Summary: Successful International Business Negotiation

Influenced by international trade and economic globalization, business contacts among people with different cultural background have been frequent. Trade cooperation becomes an inseparable part of business negotiation which is a cross-national business etiquette. Verbal communication is the main component of business negotiation, being considered the most important and most direct method. However, nonverbal communication especially kinetics can deliver messages and express emotions more realistically and efficiently. Through analysis and contrast of kinesics, communication contents can be sensed. To help people better understand the application of kinesics in cross-cultural business negotiation and increase negotiating efficiency, this paper

It is believed that in ancient time, people made boats to trade on oceans, invent technology to help trade. People negotiate with each other to have a good sale of their products, which presents a prosperous view. Although negotiation happened relatively early, the studies of negotiation theories started in the 20th century. In fact, international business negotiation has attracted many scholars’ interests. In 1968, The Art of Negotiation was published by Gerard Nierenberg, which, at that time, was the most significant work for negotiation. Robert T. Moran &Willian G. Stripp wrote Successful International Business Negotiation in 1991. Negotiation Theory and Strategy(2003) by Russel Koronkin and International Negotiation by Jeffrey Edmund Curry are quite useful for latter researchers. In China, scholars also pay attention to business negotiation. In 1992, Hu Gengshen published his book of How to Conduct Foreign Sci-Tech Trade Negotiation. In this book, the author emphasizes the significance to learn skills of cross-cultural business negotiation. It is believed that business negotiation is a common subject that concerns many

This subject is represented by an American anthropologist R. L. Birdwhistell, he points out that every part of human’s body can express and deliver messages, emotions and attitudes, in which more than 65% are completed by facial expressions, movements, gestures, postures and so on(1970). According to another research (Samovar et al.,1981), the percentage of information transferred by verbal words in communication is 35%, while the information transferred by nonverbal communication(especially kinesics) amounts to 65%, which is far higher than verbal communication. In addition, American psychologist Alber Mebrabian design the following formula of communicative effect, that is the total impact of message = 7% verbal + 38% vocal +55% facial effects, among which 55% facial effects mainly depend on kinesics to obtain communication functions. Therefore, nonverbal words, especially kinesics play a vital part in communication. Kinesics mainly has four functions. The first one is repetition. Though as an important communication method, kinetics cannot play a role in communication dependently, it can reinforce, stress or further explain what is said in verbal language. Substitution is another function of kinesics. It means that kinetics can replace verbal language when people cannot use oral language