Japanese Negotiations Essays - Negotiation, Contract Law

Japanese Negotiations Japanese Negotiation When thinking about negotiations one might not realize how often that we negotiate in our everyday lives. Almost every activity that we do, especially when involving more than just ourselves, involves negotiations in some way, such as should we eat at Burger King or at McDonalds. You negotiate with someone else or even yourself in your decision. Negotiations are also very important in business dealings. The negotiation can make or break a business deal and even ruin the relationship of the two parties. Negotiations are a fine art that is very difficult to master, if the mastering of it is even possible. Different people negotiate in different ways, but every society follows the same basic guidelines for the most part. This is not true whenever you look at different cultures and their negotiation styles and tactics. Sometimes these styles can be very different from what we have grown a custom to. The United States for example has negotiation styles and rules that differ quit a bit fro m those of the Japanese. This is why it is important to keep these differences in mind when dealing with the Japanese whether it involves business or personal issues. For the sake of simplicity, we will be looking mainly at the business aspect of negotiations. This report will cover the basics of negotiation with the Japanese. This is only a brief guideline; one should keep in mind that if you are planning to take this subject further much more research should be done to fully understand all aspects of this area. The beginning of a negotiation can be a very critical one. For the most part, Americans want to jump right in a get down to business. This is do in mainly to our society and its fast paced way of doing business. We live in a fast paced world and feel that things need to be done quickly. This is not the same feeling shared by the Japanese though. When negotiating with Japanese, they like to take the time to get to know the other party first. They give great importance to trust when dealing with others. They need to know more about the other party in order to achieve trust in them. If Americans expect a negotiation with Japanese within the U.S. framework of a brief introduction, discussion of technical matters, supply and cost bargaining, and closing, they will surely be disappointed. Japanese, on the other hand, will feel rushed and pressured if they discover they will not spend much time finding out about the school backgrounds, relative company status, and family backgrounds of U. S . negotiators. Japanese need to feel a sense of harmony and cooperation. Without this phatic communication, of what from a U.S. perspective is trivial information (but nonetheless has an important function of building trust). Japanese feel that their relationship is not anchored and may drift. This is an uneasy situation in the extremely competitive world of Japanese business (McCreary p25-26). After this information is shared the Japanese will feel that they can enter into the negotiations. The negotiation normally follows the same pattern, or stages. After the introduction and the gathering of trust, the next stage is usually made up of the technical details of the product. The Japanese often insist on every single detail being explained several times. This once again is due to the issue of trust. They try to see if the details vary at all. The bargaining stage normally follows next. The U.S. style of negotiations normally causes the U.S. team to focus on prices that will be too h igh or too low. In contrary, Japanese normally shot for prices that are more reasonable. More of this will be discussed later. The final stage involves the strategies that lead to the signing of the contract. It is very important to keep in mind that the Japanese feel that a product that is not up to standard, that was presented in the negotiation are looked on as being shameful to the individual. They value the honesty of a deal and those involved in the deal very much. When doing business, many American companies rely on contracts to bind the agreement. The contract is looked