Cultural Differences in Nonverbal Behaviours and International Business Negotiations

Person 1

Describe three cultural differences in nonverbal behaviours and explain how they might cause problems in international business negotiations.

Ans). The three cultural differences in nonverbal behaviours are-

1. Silence- Silence has a variety of meanings to different groups of people all around the world but remains a consistent part of our everyday nonverbal communication. It can be the number of conversational gaps of 10 seconds or longer.
2. Touching- Touches are taken as rudeness in most cultures. People in Asia are more conservative in these types of nonverbal behaviours. Incidents of bargainers touching one another (not including handshaking). It includes pat on the back or a hand on the shoulder.
3. Interruptions- It is the conversational overlaps.

These might cause problems in international business negotiations –

• When Japanese go silent, Americans often respond with talk. So, information tends to flow in only in one direction, to the Japanese. The Russian’s styles were quite different from that of any other European group, and indeed, was quite similar in many respects to the style of Japanese. They used ‘no’ and ‘you’ infrequently and used the most silent periods of any groups.
• When Americans don’t touch Brazilians or Mexicans they seem “cold” and “unfriendly”. The Brazilian business-people on an average touched one another on the arm about five times during 30 minutes of negotiations.
• When Spaniards interrupts Americans, Americans often respond with anger. French people also use interruptions. With respect to international negotiations, the English- Speaking Canadians used noticeably more interruptions and No’s than negotiators from either of Canada’s major trading partner, the United States and Japan.

Conclusion:

Nonverbal behaviours are key indicators of a persons’ true feelings. But some behaviours mean different things in different cultures and misunderstanding can undermine business negotiations. Executives who bring an awareness of these differences together have a better chance of achieving their goals.

Person 2

Cultural differences cause four kinds of problems in international business negotiations, at the levels of Language, nonverbal behaviours, values and thinking and decision-making processes.

Cultural differences in nonverbal behaviour are almost always hidden below our awareness. Almost all the signaling goes on below our levels of consciousness and when the nonverbal signals from foreign partners are different, negotiators are most likely to misinterpret them without even being conscious of the mistake.

Following are cultural differences in nonverbal behaviour and how they might cause problems in international business.

• Touching – In nonverbal communication, touching plays an important role in sending different messages to another person. One can learn about person’s personality, behavior, mood and other such aspects through his/her sense of touch.

For example, a warm tight hug may indicate that the person is comfortable with you or is in a good mood and vice versa. Similarly, a firm handshake can tell that the person is confident and bold in personality whereas a weak handshake may tell that the person has a gentle and soft personality.

However, there are cultural differences in touching, people from western countries prefer greeting with handshake at the first meet while people from middle east greet with a hug. In certain Asian countries, people greet with bowing down and there is no touching involved at all. Business negotiation may take a bad turn due to these differences in culture and might cause problems as the person may feel uncomfortable being touched.

• Facial gazing – Facial gazing usually refers to staring or looking at person’s face. It indicates range of emotions such as attraction, doubt or interest. Normally, steady eye contact says that person is confident, telling truth and trustworthy and the person who is blinking and frequently shifting eyes says that the person is lying or have something to hide.

As per the research carried out on the 15 countries which is showed in the textbook, people from Taiwan, France, Brazil and French speaking Canada had highest percentage of people with facial gazing in a nonverbal communication with 19.7, 16, 15.6 and 18.8 percent respectively. Meanwhile, people from countries like Japan, Russia and UK had lowest percentage of 3.9, 8.7 and 9 percent respectively.

This cultural difference might send wrong message while negotiating with people from different countries and culture. Person from country like Japan may feel awkward or uncomfortable if a person from Brazil keeps staring at him/her in a meeting or a business negotiation.

• Conversational overlaps – Conversational overlaps refers to interrupting in a conversation or basically speaking out of turn and speaking without the opposite person has finished speaking.

It is considered rude or unpleasant and disrespectful to talk and interrupt someone while they are speaking. USA, UK and Japan are countries where people prefer to talk once the opposite person has stopped talking.

They believe it is polite and organized way of conversation whereas people from Israel, Spain and French speaking Canada believe in interrupting the person in order to correct or give their own view about something to add value.

In an international business negotiation, a person from USA might feel disrespected if constantly interrupted while talking and may not want to carry out business with them for a long term.

Person 3

Describe three cultural differences in nonverbal behaviors and explain how they might cause problems in international business negotiations.

Once non-verbal behavior used in international negations is silent periods.  Some cultures go quiet for 10 seconds or longer. For example, Japan was among the highest percentage of silent periods during negotiations.

This is based on their polite conversation style. Russia had the highest number of silent periods and had a negotiation style very similar to the Japanese. The English-speaking countries, the US, UK and parts of Canada all had an above average number of silent periods. Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Spain and Brazil all had zero silent periods. In their negotiations.

This is relevant because during international negotiations between those that use silent periods and those that never do there may be a disconnect. The non-silent period users may come off as aggressive or overbearing to the more polite countries that are used to the occasional silent period.

Another non-verbal behaviour used at times is touching. This non-verbal action was only observed from two countries. French had a very small percentage of touching and Brazil had a significant amount of touching. This is an important cultural difference to know during international negotiations with Brazil.

Many other countries may take offence or become uncomfortable when touched during negotiations. Brazil would have to adjust when dealing with other countries or the other countries must come prepared for that aspect of their cultural style.

Finally, facial gazing is another non-verbal behaviour that differs between culture. The French and French-speaking Canada both had the highest percentage of facial gazing along with Taiwan.

These cultures use strong eye contact during negotiations. Japan was significantly the country with the least facial gazing with Russia in second. This coincides with the notion that these countries are more polite and less aggressive in negotiations.

This information is important because some countries could look at the lack of eye contact as a form of weakness or disrespect. The other side is some countries could see the excessive facial gazing as rude or overbearing. These non-verbal behaviours must be addressed and prepared for when engaging in international business negotiations

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