Negotiation Behaviors for International Managers (UK and

Myanmar
Furthermore, the buyer can bargain with words of mouth until reaching thefinal agreement of
negotiating price. Therefore, UK people tend to beUniversalism, meaning right is right and wrong is
wrong differentiate througha contract, agreement or commitment and Myanmar people tend to
beparticularism, meaning people and circumstances may change aftersomething has been signed and
someone can reinterpret its condition.(Babel Monthly Newsletter, unknown)

Individualism versus Collectivism

In making a mistake, Western culture seems to be taken responsibility forone’s own mistake and lead
one’s own life in the point of turning legal adultage. In Myanmar, even if a person is legally adult, he is
staying with parentsuntil getting married with the exception of working part time and studyingoversea
students. At the workplace of Myanmar, if someone is making amistake, he will probably like to save
face and solve it together with group ofpeople instead of leaving it to himself. In conclusion, the
Europeans are likelyto be individualism that is known as free to take people’s own decision andlead lives
as they wish and the Burmese are likely to be collectivism that isknown as sharing benefits and judges
and take responsibility for a mistakemade by one member and loss of face must be avoided at all
costs.(Babel Monthly Newsletter, unknown)

Neutral versus Emotional

Neutral cultural dimension is the neutral in showing emotion at workplaceand emotional is the
acceptance of showing emotion at working environment.Myanmar is seemed to be a neutral country in
terms of showing emotion atworkplace. Showing of emotion is likely to be lost of face for them and
isavoided to do so. While we studied the UK people, they tend to use lessemotion in business
relationships and focus on objectives. Therefore, both ofthe people in UK and in Myanmar are
neutral.(Charles Rarick, Inge Nickerson, 2007)

Specific versus Diffuse

Specific cultural dimension means putting work and personal concernsdifferently. There is no social
relationship established and no personalconcerns in negotiation. However, diffuse cultural dimension is
opposed toSpecific cultural dimension. Establishing social engagement is as relativelyimportant as
negotiating business as an international manager. In UK, it isobviously the specific style of culture in
doing business because people in UKthink that there is no relationship between social and work and it
isprerequisite in having a successful working. (Babel Monthly Newsletter,unknown) However, in
Myanmar it is common for combination of work andtalk social conversation at the same time in
negotiation, making this as adiffuse culture. (Charles Rarick, Inge Nickerson, 2007)

Achievement versus Ascription

Achievement orientated cultural dimension is that people are judged withwhat they had achieved or
recently accomplished. Ascription orientatedcultural dimension is that social status like gender, age,
connections andschool play important roles and carry weight in judging people. (BabelMonthly
Newsletter, unknown) In Myanmar Culture, it is crucial to payrespect to elderly and family lineage and
to denote people with the use oftitles placed on educational attainment, so the Burmese tend to be
ascriptionorientated cultural dimension. (Charles Rarick, Inge Nickerson, 2007)

Application of Hall’s Theory of High-and Low-Context Culture to thetopicHigh Context Culture and
Low Context Culture

High context cultural people tend to emphasize on interpersonalrelationships and developing trust in
business transaction. They also tend tobe more indirect and more formal in using language, so the
Burmese’sculture are likely to be high context culture according to Hall’s theory.( College of Marin,
unknown)

Low-context cultural people tend to be logical, linear, individualistic andaction-oriented. As

communicators, they are expected to be straight forwardto the conversation and action is
expected. They depend less on languageprecision and more on legal documents. According to Hall’s
culture theory,the Western European tends to be the low-context cultural people.

Conclusion

Taking all the things into considerations, it can be concluded that theMyanmar people are mostly
Buddhists and this make them different from theUK people. In term of cultural respects, the Burmese
are particularism,collectivism, neutral, diffuse and ascription orientated cultural people wholike to keep
face and talk politely and hospitalize to foreigner. Compared tothe Burmese, the Europeans are term to
be more straight down to point andin cultural perspective, they are universalism, individualism, neutral,
specificand achievement orientated cultural people who live independently and talkopenly.
Furthermore, according to Hall’s cultural theory, the UK people tendto be Low-context cultures and the
Myanmar people tend to be High-contextcultures