How Japanese Negotiate

 

 

 

As for the trust building process of negotiation, I thought about the negotiation rituals of the Japanese culture.

I have studied and lived in Japan and also have negotiation experience with Japanese business people. I think unlike Chinese and Koreans—although they are all Asian countries—the Japanese tend to respect rituals and rites, and so negotiations are preferred to be conducted in a certain way.

Firstly, the Japanese seem to value the power balance in negotiation. This means that it is important to have the same number of negotiators in each party. If a group of Japanese negotiators is smaller in number compared to their counterparts, they feel underrepresented and unfair. on the other hand, if the number of their counterparts is smaller even when they were informed of the number of Japanese representatives before the negotiation takes place, the Japanese would even feel offended and ignored. They would even doubt whether their counterparts are taking the negotiation seriously.  

Secondly, the Japanese still have bias about women in the executive level. If too many female business associates are in the other group, they might not feel comfortable and some would even feel bothered. They have this male-centered chauvinism that women's role should be restricted to the private sphere, taking care of household and nurturing children of which roles are definitely not along the line of representing a company' views at the negotiation table. Therefore, it is important to minimize the number of female representatives if you want to expect some positive outcomes with male Japanese negotiators.

Lastly, the Japanese (more than Koreans and Chinese in general) tend to nod excessively and keep on saying 'yes, yes.' Americans and western people often misunderstand this habitual gesture of the Japanese as genuine acceptance to the negotiation terms being offered. However, it is actually just a type of rites and a way to show that they have literally understood what is being said (The Japanese tend to over exaggerate and get carried away when they show their sign of understanding foreign languages especially English).

Well, these are some distinctive characteristics of Japanese negotiators from my personal and work experience with them. I would appreciate if any of you can share your personal/ negotiation experience with people of your nationality or from other cultures.

 

References:

 

Cohen, R. (1999), Negotiating across Cultures: International Communication in the Independent World. Washington, DC.: US Institute of Peace Press.

 

Huang, Liangguang. (2010) ‘Cross-cultural Communication in Business Negotiations’,

International Journal of Economics & Finance, 2 (2), pp. 196-199 [Online]. Available from: http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=51360800&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed 20 July 2010).