了解美国文化有助于跨文化谈判
摘要:不同国家、不同民族间文化的“文化差异”,带来了商业文化、价值观念等方面的差异。其中“基本设想和价值观”是文化的核心部分,具有行为规范性维度,是社会行为的决定性因素。本文通过跨文化理论中至今最具影响力的Hofstede的文化维度理论分析美国文化的核心价值观,并对其形成,发展和对社会各方面的影响加以探讨,以求得针对性地推测出对方在特定的情况下很可能做出的反应,并解释其行为方式,以最终化解跨文化冲突,利用跨文化优势,实现对外贸易目的及促进跨国经营的发展。
关键词:美国 文化 Hofstede的文化理论 贸易谈判 ■I. Introduction People are heavily influenced by the culture which existed before our bEing and will continue to exist long after we are gone. Humans are fundamentally creatures of culture. Therefore, awareness of one's culture reveals insights into one's self. wWw.LWlm.coM In recent years, the American influence and American designed global economic network seems stronger in the world. There are some outstanding reasons exist. Firstly, the improvement of technology and innovation facilitates the invading to other cultures. For example, with the assistance of the improving technology of computer and telecommunication, people can get to know each other and acquire latest news easily and quickly. Secondly, because of the trade booming and the important consuming role of market of Amarica, other countries has closer relationship with America. Thirdly, due to the leading position of America no matter in economy aspect or political aspect in the world accelerates its influencing in other cultures. Please find the following data of the Analysis Report on the Ranking of Comprehensive State Power made by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, released on 25 Dec. 2009. America, bEIng as the super power in the world, has lots of powerful advantages on several aspects. Nowadays, there is no other country in the world can compare with its comprehensive state power. In order to improve China's economy level, it is necessary for Chinese to import and acknowledge the know-how and the success experience of America on technology and management field. In the meanwhile, it is valuable to know well what are defining characteristics of its culture. What's more, being as the biggest export supplier for America, and America being as the biggest purchaser in the world, there will be more and more business and political negotiations and cooperations between China and US which demands Chinese business people to know profoundly and deeply about this important partner. ■II. Culture and intercultural negotiation Every country has its own unique culture. The character of a country's culture or business climate is a product of the core values and business principles that business people espouse, the standards of what is ethically acceptable and what is not, the negotiation practices and behaviour that define " how we do things around here," the approach to people management and style of operating, the "chemistry" and the "personality" that permeates the negotiation environment. In international business negotiation, it is generally agreed that a knowledge of the other side's culture allows a negotiator to communicate,to understand, to plan, and to anticipate more effectively. According to Moran & Stripp(1991) intercultural negotiation involves discussion of common and conflicting interests between reasons of different cultural backgrounds who work to reach an agreement of mutual benefit.Theories for identifying where and how cultures differ are of greatest help when they aid us in seEing ourselves in relation to the people we are meeting at the table. And our power lies not in overcoming or changing the other side, but in understanding it. Having a fund of knowledge about another culture can help negotiator better decide what is appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. A country's culture is important because it influences the negotiation's actions and approaches to conducting business- in a very real sense, the culture is the negotiator's "operating system" or organizational DNA. The aim of acknowledging our counterparter's core value is to overcome that bias is to create awareness of our own cultural system by understanding how they behave in thEIr system. And achieving the objectives to be gained from the international business and malti-national management.
■III. How to recognize and understand a country's culture thoroughly? What is culture? Culture is about survival of the human species. Without culture, human beings cannot survive. Culture refers to a way of life of a people. It involves shared understanding about this way of life. Culture may be material (physical artifact) or nonmaterial (abstractions). Our material culture (technology, buildings, etc) is influenced by the (nonmaterial culture) values that give shape to our cars and buildings. Different countries have different cultures. 'Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.' (Hofstede, 1991) The Hofstede Model of Cultural Dimensions can be of great use when it comes to analyzing a country’s culture in depth. The followed is some examples of the Hofstede analysis, the index has been collected through questionnaire all over the world. In the followed report, I will have a special study about the America index. ■IV. What are the core values of American culture? St. Augustine said, "a people is a multitudinous assemblage of rational beings united by concord regarding love of things held in common"….thus, we need to investigate what a people’s concord is in order to get at the heart of a civilization. America, is a multi-cultural group with many ethnic groups, bound by a market economy and representing one civilization with many cultures. IV.1 To underline the American culture form Power Distance aspectHofstede’s Power distance Index measures the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.
America has a 40 on the cultural scale of Hofstede’s analysis. Compared to China where the power distance is very high (80). American like German, Austrian having the characteristic of the Eiffel Tower Culture, which is a comparatively low power distance. In the lower power distance, (Hoecklin, 1995:31) 'higher-educated employees hold much less authoritarian values than lower-educated ones.' The obedience showed from the subordinates to the superiors is not as much as the oriental way. The leadership can be called as hierarchy and consensus. Employee can have different opinion with his/her boss. And when he/she got different ideas, he/she can go all the way up to the boss and discuss the problem. This is a good thing usually company may explore all the potentials of its employees, because sometime the subordinates may have the better idea of the business. IV.2 To learn American culture form inspanidualism aspect Inspanidualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which inspaniduals are integrated into groups. On the inspanidualist side we find societies in which the ties between inspaniduals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. The United States can clearly been seen as inspanidualistic (scoring a 91). The “American dream” is clearly a representation of this. This is the Americans’ hope for a better quality of life and a higher standard of living than thEIr parents’. This belief is that anyone, regardless of their status can ‘pull up their boot straps’ and raise themselves from poverty. Inspanidualism, the core of the social philosophy and value in American culture, takes up the most important position in the American ideology, influencing all aspects of life ranging from political to social fields. It focuses on the satisfaction of one’s own desire and interests through self-reliance. The word inspanidualism was first promoted by the French political reviewer Alexis de Tocqueville in his classical book Democracy in America published in 1835.wWw.LWlm.coM American inspanidualism affected almost every aspect of American life. Those greetings are very popular in China such as “where are you going?” “Have you eaten your meal?” would lead to American's anger because they believed that this is his own privacy but not any other’s business. This type of intentionally build up of personality and pursue customized inspanidualism has its pros and cons, it gives incentives to people and make them exert on their potential and wisdom and as a result accelerate the development of the entire race and nation; on the other hand, it is difficult to keep good relationship among people if everyone is egocentric thus make the entire society lack of unity. IV.3 Masculinity society or Femininity society? Masculinity versus its opposite, femininity refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women’s values differ less among societies than men’s values; (b) men’s values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women’s values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women’s values on the other. The assertive pole has been called ‘masculine’ and the modest, caring pole ‘feminine’. American citizens have a masculine culture with a 62 on the scale of Hofstede (Netherlands 14). Masculine traits include assertiveness, materialism/material success, self-centeredness, power, strength. American citizens emphasize on achievements and respect heroes. They have great sense in thEir hearts to praise success and heroes. Personal achievements are one of those with the highest value in American mind. American have very strong senses of success. Success is the pursuit of most American, it is thEIr attractive future and the incentives for moving forward. They believe that one's personal value is equivalent to his achievements in his career. Some high achievers in their career such as entrepreneurs, scientists, artists and all kinds of super starts became modern heroes. The process and result of how they strived have become the frame of reference of social culture value and the real life text book for parents to educate their children. Acquiring and maintaining a large number of material possessions is of great importance to most American. Material wealth has traditionally been a widely accepted measure of social status in the United States. Because American rejected the European system of hereditary aristocracy and titles of nobility, the had to find a substitute of judging social status. The quality and quantity of an inspanidual's material possessions became an accepted measure of success and social status. Moreover, the Puritan work ethic associated material success with godliness. American believe in the value of hard work. The Protestant work ethic - which tells them to work hard for what they want or "A view of life that promotes hard work and self-discipline as a means to material prosperity" (Hirsch, Kett and Trefil, 2002). Allowing a more comfortable standard of living hard work has been both necessary and rewarding for most American throughout their history. Samuel P. Huntington expounded in his book Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity as that "The habits of life are those of an exclusively working people. From the moment he gets up, the American is at his work, and he is absorbed in it till the hour of sleep. Even mealtime is not for him a period of relaxation. It is only a disagreeable interruption of business which he cuts short as much as possible." IV.4 If Uncertainty Avoidance is important for American?Uncertainty avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man’s search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel Either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimums the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; ‘there can only be one Truth and we have it’.
The United States scores a 46 demonstrated clearly that American believe that there will always be enough opportunity to go around, so taking risks, involves no real danger. For the truly ambitious, failure is only temporary. Experimentation, trial and error are important ways to learn or to improve ones product or service. Freedom is one of the main forces within the core American values. This is what has defined American since the day the Constitution was signed into effect. With this they are able to effectively express thEIr existence, they feel free to express their desires, wants and dislikes. With the freedom they are able to be the inspaniduals that they are and voice requests for change they want to see within the world. American society has great movements within itself. These movements are shown in two aspects: movements among locations and movements inside the society. Developed transport and the tradition of adventure and sporty makes a lot of American migrate from countryside to cities, from downtown to uptown; and from north to the southern sunny land, from one city to another. Unlike European countries, the social classes in America is not so stable. Further more, with the avocation of public education, movements upwards along the social ladder have become possible. Many people living in the states, no matter whether they are Native American or immigrants from overseas, have the same dream of changing their social class and make their lifetime dream come true through their own efforts. Therefore, American value the revolutions, new ideas, reforms as well as taking risks. As American view, change is considered positive. Traditions can be a guide, but they are not inherently superior. IV.5 Long-Term Orientation & Short-Term Orientation Long-Term Orientation is the fifth dimension of Hofstede which was added after the original four to try to distinguish the difference in thinking between the East and West. From the original IBM studies, this difference was something that could not be deduced. Therefore, Hofstede created a Chinese value survey which was distributed across 23 countries. From these results, and with an understanding of the influence of the teaching of Confucius on the East, long term vs. short term orientation became the fifth cultural dimension.wWw.LWlm.coM In American's opinion, overcoming obstacles should equipped with will and strength, if not with time. America's short term orientation does not reinforce the concept of long-term, traditional orientation. In America, change can occur more rapidly and traditions can be guide, but are not inherently superior. It is obviously contrasted with the Chinese and the Asian " the family culture" which the business will take longer, particularly for an "outsider". ■V. Conclusion Based on Hofstede Model of Cultural Dimensions, the above five dimensions and beliefs do help to underline and permeate the American national culture. These values and beliefs don’t apply across the board in every situation, and some may, on occasion, even act in ways that directly contradict or flaunt them, but they are still at the heart of American cultural ethos. It is some of these beliefs, with the characteristic behaviour that come from them. Inspanidualism: a sense of personal autonomy. It reflects an increased emphasis on achieved status (subject to inspanidual effort, like level of education achieved) over ascribed status (a fixed status immune from inspanidual influence, like race or age), and is related to various historical forces: Martin Luther's protestantism, the emerging emphasis on literacy (itself related to the new technology of the printing press), the rise of a mercantile class under agrarian capitalism, and changing political values which challenge traditional elitist assumptions (ie rise of democracy over monarchy). Liberty and freedom:especially from gov't & church intrusion, along with a fear of concentrated power of any sort (ie. big government, big business, big labor, and bureaucracy). Equality:especially equality of opportunity Competition and the value of winning: American love the winner and learn to despise the loser. They also value that this competition is fair and meritocratic. Meritocracy: rewards should be distributed according to performance - better performance should bring better social/economic rewards and vice versa. This value assumes a relatively level playing field, when in fact the field is rarely (if ever) level. Nevertheless, many social rewards are at least partially meritocratic in our society (ie grades in college). Sino-US trade relationship is one of the most important bilateral trade relations in the world. It connects the world’s most populous country with the only superpower. The mutual understanding is related to the quality of two countries’ trade relationship. Therefore, it is urgent to increase the understanding our counterparts to find win-win solutions in business negotiation. With the increasing quantity of intercultural communication and confrontation with America, to be an effective negotiator, it is essential for Chinese to know more about America and its core values. Bibliography: [2] Gudykunst, W. B. & Kim Y. Y. (1992). Communicating with strangers: An approach to intercultural communication. New York: McGraw Hill, Inc [3] Hoecklin L. (1995). Managing Cultural Differences: Strategies for Competitive Advantage. Essex: Addison-Wesley [4] Hofstede G. (2001). Culture's Consequence. London: Sage Publications [6] Gannon, Kim. (1991). Riding the Waves of Culture. American Today. Vol.12 [7] Huntingon,S.P. (2001).The West Unique, Not Universal. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis