny issue by accident, no matter how prepared you are fully, This requires negotiators to grasp the flexible language adaptability and emergency measures linked, so that you can cleverly get rid of the woods. When confronting with an adversary who forces you to make an immediate choice, if your answer is like this: “let me think about it” or “it is difficult to decide this issue” and other similar words, then the other will consider that you are weak-minded, so out of question you’ll be psychologically pushed at a disadvantage. At this moment you can look at the watch and politely tell others: I’m sorry it’s 10 o’clock and I’ve to go out with a conventional friend on the phone, please wait a few minutes. So, you will very graciously win a few minutes of reflection. Just to keep such a sentence in mind that: remain flexible and designed for new ideas even when you exactly know what you really want.

3.3 Appropriately use body language

In business negotiations, the negotiators could express the non-vocal and silent language through their postures, gestures, eye contact, facial expressions and so on, which usually plays an important role during the negotiating process. In some special circumstances, the just right silence

can obtain the unexpected good results.

4. Conclusion

In a word , the key thinking manners and essence of international business negotiations can work well if it obey the rule in the old proverb in the army book that “ knowing is half of the battle”, only if we have learned about and further clarify the all factors that influence it and the interaction between the factors, the characters of negotiators, the merits and the shortcomings, and then take correct actions to it to improve the intercourse skills and abilities of itself, eventually will we realize the final goal in international business negotiations.

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