Japanese Negotiation Case Study

We are living in internationalized world, global trade keeps increasing and more companies from many countries around the world are going national at an astounding rate. This is reflection of strong economic growth around the world and globalization of the economy and corporations. Offices are spread from one continent to another and travel is essential to business. This is the reason why “business travel is increasing,” states Hubert Joly, president and chief executive officer of CWT.

Nowadays in business world, you might well find yourself as an international manager in a foreign subsidiary of an American firm, facing on a daily basis all aspects of international management, or could travel to country such like Japan, negotiating export sales

The following values tend to influence Japanese communication: focus on group goals, interdependence, and a hierarchical orientation. In negotiations, these values manifest themselves in awareness of group needs and goals, and deference to those of higher status. Japanese negotiators are known for their politeness and their emphasis on building relationships. Japanese concern with face and face-saving is one reason that politeness is so important and confrontation is avoided. They also tend to put less emphasis on the literal meanings of words used in negotiation and more emphasis on the relationships established before negotiating begins. They are less likely than their American counterparts to make procedural suggestions.The Japanese decision-making process is more group-oriented, each member of the group prefers a more passive mode of decision making. The members of group-oriented decision-making try to avoid making decisions immediately while American try to get to the point as soon as

While negotiating or meeting with Japanese company staff members, one should pay close attention to the individual character, type, and role of the Japanese negotiators. Japanese social values emphasize group ties, a positive concept of the individual is not entirely lacking.

Furthermore, as American is belongs to low context culture, Japanese can direct communicate and replying on strong personal relationships to support mutual understanding while negotiating with American. Meanwhile, a striking feature of collectivistic is their dislike of the negative; also a direct contradiction is invariably avoided.

However, in order to make business deal successfully, both countries should recognize that a foreign negotiator is different from you. Identify, accept, respect and understand the other side’s culture. Also be prepared to communicate and operate on two separate and different cultural wavelengths. For example, the negotiator can employ cultural experts or translators who have at least moderate and preferably high familiarity with both the counterpart’s and the negotiator’s cultures. The use of go-betweens, middlemen, brokers, and other intermediaries is a common practice within many cultures and represents a potentially effective approach to cross-cultural negotiation as