Abstract:With the economic globalization and the frequent business contacts, cultural differences seem to be very important, otherwise they could cause unnecessary misunderstanding, even affect the result of the business negotiations. This means it is very important to know the different cultures in different countries and the ways to avoid the culture conflicts into the international business negotiations. With the progress of economic globalization and China’s admission into WTO, business negotiations between China and the United States have largely increased. But cultural differences between the two countries are considered as an enormous challenge in international business negotiations. There are many factors contributing to the result of the business negotiation, but cultural difference is the most important one. It is widely accepted that understanding cultural differences during negotiations is of great importance to successful, cross-cultural negotiations in international trade.
This thesis compares American and Chinese negotiation styles from cross-cultural perspective and adopts mainly the methodology of comparison and case study. The goal is to improve negotiators’ knowledge and understand the negotiation-related cultural features as well as cultural differences to minimize misunderstandings, and provide some recommendations for negotiators involved in Sino-American business negotiations in order to make the negotiation smoothly.
Key words: cultural differences; business negotiation; disagreement; impact
摘要:在世界经济日趋全球化的今天，随着国际间商务交往活动的频繁和密切，各国间的文化差异显得格外的重要，稍不注意就会引起不必要的误会，甚至可能直接影响商务交往的实际效果。正因如此，如何化解各国不同的文化背景在国际商务谈判中是非常重要的。 随着全球经济一体化的推进和中国加入世贸组织, 中国和美国之间的商务谈判一直在不断增加，但是两个国家之间的文化差异也一直被认为是国际商务谈判中一项巨大的挑战。影响商务谈判成败的因素五花八门，其中文化因素当属重中之重，了解不同文化间的差异对成功开展国际贸易和顺利进行跨文化商务谈判举足轻重，这一观点得到了广泛的认可。
本文是从跨越文化的视角来对比美国人和中国人谈判风格的不同，主要采用的是比较和案例分析的方法来阐述的。目的是通过改进知识和了解彼此的文化特性及差异把双方的误解降到最低限度，并且对中美两国的谈判人员提供一些建议，使中美贸易谈判能顺利进行。
关键词：文化差异；商务谈判；分歧；影响
