Tasha Haight

Professor Shapero
International Management
October 6, 2014
Cross-Cultural Communication and Negotiation
Worldwide people are required to communicate to express their ideas. People are not
mind readers. However, that communication can be varied. Several different communication
styles exist, and those differ between countries. For example, India has more of a contextual style
whereas North America tends to favor the personal style. Although both of these styles focus on
the speaker, contextual styles, like those used in India, also focus on the relationships of the
parties while the personal styles, like those used in North America, focus on the reduction of
barriers between the parties (Contextual and Personal Styles 205). Both effectively
communicate within their society and both have a similar focus, but the other focus is different.
This difference in communication, however, does not hinder the communication as it is still
effective and successful to that culture.
Extending that style of communication into a foreign land when offshoring or going
abroad may render some confusion. American employees in India struggled to apply their
accounting knowledge to credit card payment processing, which could be solved by use of
exchanging task-related information in the negotiation process (Cultural Challenges 201). By
also using self-disclosure, information about the credit card process in relation to accounting may
be brought up or revealed and used to inform and therefore engage and encourage the Indian
workers by removing some of the cultural barrier between America and India.
Just as culture affects communication slightly, it also affects negotiation. One cannot
negotiate without a way to communicate and the slight variation of communication between
India and America could be enough to hinder the negotiation between the Indian employees and
the American financial firm mentioned above. Two different cultures being brought together can
be successful in communicating and negotiating, but first they must each understand the
differences between the communications styles used. Through integrative negotiation, the Indian
group of workers and the American group of firm leaders invest in the agreement of creating a
successful company. To allow this to happen, it must be realized that both cultures are indeed
different and a compromise must be made in regards to norms and rules of the company.
This managerial relationship, the distance used to handle most business transactions
plays a large role in the company (Proxemics 218). The American based company simply
offshores to India and must handle affairs from a far distance away. Because of this distance, the
relationship between the company and its employees is strained. Also due to the lack of
knowledge of connecting accounting and credit cards, more strain is added to the already
strained relationship. However with effective communication and negotiation, the strain can be
healed and the company can be more successful in the future.