How to make a deal in China - A guide for German negotiators

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0 (A), Furtwangen University (Institute for Economics), course: Managing Cultural Diversities, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Since the opening of the People's Republic of China in 19781, China has become a more and more important business partner for Germany. Today China is the second biggest Asian trade partner of Germany. In the year 2000 the trade between China and Germany increased by 34 %.2 That is why more and more managers from Germany go to China for business negotiations. 'Global managers spend more than 50 percent of their time negotiating.'3 In this paper I am going to explain the differences how negotiations are conducted in China and Germany and what German managers involved in cross-cultural negotiations with the Chinese should bear in mind in order to avoid conflicts and misunderstandings. I assume that both, the Chinese and the Germans have not been trained in intercultural management before joining the negotiation. Fons Trompenaars describes the German culture as universalistic, collectivistic, diffuse and achievement-oriented, whereas he characterizes the Chinese culture as particularistic, collectivistic, very diffuse and ascriptive. In this paper I will divide the negotiation process into three stages and explain the cultural dimensions involved. [...] _____ 1 Chinanah, www.chinanah.com/forument001.htm 2 Bundeswirtschaftsministerium, www.wirtschaftsministerium.de 3 Adler, Nancy, p. 191