INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION'S AND

NEGOTIATION MANAGEMENT
ICM812S
COURSE AIMS
• To prepare you to understand the differences in business communication across cultures.
• To be sensitive to the differences you’ll encounter in international communication.
• To provide practical guidelines and information on how to conduct negotiate across countries, write
business letters in different societies and includes the different do’s and don’ts in international business
• To prepare you to face the differences in business communication cultures
• To evaluate the impact of the global corporate evolution and its impact on negotiation and communication.
• To analyse and determine the ideal make-up of global investors/negotiation teams/potential
partners/government delegates
• To prepare you to evaluate and apply intercultural communication skills, and effective negotiation
skills/strategies in order to achieve organizational goals
• To recommend and implement effective negotiation and intercultural communication strategies and best
practices
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APPROACHES TO INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

• Globalisation and rapid changes in technology has led to the creation of a “Global Village”
• People often fail to negotiate the most favourable agreements possible or to resolve serious
conflicts due to cultural misunderstandings.

1. THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN COMMUNICATION

• The role of culture in communication is usually misunderstood or sometimes underappreciated.
• The best way for us to deal with differences in culture is by clear and understandable
communication.
• We need to write and talk to other people taking into account the fact that they have their own
cultures that need to be respected.
• International negotiators need to do research on the cultural background of people that they want
to negotiate with.
 THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN COMMUNICATION
• The point of contact in communication between two people is the intercultural moment.
• It is during this moment that communication can either become successful or unsuccessful.
• The lack of understanding of what is going on at this point can lead to a breakdown in
communication.
• Intercultural competence is needed to understand and navigate potentially difficult intercultural
moments in order to complete our tasks or gather the information we need.
• Thus, it is important to gain intercultural awareness and sensitivity of the cultural dimensions
of communication which influence the shape of communication in the workplace.
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1.1 Intercultural Communication in a global world

• Advances in technology allows people to move quickly and easily across vast distances, both
physically and virtually
• People all over the world interact daily with others through the medium of modern
telecommunications, Internet, teleconferencing, etc.
• This facilitated international commerce and tourism, but is has also made trans-boarder
interpersonal relations increasingly frequent.
• As a result of media and transportation advances, we now have a wide variety of products and
services from abroad.
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1.2 Cross Cultural Negotiation

• Cross Cultural Negotiation is being defined Chaney and Martin (2011)

“Discussions of common and conflicting interests between persons of different cultural

backgrounds who to reach an agreement of mutual benefit”
• Different values, attitudes, interests, behaviours, and languages may produce different
negotiation styles, which if not managed well, can lead to misunderstanding and disagreement
and can even break up business relationships.
• Negotiation parties in cross-cultural negotiations need to have a deep understanding of the
cultural realities of their negotiation partners.
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2. Cultural Identity
Varner & Beamer (1995, p.2) define culture as:

“the coherent, learned, shared view a group of people has about life’s concerns that ranks
what is important, instills attitudes about what things are appropriate, and prescribes behavior,
given that some things have more significance than others”

• Culture is created and learned, imparted to us through our upbringing and exposure to the
practices and rules of conduct of which we are part.
• Culture is shared by a society and members of a society agree about the meanings of the way we
behave and speak.
• Although culture is shared by people in a society or group, each individual is still unique in
terms of his/her values and practices because of his/her life experiences that are also unique.
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2.1 Cultural identity and biases-shock

• Cultural identity means belonging to a particular culture or ethnic group.
• Cultural identity is a significant factor in the practice of intercultural communication since we
all come from different backgrounds.
• Identity can be described in terms of ethnicity which is generally defined on the basis of
cultural criteria, that is customs and language among other things.
• Racial identity is also used to describe someone’s identity. This is generally defined on the
basis of physical criteria such as skin colour, facial features and so on.
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3. Cultural Differences – Values and Patterns

• Culture teaches values and priorities, which in turn shape attitudes.
• Cultural rules provide a framework that gives meaning to events, objects, and people.
• These rules enable us to make us sense of our surroundings and reduce uncertainty about our
social environment.
• Cultural rules are learned by observing the behavior of - and listening to others.