International Negotiations Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The rationale behind this book is my dissatisfaction with the current literature on international negotiation and influence. Reading most of the present research in cross-cultural management, communication, negotiation, leadership, and influence, I often ask myself: How do these models and theories apply to the real world?
Often they don’t. And this is for seven main reasons:
Reason 1: US bias in current research. More than 90% of research on negotiation and influence is based on less than 10% of humankind. Western, and above all US, ethnocentrism confines and biases our understanding of negotiation and influence elements and processes.
However, if we could shrink the Earth’s population (7 billion) to a village of exactly 100 people, there would be only 5 North Americans and 11 Europeans; the rest of the village would comprise 14 Africans, 9 South Americans, and 61 Asians, including 19 Chinese and 18 Indians.
Because US models and theories cannot explain, or even detect, occurrences that are exclusively significant to other cultures, they cannot be applied universally.
Reason 2: Theories based on rational negotiators. Most negotiation and influence models are based on the expected utility theory, fabricated on negotiators acting as rational players, and game theory frameworks.
Limited research on social influence, emotions, judgmental heuristics, and behavioral decision making has been applied to the negotiation and influence field. Most negotiation models, with the purpose of providing universal and tidy results, discount the intricacy of multidimensional negotiation and influence processes, neglecting fundamental psychological factors and the complexity of decision-making processes that involve multiple actors.
Reason 3: The use of nations as units for studying cultures. Most cross-cultural negotiation and influence books still adopt the term culture as a synonym of nation. Nations are not the best entities for studying cultures. Geographic boundaries are often just artificial and unnatural divisions. Nationality and culture are connected, but any generalization must take into account within-nation variances and the great deal of diversity among people in any culture.
Cultural dimensions are not independent variables, and most cultural differences are relative rather than absolute. Factors that are dominant in one culture tend to be recessive in another, and vice versa. Individuals can embrace opposite poles according to the situation and context
We should never forget that we communicate and negotiate with individuals, not nations.
Cultural boundaries are not national boundaries.
Reason 4: Abuse of the notion of culture in explaining international negotiation failures and cross-cultural communication misunderstandings. Many scholars agree that culture is just an artificial, abstract, and purely analytic concept. The problem is that culture is often adopted as a justification whenever differences in behavior among people from different parts of the globe must be explained. However, we can’t understand human behavior only through a cultural lens. Most current studies still focus on cultural influences on negotiation, without taking situational factors into account. Though important, culture is not the only contributor to an individual's negotiating and influencing behavior: We also need to consider two other key elements: the individual's personality and the social context in which the individual operates.
Without taking social context into consideration, we can’t recognize the adjustment of specific cultural patterns under particular circumstances. Indeed, sometimes what we identify as cultural barriers in communication are just language obstacles.
When comparing management and organizations in different nations, it is easy to attribute too much to societal culture.
In the first session of a new student class, I used to write in capital letters: CULTURE DOESN’T EXIST. In the same way values don’t exist, dimensions don’t exist. They are constructs that have to prove their usefulness by their ability to explain and predict behavior.
The real question is not does culture matter? but when does culture matter?
An individual’s motivation and context variables are key elements in determining the impact of culture and in understanding why the influence of culture is remarkable in some cases and insignificant in others.
Reason 5: The concept of culture as a static framework. In most cross-cultural management literature, cultural elements are considered static and invariant across situations and generations. However, most of today’s cultures differ from what they were just 5 or 10 years ago. Current models discount cultural change over time, even though change is occurring rapidly in many countries (e.g., the fast move from collectivism to individualism in the major cities of emerging economies). We need a dynamic framework to understand how cultures transform and modify.
Reason 6: Cross-cultural negotiation and influence theories based on questionable data. The use of data from simulations involving international managers enrolled in MBA programs in the United States raises an interesting question in cross-culture literature: Can these individuals be regarded as a relevant and illustrative sample of managerial behavior in different cultures? Does their decision to attend US MBA programs mean they are more Westernized and cosmopolitan than their average fellow countrymen?
Another problem that arises with class simulations is that, because they are built around conventional and simplifying assumptions, they often oversimplify the complex and multidimensional systems governing real-world negotiations.
Reason 7: Concepts such as power, interests, and, above all, best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) take on different implications in an international context. Understanding people’s interests, other than money, is strategic because interests motivate individuals and affect their behavior. Interests differ from individual to individual, and they are strongly influenced by culture, context, and circumstances.
Negotiation power doesn’t lie only in wealth, networks, authority, and status; the relative negotiation power of each party is primarily determined by the attractiveness of its option if no agreement is reached.
Most of the negotiation literature focuses on the concept of BATNA, the best alternative each side has if no agreement can be reached between the parties.
The BATNA is the reference against which the terms of the agreement should be assessed to determine if one should accept the deal or walk away and pursue alternatives.
However, the concept of BATNA doesn’t apply straightforwardly to complex international negotiations. Committing to only one course of action if the negotiation ends without an agreement could present a risk in multiparty, multidimensional, and unpredictable international negotiations held in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. A better strategy calls for identification of multiple feasible alternatives (MATNAs).
Therefore, a better approach to international negotiations requires the identification and simultaneous pursuit of MATNAs.