Negotiation as a specific form of intercultural communication

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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

FOR HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Faculty of Humanities

Department of foreign languages

Negotiation as a specific form of intercultural communication

Field of study: intercultural communication

Shagimyardyanova Dinara

Moscow, 2019

Introduction

We live in a globalized world, where countries interact with one another on a daily basis. As integration processes take a significant place in the development of the modern world, the role of intercultural communication increases. This communication includes various forms of interaction between representatives of different cultures and nationalities. Participation in various forms of international cooperation requires its participants to be aware of national and cultural specific characteristics of their partners. The problem of the competent organization of business communication is particularly relevant in such a form of intercultural communication as negotiations. We mostly focus on business negotiations as today many contracts and deals are made between international companies, and the results of them depend on the skillful preparation and holding of negotiations. Despite the fact that there are some common rules and norms participants of negotiations adhere to, national and cultural characteristic play a very significant, if not major, role in business relationships. Knowledge of these features can help parties to predict the behavior of their opponents, their reaction to particular things, their preferences and therefore, can serve as a basis for devising communication and negotiation strategy that will pave the way for successful outcomes.

The problem of successful intercultural negotiations has received significant attention of the research community. There are many works on intercultural communication, and negotiations in particular (Galyna & Danilova, (2018); Gelfand & Brett (2004); Lebedevа (2010); Salacuse (1999)). For example, Salacuse (Salacuse, 1999) described cultural differences among negotiators and examined their effect on international business negotiations; scholars such as Lewis (Lewis, 2006) described various types of cultures and gave some of their common characteristics.

Despite the considerable research into intercultural negotiations, there is not enough practical analysis of negotiations between Russian and Indian representatives. We have chosen these two cultures because the relationship between the two countries are developing. Due to difficult political situation and tight relationships with the US and European countries Russia shifted the focus to strengthening its connections with Asian part of the world. Through many years India and Russia maintained good relations and in the past few years their partnership only evolved. Companies from different fields are looking for cooperation with India and in order to make them effective and prosperous it is useful to study Russian and Indian cultures.

The present research aims at identifying the features of various cultures, focusing on Russian and Indian cultures, that affect negotiations and might hinder the successful result by examining the works that have already been done on the topic of intercultural negotiation and culture. Due to the fact that culture and negotiations are complex subjects for analysis, we decided to limit our research to negotiations in the business sphere.

So, the relevance of our research lies in the fact that the relationships between Russia and India are developing and the need for competent organization of business communication between them increases. Thus, the subject of our research is intercultural business negotiations, and the object is cases of negotiations including Russian and Indian representatives.

The research questions of our research paper are the following:

- What role does culture play in international negotiations?

- What are the factors related to culture that influence processes of negotiation in intercultural business situations?

- What are the main cultural features of Indian and Russian negotiators?

- How these features are displayed in real-life cases?

In order to answer the questions we decided to apply theoretical analysis and case study research methods. The literature on the topics of intercultural communication, negotiation and culture will help us understand what role culture has in the negotiation process. In order to illustrate how the knowledge of cultural features of various cultures can be practically applied, we decided to analyze the case studies of negotiations, one of which involves Russia and the other - India. It should be noted that there is scarcity of available cases of Russian-Indian negotiations due to lack of research on the topic of their relationship and privacy policies of companies that participated in negotiations. After answering all the research questions some recommendations on negotiation with the representatives of Indian and Russian cultures can be given.

1. Literature review

1.1 The notion of intercultural communication

Intercultural communication is a complex phenomenon that integrates various forms of interaction between representatives of different cultures and nationalities. As in the modern world integration processes have a significant value, the role of intercultural communication in all spheres of life increases.

First of all, let us outline what intercultural communication is.

The term "intercultural communication" first appeared in 1954 in the American School of Cultural Studies. Anticipating future intercultural research, representatives of the school published an article "Culture and communication", where they outlined the scientific and applied perspective of this issue. Further development of a new direction was after the release of the prominent book by Hall "The Silent Language" (1959), in which the author justified the direct connection between culture and communication and the possibility of comparing cultures, based on the common grounds for all of them. Since the beginning of 1970s intercultural ideas of Hall were picked up by the communication Sciences of the United States. As part of the theory of communication, intercultural communication received considerable theoretical justification from psychological research, especially cross-cultural psychology (Kulikova, 2004). It should be noted that the emergence of the new discipline was due to the processes of the modern world, the needs of people of different cultures, professions and social institutions. Internationalization and globalization of various spheres of life, business development, along with problems of misunderstanding aroused an interest of cultural scholars to the issues of intercultural communication.

There are many various definitions of intercultural communication. For our research we chose the one given by Samovar and Porter (Samovar, 2013). They suggested that “intercultural communication involves interaction between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol systems are distinct enough to alter the communication event” (Samovar, 2013).

1.2 The concept of culture

In order for any intercultural communication to be successful one should have a set of communication skills that can be acquired in the process of learning about different cultures. The knowledge of national and cultural characteristics of people can help to avoid misunderstandings and further conflicts.

There can be found many definitions of the term “culture”. However, none of the definitions is considered standard or common. One of the definitions says that “Culture is a set of shared and enduring meanings, values, and beliefs that characterize national, ethnic, and other groups and orient their behavior” (Faure and Sjostedt 1993, p. 3). Some scientists believe that culture is not limited to ideas and thoughts, but it also encompasses behavior patterns. Thus, culture can be defined as “the integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance” (Hoebel 1972, p. 7). For the present research we stick to the following definition of culture: “culture is the socially transmitted behavior patterns, norms, beliefs and values of a given community” (Salacuse 1991, p 45).

From this definition we can outline four elements of any culture - behavior, attitudes, norms and beliefs and values. Salacuse compared culture to an onion, which has many layers, in this case - four (Figure 1). (Salacuse,1999)

Figure 1. The four layers of culture

Thus, understanding a culture is like peeling an onion. Firstly, one tries to figure our behavior patterns, actions and words of the counterpart. Then enter attitudes toward particular situations, like time and form of a meeting, for example. The next layer is norms that should be followed in various situations. For instance, strict adherence to time of the meeting may be a norm of a culture and not just a personal trait of a character. Finally, the forth, most inner layer is values. Differences in values might hinder successful communication and even lead to conflicts that is why it is better to find out about them at the beginning to achieve positive results and long-term relationship. (Salacuse, 1999)

We can state that culture is some sort of a glue that links people together, giving them a sense of community. It not only unites them, but also separates them from other communities. Each culture has its own characteristics and specific features that make them different from one another. These feature influence the way people communicate, perceive various situations and behave in a particular case. And they certainly influence the way people negotiate, as in our work we focus on such form of intercultural communication as negotiations. Now it is necessary to define what we mean by negotiations. Among many definitions of this term we opted for the one given in the book “Getting to Yes” by Fisher and Ury, where negotiating is “back-and-forth communication designed to reach an agreement when you and the other side have some interests that are shared and others that are opposed” (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 1981). Business negotiation, especially intercultural one, is a complicated process that requires many skills and knowledge, one of which is the knowledge of national and cultural features of counterparts. Thus, everything is interconnected.

1.3 Categorization of cultures

The problem of successful intercultural negotiations received a significant attention of researchers, therefore, there are numerous works focusing on this issue. One of the things that unites all of them is that any negotiation needs to be carefully prepared for. To do that, parties of negotiations should analyze their counterparts' cultures. As culture is a complex phenomenon it is easier to examine various types of cultures and their related features. There are various classifications of them. One of the most renowned ones are be Lewis, Hall and Hofstede.

Now let us concentrate a little bit on these three classifications.

One of the models often used to describe cultures was suggested by Hofstede (Hofstede, 2000), a famous social psychologist. Primarily he developed a four-dimensional model, to-date there are six dimensions, of cultural differences. He distinguished the following dimensions:

- Power Distance (PD);

- Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI);

- Individualism/ Collectivism (IDV);

- Masculinity/ Femininity (MAS);

- Long-term/ Short-term orientation (added in 1980s) (LTO);

- Indulgence/ Restraint (added in 2010) (IND).

Depending on the score a culture has on this or that dimension, there can be identified characteristics. We are going to summarize what each dimension stands for and what characteristics cultures with low and high scores possess.

Power distance

Power distance is “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power distinguished unequally” (Hofstede, 2000, 81). The core issue is how people deal with inequalities in the society. In countries that score high on this dimension, people accept hierarchy and the fact that everybody has a certain position and it does not need any further justification. On the contrary, societies with lower degree of PD seek to equalize the distribution of power, and, if there are any inequalities, justification is demanded.

Table 1 shows some of the differences among cultures with large and small PD.

Table 1. Differences between cultures with low and high PD. (Hofstede, 2011).

Large PD	Small PD
Autocracy in leadership	Decision-making responsibility and authority decentralized
Paternalistic ways of management	Participative or consultative style of management
A lot of supervisory staff	Supervisory staff small in proportion
A number of hierarchy levels	Flat structure of organizations
Income distribution is uneven	Income distribution is rather even
Older people are respected and feared	Older people are not feared or respected
Corruption is frequent, scandals are covered up	Corruption is rare, scandals end careers

Latin, Asian, and Arabic countries, also African areas score high on PD dimension, while Anglo and Germanic countries tend to have lower PD. European countries in the northern part have lower PD than countries in the eastern and southern parts.

Uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance is defined as “the extent to which the members of a culture feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in uninstructed situations” (Hofstede, 2000). Basically, this dimension shows how people feel in risky, unforeseeable and dubious situations. Cultures with high degree of UAI are prone to avoid any uncertainty by following established, formal social protocols. Moreover, they do not tolerate ideas or behavior that deviate, and are resistant to changes. This may reflect on their communication with others. Thus, such cultures probably do not easily exchange information, they are usually quite competitive in negotiations, and expression of emotions is considered normal. On the other hand, people from cultures with low UAI are more predisposed to accept ambiguous situations, deviant behavior and ideas. They usually welcome initiative and do not value protocols as much as high-uncertainty avoidance cultures. Furthermore, such cultures tend to take risks, and are flexible to any changes.

Table 2 demonstrates the differences between high and low uncertainty avoidance cultures:

Table 2. The differences between high and low uncertainty avoidance cultures. (Hofstede, 2010; Hofstede, 2011).

Low UAI	High UAI
People accept any uncertainty in life and ready to take every day as it comes	Uncertainty is met reluctantly and with caution
There should be no more rules than necessary	Urge for rules and protocols
Ease, lower stress, self-control, low anxiety	Higher stress, emotionality, anxiety, neuroticism Lower
Tolerate ambiguity	Do not like ambiguity and uncertainty
Take risks	Avoid risk situations
Citizens are politically engaged	Citizens are less politically engaged
Less religiously ritualistic	More fundamentalist religiously

East and central European, Latin, German speaking countries, as well as Japan and South Korea have a high degree of UAI. English speaking, most of the Asian and Nordic countries score lower on UAI dimension.

Individualism vs Collectivism

“Individualism on the one side versus its opposite, Collectivism, is the degree to which individuals are supposed to look after themselves or remain integrated into groups, usually around the family” (Hofstede, 2000, p.209). For individualistic cultures independence and individual achievements are valued, the individual is viewed as the only most significant unit in a social setting. On the contrary, in countries with the collectivistic orientation, views, ideas, needs, and goals of a group rather than individuals are stressed. In such cultures there is a tendency for cooperation with in-group members and relations are more important than contract.

Referring to the Table 3, the differences between these two groups are the following:

Table 3. The differences between Individualism and Collectivism. (Hofstede, 2010; Hofstede, 2011).

Individualism	Collectivism
Independent self	Interdependent self
“I” conscious	“we” conscious
Privacy is valued	Stress on belonging
Task over relationship	Relationship over task
Management of individuals	Management of groups
Everyone is expected to have personal opinion	Opinions are predetermined by group members
Ideologies of individual freedom prevail over ideologies of equality	Ideologies of equality prevail
Autonomy is ideal	Patriotism is ideal

According to Hofstede, collectivism is typical for Asian, Latin, Muslim world, ex-soviet countries, while Western countries tend to be individualistic.

Masculinity vs Femininity

This dimension deals with how emotional roles between genders in a society are distributed. Basically, “tough” masculine societies are opposed to “tender” feminine ones. (Hofstede, 2000, p.279) Masculine cultures are characterized by desire for achievements, assertiveness, importance of status, competitiveness, admiration of winners, and material rewards for success. On the contrary, feminine societies are more consensus-oriented, modest, care for the weak, value people and prefer cooperation.

Table 4 lists some of the key traits of the two groups:

Masculine cultures	Feminine cultures
Challenge, recognition, status are important	Relationships and quality of life are more important
Men are usually assertive, tough and ambitious, while women should be tender and the ones who take care of relationships	Modesty, tenderness, and concentration on relationships (for both genders)
At work men should be decisive, ambitious, responsible; women should be kind, gentle and caring	Women and men share the same characteristics (both gentle, caring, ambitious, decisive, responsible)
Work prevails over personal life	Work-life balance
Double standards: men are subjects, women - objects	Single standards: both genders are subjects
Economic growth is important	Protection of environment is more important
Conflicts are usually solved through force	Negotiations as a way to solve conflicts
There is a wage gap between genders	The wage gap is smaller
Higher positions are mostly occupied by men	Both genders can occupy management positions

Japan, German speaking countries, some of the Latin American countries (like Italy, Mexico, Colombia) score high on MAS index; Western and English speaking countries have lower degree of MAS. The Netherlands, Nordic countries, some Latin countries (like Spain, Chile, Portugal), Asian and ex-soviet countries are feminine cultures.

Long-term vs Short-term orientation

It stands for “the extent to which a culture programs its members to accept delayed gratification of their material, social and emotional needs” (Hofstede, 2000, p. 351). To put it simply, it shows whether a culture's association with the past and present activities and difficulties it encounters are connected and how they are connected. If a culture scores low on this dimension, it means that people there maintain their connection to past traditions and are suspicious to changes. Countries with higher score of LTO prone to pragmatic innovations and easily adapt to new situations.

In Table 5 some of the key differences between cultures with Long-term and short-term orientation are shown.

Table 5. key differences between cultures with Long-term and short-term orientation. (Hofstede, 2010; Hofstede, 2011).

Short-term orientation	Long-term orientation
Respect for traditions	Respect for circumstances
Personal stability is a good trait	Adaptiveness is a good trait
Pressure toward spending	Spare resources
Past and presents are important	Focus on the future
There exist a universal guideline for what is good and what is bad	Circumstances define what is good and what is bad
Prone to analytical thinking	Prone to synthetic thinking
Matter and spirit are separated	Matter and spirit are integrated
Sense of pride of one's own country	Learn from other countries
Slow economic growth of poor countries	Fast economic growth of poor countries
Fundamentalism	Pragmatism

It should be noted that the LTO dimension was added later to the list of dimensions, and for this reason less extensive research was conducted. Therefore, not so many countries are presented in the results. East Asian, some Central and Eastern European (Russia, Slovakia, Czech Rep.), German speaking countries are long-term oriented; some of the South- and North-European (Italy, Spain, France, Luxemburg, Austria), South Asian and some Central and Eastern European (Groatia, Hungary, Armenia, Slovenia) countries have a middle level of LTO; Latin, English-speaking, African, middle East and Muslim countries are short-term oriented.

Indulgence vs Restraint

This dimension was added in 2010 and it describes tendencies of a culture concerning realization of desires. Indulgence means that people in a society encourage free gratification of simple, basic human pleasures; restraint signifies that people are prone to restraint and control gratification of such pleasures.

Indulgence stands for a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint stands for a society that controls gratification of needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms. Cultures with high IND score tend to concentrate on enjoying life and being happy, people feel that they are the ones in control of their life. On the contrary, cultures that score low on this dimension are more likely to control behavior, stick to strict norms and rules, people do not feel that they have control over situations and therefore feel powerless.

More differences between indulgent and restrained cultures are shown in the Table 6:

negotiation intercultural communication

Table 6. Differences between indulgent and restrained cultures. (Hofstede, 2010; Hofstede, 2011).

Indulgent	Restrained
The percentage of happiness is high	The percentage of happiness is low
People feel in control	People so not feel in control over things
Loose society	Tight society
Less moral discipline	Moral discipline
More optimistic	More pessimistic
Gender roles are not strictly prescribed	Gender roles are strictly prescribed
Maintaining order in the nation is not a high priority	Maintaining order in the nation is very important

Eastern European, Asian and Muslim countries have a low IND index; Mediterranean Europe has a medium level of IND; and North and South American, Western European and some African countries have high index of IND.

Hall categorized cultures as low-context/ high-context, monochromic/ polychronic, past- / future- oriented, and low- / high-territorial (Galyna & Danilova, 2018). In our research we will only look at the first two categories.

He suggested that cultures can be either high- or low-context. It depends on the culture's relation to context, i.e. whether the meaning comes from the setting or from the words that are said. Context, according to Hall, is “the information that surrounds an event; it is inextricably bound up with the meaning of the event” (Hall, 1990). Thus, the way cultures communicate and exchange information is influenced by the context. Therefore, he defined low- and high-context cultures as follows: “A high-context (HC) communication or message is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message. A low-context (LC) is just the opposite; i.e., the mass of the information is vested in the explicit code” (Hall, 1976, p.91).

People in HC cultures are very homogeneous, have long-time connections and share experiences, hence it is not always necessary to communicate meanings through words during the encounter. Other features of such cultures are that non-verbal communication is highly used, verbal messages are quite implicit, many metaphors, subtexts are often used. What is more, interests of those in group prevail over those out of it; appearances, status, hierarchy are very significant for the representatives of HC cultures. Such cultures can stay unchanged over time. Most of the countries in the world are high-context, they include most of Asian, Latin American, Arab, American Indian, African American countries. (Hall, 1976)

People from LC cultures are less homogeneous, relationships are less stable and usually are short-term, therefore, messages should be stated explicitly, so everyone understands what is going on and how they should behave. Unlike people in HC cultures, here people are mostly goal-oriented and follow procedures to get things done. Another contrastive feature is that social structure is decentralized. LC cultures include Scandinavian, North American countries, Germany and Swiss. (Hall, 1976)

The process of communication between the representatives of these two groups may encounter difficulties: HC can see LC representatives as arrogant, aggressive, impatient, while LC cultures perceive their counterparts as difficult to understand, indecisive and avoiding direct answers.

Another group of cultures is based on their attitude to time. Hall distinguished monochronic (M-time) and polychronic (P-time) cultures. M-time cultures do one thing at a time, stick to schedules and arrangements, are punctual, and perceive time as linear. Time is a valuable resource that should not be wasted. One of the irrefutable principles among people from this type of culture is the adverse reaction to intervention in work or any activity as well as the idea that personal sphere is untouchable. The United States, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Northern European countries are related to monochromic cultures. (Hall, 1976)

P-time cultures, on the contrary, do many things at a time, time managements is not in high priority; their punctuality depends on their relationship with people they are meeting. In this culture communications with people is more significant than the result of this communication. Time is not important to them, they can easily change their plans and get distracted. This perception of time is inherent in Middle East, Latin American, Sub-Sahara and Arab part of Mediterranean countries. (Hall, 1976)

The works of another scientist Richard Lewis are of great interest for understanding the differences between various cultures in business communication. He divided cultures into three groups: linear-active, multi-active, and reactive.

Lewis stated that linear-active cultures are task-oriented. According to him, people from linear-active cultures do one thing at a time, are completely focused on the task and follow the pre-planned schedule. They believe that such an approach to work guarantees its effectiveness.

The researchers named the following characteristic features of linear-active cultures:

- Introversion;

- patience;

- respect for privacy;

- brevity;

- they get information only from checked sources (official statistics, database, directories);

- in disputes base their arguments on logic;

- respect formality;

- always separate social and professional activities (Lewis, 2006).

Western and Northern Europe, North America, Britain, Australia, Scandinavia and Germanic countries are representatives of linear-active cultures.

Multi-active cultures are people-oriented, outgoing and talkative. Unlike linear-active people, they do many things at once and not always in planned order, they can easily restructure the flow of negotiations and even completely change the agenda.

Multi-active cultures are:

- Extroverts;

- impatient;

- very curious;

- consider reality more important than the order established by man;

- not really punctual;

- have unpredictable schedule;

- prefer first-hand information (oral);

- often mix social and professional activities (Lewis, 2006).

Multi-active cultures include Southern Europe, Latin American, some Arab countries, sub-Saharan Africa, India, Pakistan, and most of the Slavs.

Reactive, or listening, cultures are respect-oriented. They are the best listeners in the world, who rarely initiate discussions, preferring to figure out their partners' position first, then respond to it and only then formulate their own. Their tactic is based on the formulation of questions in order to understand better the expectations of the vis-а-vis. Thus, the Japanese, for example, many times will return to the same paragraph of the contract to make sure there is no misunderstanding. Finns, despite their sharpness and straightforwardness, during the transaction will always try to find a solution acceptable to both sides. The Chinese will not be hasty and will choose different approaches and possible solutions to avoid disagreements.

Representatives of reactive culture more than others use nonverbal communication, which is realized by a subtle body language. Monologue is the preferred method of communication for this culture. Lewis describes it as - "monologue - pause - reflection - monologue» (Lewis, 2006).

The reactive cultures are found in all major countries in Asia, like China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, also Finland, and Estonia.

For Chinese pauses in conversation play a significant role. They believe that the interlocutor's ideas and opinions should be contemplated in silence. It should be noted that for reactive cultures verbal answer is only a small part of what is going on. Attention should be paid not only to what is said, but also to how it is said, with which intonation and in what context. For example, Finns, Japanese, and Chinese often use grunts, sighs, and moans in conversation. Thus, a sharp sigh in Finland is a sign of agreement and not outrage, as in Slavic countries.

It should be outlined that the representatives of the linear-active cultures always divide the project into stages, multi-active - let projects overlap with each other, and the reactive people look at the whole picture.

Lewis advises European and American businessmen, negotiating with representatives of reactive cultures to listen carefully, remain silent for some time, ask clarifying questions, respond constructively and try to adapt to the style of the partner. (Lewis, 2006)

1.4 The process of negotiation and influence of culture on it

As the purpose of our work is to see how culture affects negotiation, we are going to take a look at the negotiation process.

We have already provided the definition of the term “negotiation” at the beginning of our work. To put it short, negotiation is a process in which two opposite parties try to reach an agreement on an issue. People negotiate all the time, it can happen both in formal and informal setting. Nevertheless, if people want to make the process effective, the parties should do a tedious job while preparing for it.

There are four key elements of any negotiation situation: interdependence, mutual adjustment, value claiming and value creation, conflict.

Interdependence

It is evident that participants of a negotiation need each other to reach their objectives. Thus, interdependent parties are those who depend on each other to achieve their desired outcome. It means that the parties need to contribute their knowledge, resources, and efforts, rely on each other if they want to accomplish their goals, which can be either the same or different.

Mutual adjustment

Interdependent parties have to figure out how to resolve their discrepancies. One party can affect another's objectives, decisions and outcomes, and at the same time, another party can influence theirs. This mutual adjustment lasts during all the process of negotiation because both groups of participants behave in a way to influence the others. In short, mutual adjustment is understanding how another side will adjust and readjust, how negotiation will change, based on other party's actions and the party's own goals.

Value claiming and value creation

Negotiation situations can be of two types: zero-sum or distributive, and non-zero-sum or integrative. The former refers to those situations in which only one winner is possible, and the parties try to get the largest benefit. The latter refers situations where both parties achieve their outcomes.

In the first case, the purpose of a negation is to claim value, i.e. to get as much as possible. In this situation, negotiators tend to go with the win-lose strategy, which is competing. If the purpose of negotiation is to create value, it means that negotiators try to find a solution that satisfies all parties, helps them meet their objectives. In this case, win-win approach, or collaborating, is applied.

Conflict

Unfortunately, conflicts are sometimes inevitable. The reasons can be different: divergent needs or interests of the parties, limited resources, misunderstandings, or miscommunication. Whatever the reason is, the conflict needs to be solved. Negotiation can pave the way for effective resolution. (Lewicki & Saunders, 2007)

Now, we are going to move on to intercultural side of negotiation. So, the question we are interested in is “How does culture affect the negotiation process?” There is no doubt that cultural characteristics influence the way people negotiate.

Cultural differences between parties can create obstacles for successful negotiation in various ways. Firstly, they can be a reason for misunderstanding. For instance, when American representatives say “That's difficult”, it means there is still a place for discussion and probably agreement. However, in Asian countries people are reluctant to express disagreement or rejection directly, therefore, the exact same phrase “That's difficult” would mean “no” or that the offer is unacceptable. Secondly, cultural differences can be the ground for wrong interpretation of actions. To give an example, as we have already discussed, for some cultures prompt answers are a norm, whereas others tend to take some time for consideration and periods of silence during negotiation is a common thing. Thus, Americans can interpret silence of Japanese negotiators as rudeness, tricky tactic or a sign of incomprehension. Disliking such periods of silence, the Americans tend to fill them with more explanations, repetitions of their words, questions, which can confuse the Japanese, who simply need adequate amount of time to think over the proposal to give further response, and all those questions and explanations just make them feel bombarded. In contrast, quick response is typical for Latin Americans, for whom verbal agility is of high importance. They have a tendency to give their immediate answer once they have understood the point even if the other party has not terminated their speech. Thus, on the one hand, American representatives can be puzzled with the silence of Japanese negotiators; on the other hand, they can be equally confused and taken aback by negotiators from Latin American countries and consider their quick responses as interruptions. Thirdly, culture also affects negotiation styles of people, in other words, how they behave themselves in the process of negotiation. Research shows that negotiation styles differ from one culture to another. (Salacuse, 1999)

Despite the long history of studying national negotiating styles, views on them are quite controversial. Partly it can explained by methodological difficulties. It is not clear what is considered a “national style”, to what extent it is connected to ethnic style of negotiation. For example, will a Chinese resident in the United States negotiate like American or his or her style will be influenced by ethnic peculiarities? Moreover, national styles are not permanent; they are changing and evolving. Another reason for difficulties in regard with national negotiating styles is that national and cultural characteristics are analyzed through the prism of the researcher's own style.

Nevertheless, negotiation styles play a significant role in negotiations. American researchers Cohen and Fisher believe that cultural differences are very considerable and difficulties that arise during negotiations are due to these differences. To support their idea they provide the following arguments:

- Values, traditions, beliefs, etc. acquired in the childhood, influence people a lot, thus, in critical or extremely important situations they lie in basis of the decisions.

- Participants of negotiations represent not only themselves, but also specific States, national movements, etc., and therefore cannot ignore their cultural and ideological characteristics.

- Negotiations are a form of interaction between representatives of various cultures, which means that norms of behavior are some kind of tested in the process, and each side seeks to preserve and reinforce them.

- Nowadays not only diplomats, but also ordinary people, who have less or no experience at all in intercultural communication, participate in negotiations. Not having an opportunity to choose a single negotiating culture on the basis of the previous experience, they bring in negotiations a significant element of national and cultural specific features (Cohen, 2002; Fisher, 1997).

So, what characterizes national styles of negotiations? Fisher suggests considering the following five parameters:

- Peculiarities of perception and understanding of negotiations (whether negotiations are regarded as a method of solving problems; tendency to compromise at the initial stage; principles of forming a delegation, and others);

- decision-making features;

- national character characteristics (how one perceives one's own culture, other cultures; values; peculiar features of logic at the process of negotiating);

- non-verbal characteristics;

- linguistic peculiarities (Fisher, 1980).

Let us concentrate on some of these parameters.

Perceptions of negotiations

It is suggested that culture affects the way people view the negotiation process and the counter party. For instance, people from the United States view negotiations as a competing process, where the objective is to win. Thus, American representatives usually enter into the process of negotiations with confrontational attitude. For them, the final product is what matters the most, relationships with the other side go into the background. This approach is the opposite of those from collectivistic cultures, who put the relationships first. Therefore, representatives of Asian or Latin American countries enter negotiations with collaborative approach, aiming at “win-win” solution. This view of negotiations differs from that of people from the Middle East. Negotiators there tend to be decisive, forceful, assertive, and committed to their beliefs. The Russians present another group of negotiators who consider negotiations as a place for debate and an opportunity to prove they are right to their counterparts. Attempts to make concessions are perceived as a sign of weakness; instead of reaching a compromise, they repeat their original point expecting the other side to realize this point is the correct choice. (Samovar, 2013)

Russian linguist Likhachov pointed out that the Russian culture was influenced by and related to other cultures, Scandinavian, German, Italian, Caucasian; and therefore, the Russian culture is universal and tolerant to cultures of other nations. It means that the Russian negotiating style is quite adaptive. Another feature is that during negotiations Russians can either be aggressive and uncompromising or completely agree with the other party's conditions. (Likhachev, 1990)

Selection of delegation and decision-making process

It is important to take into consideration the participants of negotiations and their social and organizational status. How negotiators are chosen and delegations are combined is based on cultural peculiarities. The criteria for the selection of participants can include, but not limited to, their competence in the field, experience, age, status, individual characteristics, family connections. These criteria and their value differ in various cultures. For example, American negotiators are chosen on the grounds of their competitiveness, eloquence, management skills, while their position in a company has less importance. In Middle Eastern and Asian countries, on the contrary, the status plays a significant role in selecting people for negotiation. Generally, people from top companies or influential families comprise delegations. The number of negotiators indicates the level of significance of the negotiations - the more people participate in the negotiation, the more importance is attached to it. (Samovar, 2013)

Another factor that can influence the choice - is the age. Asian cultures tend to choose older members of the company for negotiations, and they usually are the ones to lead the delegation. Partially this tendency is rooted in the Confucian philosophy toward elderly people. In Western societies competence is more important than age, for this reason delegations from Western countries can consist of young people.

Gender can also be an issue in the selection process; it is especially relevant to Muslim countries. For instance, negotiators from Saudi Arabia can find it difficult to negotiate with women, because in their culture females are secondary to males in business. (Samovar, 2013)

As for decision making, it also varies from culture to culture; some people are freer to decide, others feel the need to take time and consult with more powerful members of the organization. American representatives have a much greater degree of freedom in international negotiations in comparison with representatives from Asian countries or Russia, for example. After agreeing on their position, members of American delegation have authority to act within its framework. As a result, the pace of negotiations is high. Decision-making is different in Asian delegations. Chinese negotiators, for instance, usually make decision not at the negotiating table, but at home. To make the final decision they need to get approval from the center, which takes time, and thus, prolongs negotiations. (Lebedeva, 2010)

Salacuse (Salacuse, 2004) in his turn, distinguished ten factors that influence negotiation, and knowledge of which can help anticipate possible misunderstandings and avoid conflicts. The factors are: negotiating goals; attitudes to the negotiating process; personal styles; styles of communication; time sensitivity; emotionalism; agreement form; agreement building; negotiating team organization; risk taking (Salacuse, 2004).

1. Negotiating goal: contract or relationship

This factor indicates the purposes of the parties toward negotiation outcome. For some cultures, signing the contract comes first, for others building a strong long-term relationship is what matters the most. The difference in this view explains why certain cultures, Asian cultures, for example, prone to spend more time and energy on preparation, while others, like Americans, quickly go through preliminary stages of negotiation.

2. Negotiating attitude: win-win or win-lose

Due to cultural or personal differences, negotiators choose different approaches to negotiation: they either want to win it all (win-lose), or find a plausible for everybody solution (win-win). Those who opt for the second approach see negotiations as problem-solving, collaborative process, while win-lose negotiators perceive it as confrontation process. When entering negotiation, it is important to know to which of the two types of negotiators the other party belongs in order to build one's own strategy.

3. Personal style: Informal or formal

Personal style refers to the way people communicate, dress, and behave in the process. Personal style is influenced by the culture of a negotiator. “A negotiator with a formal style insists on addressing counterparts by their titles, avoids personal anecdotes, and refrains from questions touching on the private or family life of members of the other negotiating team. A negotiator with an informal style tries to start the discussion on a first-name basis, quickly seeks to develop a personal, friendly relationship with the other team, and may take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves when deal making begins in earnest” (Salacuse, 2004). To err on the side of caution, one can stick to a formal style and switch to informal later, if the context allows it.

4. Communication: direct or indirect

This factor brings us back to classification of cultures we provided a bit earlier in the work. It has to deal with high- or low-context cultures. Some cultures rely on indirect means of communication, using a large number of figurative expressions, and body language; while others tend to be direct, giving very explicit and clear responses.

5. Sensitivity to time: high or low

It features the attitude of cultures to time, which is similar to monocronic and polychronic cultures. For instance, Latins are generally late, while Germans are very punctual; Americans negotiate and close deals quickly, while Asians take a longer time to make a decision and have a slower speed of negotiating. To put it short, some negotiators perceive time differently and put divergent value on it.

6. Emotionalism: high or low

Different cultures have various rules as to the form and adequacy of showing emotions. Personality also play a role in this matter; however, there are some general cultural tendencies. Thus, according to stereotypes, Asians do not display their feelings, while representatives of Latin America tend to be very emotional.

In the Salacuse's survey, at the top of the rank were Latin Americans and Spanish people who identified themselves as highly emotional; the English and Germans among Europeans, and the Japanese among Asians ranked as least emotional (Salacuse, 1999).

7. Form of agreement: general/ specific

Culture also affects the form of written agreement between parties. In most cases, American negotiators opt for detailed contracts that foresee any possible circumstances and cases. It is explained by the fact that for them a contract is the primary goal. On the other hand, Asian cultures, for example, prefer less detailed contracts, in a more general form. It is so because their primary goal is relationship, and in some unexpected situations they refer to their relationship, and not the contract, to solve the issue.

8. Building an agreement: bottom up or top down

Forms of building an agreement differ from culture to culture. Some cultures start from agreeing on major basic principles moving on to specific points, others incline to start with agreeing on specific items proceeding to things that are more general. To give an example, it is believed that the French stick to the first type of agreement form, while the Americans start with specifics.

Furthermore, there is a difference between building down and building up approach. In the former one, if the opposite side agrees with all the conditions, the maximum deal is presented; in the latter approach, a minimum deal is presented first, which can be further broadened. Asian cultures tend to choose the building up approach when negotiating a contract, while American representatives prefer building down style of negotiation.

9. Team organization: one leader or group consensus

At the preparation stage it is essential to find out how the other party is organized, in terms of how the power among the member of the delegation is distributed and how decisions are made. Here knowledge of cultural dimensions can help (especially the Individualism vs Collectivism). Some cultures stress the individual, and others - the group. Thus, a negotiating team can have a leader who has a power to make all the decisions, or there can be valued team negotiation where decisions are made in consensus. In the first case, negotiating teams are relatively small, in the second - quite large.

10. Risk taking: high or low

Obviously, culture affects the readiness and willingness of negotiators to take risk: disclose information and data, try uncommon for them approaches, tolerate ambiguities and others. If the other party is not inclined to risk-taking, then the negotiation needs to be organized in such a way that negotiators feel confident in the deal they are making.

2. Methodology

This chapter is devoted to the description of the methods we implemented in our research. For the purposes of our work we applied theoretical analysis and the case study research method (CSR). The topic of the present paper was created by the interest to discover how culture influences negotiation process, focusing on Indian and Russian cultures. The literature review comprises findings from previous works on the topics of intercultural communication, negotiation and various cultures. The theory demonstrates what types of cultures there are, what are their characteristics, and how culture affects intercultural negotiations and their results. To see how it works in practice we decided to implement CSR. It provides researches with an opportunity to scrutinize the data in a particular context. We chose the following definition to this method: “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used” (Yin, 1984). Therefore, we are inclined to believe that CSR is the most sufficient method for our research because it allows us verify whether theoretical insight of various cultures and their peculiar features can be applied in real life. Within the framework of the present work, we chose real-life examples of negotiations between different countries. It should be highlighted that there is scarcity of accessible cases on negotiations between Indian and Russian cultures. Due to this reason we decided to examine these two cultures separately, in negotiation with other cultures.

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