Importance and Solution of Culture Differences

In the case that Professor Zhao gave us we can see clearly that Mr. Moto met with a lot of serious problems in an intercultural negotiation. And all these problems had a bad influence on the international connect. The case also has left us two questions. The first is that whether the different between high context culture and low context culture is that important and whether the difference will destroy the negotiation if one can’t handle it properly. The second question is that whether the only solution for the conflict is to give up one’s own culture and accept everything in another culture.
The first question
So let’s first deal with the first question that whether the difference between two cultures is so important. In my opinion this difference really makes a very big problem. And let’s see some examples.
Once a Chinese enterprise wants to have a business negotiation with an America company. When meeting with the negotiator of the America Company the Chinese company sends him an expensive watch. So in the high context culture, a gift is really a way to show the respect or the willing to build a relationship with the receiver. But in the eye of the American guy the gift is really a bride. So he refuses to accept the present. Chinese company insist in him accepting the gift, and finally he accepted it but after that he told the matter to his company and his company charged the Chinese company bride their officer and at last the business is failed because of this affair. So we can see that neglecting the difference of two cultures is really fatal.
Let’s analyze why this culture difference can make such a big influence in intercultural negotiation. I think this is because of the focus of the two cultures when connecting with others is different. In the high context culture, people mainly focus on build the relationship with others and even some times they will think that the result of the negotiation is not that important than the relationship they had already