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goals between Chinese and American negotiators can be illustrated by the description of an American executive for his first business trip to China.
Case1:You have been waiting months to hear from the Chinese; then when you do，a whole team goes to work helping to prepare your presentation. When you arrive at the hotel, full of anticipation, your Chinese contact says: “How about visiting the Great Wall tomorrow?” So you agree, but then the next day it is the Ming Tombs, then the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and so on. You came to do business and you expected them to be in a big hurry, and it turns out that they would rather spend time leisurely sightseeing and chatting (Griffin, 1990).
In the story, the American misunderstands his Chinese counterpart. To the Chinese, a business negotiation is a time to develop a business relationship with the goal of long-term mutual benefit. Chinese often consider that the goal of a negotiation is not a signed contract, but the creation of a relationship between the two sides (Pye, 1982).Although the written contact describes the relationship, the essence of the deal is the relationship itself. Settling any issue is not as important as developing a harmonious relationship. As happened in the above-mentioned case, the Chinese negotiators demonstrated their hospitality for their guests with an aim to achieving the establishment of a good relationship. To Americans, however, a business negotiation is a problem-solving process with the ultimate goal of a signed contract. As a result, they generally view such relationship building as unnecessary and inefficient activities.
Case2: A 32 year-old sales engineer called Bob Andretti was in Shanghai on his first visit to the PRC. He was there to negotiate a joint-venture agreement with a public-sector company. On the fourth day of the meetings the two sides were discussing the factory equipment worth about US$7.5 million that Bob’s company was to supply the JV. At one point the American could see that the Chinese side apparently did not understand the shipping term” Free on Board” (FOB), thereby misunderstanding the value of the US firm’s contribution to the project. To clear up the misinterpretation Bob turned to the Chinese company’s 55 year-old senior engineer. “Mr. Li, I guess you don’t understand what we mean by F.O.B. Let me explain it to you briefly…”Having smoothly corrected his counterpart’s mistake, Bob expected the meeting to get back on track. But to his surprise, the Chinese negotiators suddenly seemed to lose interest in the proceedings and adjourned the meeting without setting a date for the next session. (Doing Business in Emerging Markets: 48)
In the above case, the young U.S. negotiator had unintentionally insulted his senior counterpart by correcting him in front of others. In China, direct criticism is seen as an act to disturb harmony, and superiors are not expected to be challenged and corrected in public. Though what the young U.S. negotiator had done was just to make things clear for both sides, he had caused the Chinese senior engineer to lose his face.
3.3.2 High Power Distance Versus Low Power Distance
The discrepancy of power distance between china and America are greatly due to the hierarchical system in china and the individualistic spirit in Americana respectively. Accord to Confucianism, there are clear line between parents and children, elder and youngster etc, during which strict a