Cultural Issues in National Problems Essay

* Based on your study on this module of cultural theories, external business ethics and the recitation of managing across cultures, and assuming the role of a business consultant specialising in cross-cultural issues, write a cultural briefing for the Human Resources department of a real international business. Your briefing should cover a range of cultural issues, including the creation of cross-cultural teams, training employees for expatriate appointments, national negotiating styles and training employees for the challenges of cross-cultural management. This assignment may take the format of a report or a to a greater extent creatively designed briefing document.Creation of cross-cultural teamsTrain employees for challenges of cross-cultural managementNational negotiating styleThe Chinese Negotiationhttp//www.global dialoguebook.com/John-Graham-research/negotiation-v1.pdfNegotiating in China 10 rules for success http//www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2011/03/28/negotiating-in- china-10-rules-for-success/pp. 163 noteHowever, china is as well as a fractious and risky market for western business communities to operate in. the surprises, disappointment, and frustration on the part of western business people argon not strange. China is a special challenge it is the gentlemans largest emerging market, largest communist bureaucracy and oldest culture. These unique features make china a unique case in international business that calls for special academic and managerial attention. Now that china has reached and agreement with the European union and United States of America about its membership in the adult male trade organization (WTO), the importance of china as a trade partner is going to increase further.Question* What be the meaningful stages of the Sino-western business negotiation process? * What are the main contentious issues in the formal negotiation sessions? * How seat we understand Chinese negotiating style observed in various stages from the ch inese culture point of view?Ping-Pong model1, pre-negotiation (lobbing, presentation, informal interchange, and trust skeletal schemeing) 2, formal negotiation (task-related exchange of information, persuasion, concession and agreement) 3, post-negotiation (implementation and parvenu rounds of negotiations)The Chinese show crisp interests in getting to know the different party during these initial contacts. They try to ascertain whether or not the foreign firm has (1) the most advanced applied science required for the project (2) the testamentingness to sell or transfer it to the Chinese side by way of, for example, joint venture and (3) the capacity of delivering the products on time. As whizzness chinese negotiators explained our intention is to import the most advanced technology and to cooperate with large, world-famous foreign companies, because the life cycle of a technology is short.We pay even more than attention to the suppliers houjing(reserve strength) for cont inuous technological development lobbying lobbing before the chinese government authorities is one of the most in-chief(postnominal) marketing activities liner foreign firms that want to sell large industrial projects in chinese key industries handle telecommunications. Foreign firms must convince the chinese that they have forefront technologies that suit chinese governments priorities, that they have long-term commitment to the chinese market, and that they are financially strong. They must present a highly unquestionable image before the chinese, making them feel safe to do business with them. The chinese said that they liked to do business with big mountain like Ericesson that they could trust and rely on in the long term.Presentation giving attractive and reliable presentations to let potential chinese partners know the bon ton, products and negotiating team members, is an important step toward formal negotiation sessions. Presentations aim to convince the chinese of the sincerity of the company in doing business ith china and show the chinese that the companys products are and advanced technology with high quality and reasonable price. Foreign firms need to present themselves and their technologies to number of authorities. Very often one has to endlessly copy the same things to different negotiators who may suddenly, without explanation, be replaced by another team. From chinese point of view, it is done to check the reliability and firmness of the supplier.Informal discussion initial and informal discussions with chinese organizations often occur directly after the presentationsTrust building the chinese attach great importance to trust building in business negotiations.Formal negotiation* Equity share* Contribution of each party* Management control* Technology* Price* Persuasion* Concessions and agreementPost-negotiation* managerial implications* Priority* Patience* Peoplethe PRC condition (guoqing) is a contemporary social and institutional fa ctor influencing the PRCIntroductionHotel Chocolat is a famous extravagance chocolate producer in the UK. It has 55 stores in the UK and 5 stores in the USA and the Europe. (Hotel Chocolat, 2012) The mainly product series are Giant Slabs, Selectors, Sleekster Selections, Liquid Chocolat, The Purist and coconut meat Juvenate Beauty Range. (Hotel Chocolat, 2012) Hotel Chocolat insists a high quality strategy so that their products are in luxury level, which attracting consumers come back again and again. Now Hotel Chocolat plan to flesh out the business and brand perception, managers think about enter Chinese market. In China, middle class improving their purchasing power in recent years, inwardly urban residents has more disposable income (Farrell D, 2006). If manager decide to enter China market, human imagination management (HRM) department needs to prepare three points, first is create cross-cultural team with Chinese employees, secondly is train the British employees for cha llenge of cross-cultural management, thirdly is negotiating style with Chinese.Creation of cross-cultural team and the challenges of cross-cultural managementCross-cultural team is necessary. Nowadays, the globe business activities are an important part of the worldwide economy. Many of different nationality laps in one company or even in one company. In this case, Hotel Chocolat will be suggested to build a cross-cultural team within Chinese employees. This program can avoid some potential risk in Chinese market. Here will point out three directions.1. LanguageIn business group need to keep will communication to reduce the cost of information. Hotel Chocolat is British company so that the English is mainly language. But Chinese employees inwrought language is mandarin and Cantonese, which make conversation maybe difficult. Fortunately, Chinese education department push English language teaching from primary school to college. Nowadays, the worlds most populous nation will become the worlds largest English-speaking country, account about cardinal billion people are learning or have learned English (Clifford. C, 2009).Firstly, English level is an important testing standard when manager selects Chinese employees. Secondly, English employ which will work in China suggest to learn radical daily Mandarin. Of course, if possible, Hotel Chocolat should better choose the people who interested in China.2. Build realistic teamIn the beginning, Hotel Chocolat should build a quickly communication tunnel between the UK and China department. For a high efficiency, Hotel Chocolat has to build Virtual Team.Virtual Team is basic on advanced information technology to link the geographical dispersion essential employees. It also downsizes the department in China and improves productivity.(Townsend, A, M., and Demarie, M, S and Hendrickson R, A., 2003)Why build a Virtual Team? Here point five factors (Bettis, R and Hitt, M., 1995) * The flat organizational structure is beco ming a goodly solution to increase speed to communicate. * The competition and cooperation will be easy in globe economy environment. * Changes in workers expectation of organizational participation. * Adjustment the production of knowledge work environments. * Make trade and corporate activity easily.First of all, to build virtual team needs to pay attention to define the teams execute and organizational roles, build the technical systems to exchange the information.Define the teams function and organizational roles are the most important thing. The UK and China have sevener (DST.) or eight (GMT.) times difference, it make the working time harder. The manager in China who leads the virtual team should clear expectations about teams performance and criteria. Because of the virtual teams geographical dispersion, the manager can define the detail of daily report, working schedules and emergency solution. As a new market competitor, Hotel Chocolat will face many difficult, so the vi rtual team members in both side, the UK and China, have responds to meet online in a short time. In the same time, the virtual team in China needs to have individual ability to control and solve problems.A well communication system in virtual team is a strong support. The technical system should be designed basic on efficiency. One of the reasons is the virtual team members are in different place so that they cannot face to face. If people cannot face to face meeting, some serious and complicated issues will not solve well. In tradition way, the tools have online meeting (Skype), file upload and download (email). If possible, the technical system can use wide-angle camera to build a multiplayer flick session, in the meantime, virtual team members can use cloud system to modify the same file in different place together. Within fresh technical system, the virtual team becomes more reality and efficient.National negotiating stylesWhen a company enters new market, an excellent negotia ting skill will make their process more successfully. In business activities, communication is the key of make a good deal. Within a group of well training negotiating employees, the new market risks, not only China market, will be reduced. As the human resource department, they should make a plan to lead the negotiators mind set. Therefore, the Ping-Pong Model (Fang, 1999) is a good choice.(Fang, 1999)The Ping-Pong model is based on the international business negotiating style and Chinese business negotiating style (Fang, 1999 Frankenstein, 1986 Ghauri and Usunier, 1996 Graham and Lin 1987), fang tries to build a nosepiece between China and the world.In the Ping-Pong Model, there are two major parts. One is the stage of the Sino-Western business Negotiation process and the other one is the dimension of Chinese business culture.In 1996, Ghauri make a structure of the international negotiating style process. He divides the total negotiation into three parts1, Pre-Negotiation2, For mal-Negotiation3, Post-NegotiationAnd also Fang realized that in Chinese cultural situation, he also define three main thing1, The PRC Condition2, Confucianism3, Chinese stratagemsCombine these two things, international negotiating style process and Chinese cultural situation, the Ping-Pong Model produced.Next part, it will analyze six factors of Ping-Pong Model.Pre-NegotiationIt includes four processes, lobbing, presentation, informal discussion and trust building. In the beginning is lobbing, in China market the government is a powerful force to the market. So it is necessary to have a good conversation with government. Presentation and informal discussion is the base of trust building. In public ways, presentation can show companys abilities to the company, in other ways, Informal discussion enhance mutual understanding between company and its potential partners.Formal NegotiationIn formal negotiation stage, five major contentious issues needs to serious consideration equity shar e, contribution of each party, management control, technology and price. For Hotel Chocolat, technology is the top secret so that the human resource department should focus on this part.Post-NegotiationAfter formal negotiation, the team should be prepared for Chinese trick. One Swedish negotiator recall that (Ghauri P. and Fang T. 2001) Chinese negotiator always take the old issue whatever and whenever, but these situation would not happened in European, Middle Eastern and African countries.Hotel Chocolat website, (2012), Store http//www.hotelchocolat.co.uk/Chocolate-Store-Locations-Achocolatestore/ (accessed eighth Oct 2012).Hotel Chocolat website, (2012), Products http//www.hotelchocolat.co.uk/chocolates-CHC_PRODUCT/ (accessed 8th Oct 2012).Farrell, D., Gersch, U. and Stephenson, E. (2006), The value of Chinas emerging middle class, McKinsey Quarterly, pp69-69.Clifford Coonan, (2009) The largest English-speaking country? China, of course, The Irish Times, 6 June, available at http //www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0620/1224249169396.html (accessed at 9th Oct 2012).Townsend, A.M., DeMarie, S.M., Hendrickson, A.R. (2003) Virtual teams In Thomas, D.C. (ed) Reading and Cases in International Management A Cross-cultural Perspective. London SAGE, pp.269-281.Bettis, R. and Hitt, M. (1995) The new competitive landscape, Strategic management journal 16(S1), pp,7-19.Fang, T. (1999) Chinese business negotiating style. Sage Thousand Oaks, CA.Frankenstein, J. (1986). Trend in Chinese business practice Change in the Beijing wind. California Management Review, 29(1) 148-160.Ghauri, P. N. and Usunier J. C. (1996) International dividing line Negotiations. Oxford Pergamon.Graham, J. L. and Lin, C. Y. (1987) A comparison of marketing negotiationsin the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the United States. In Cavusgil, T. (ed. Advanced in international marketing (Vol. 2, pp. 23-46). Greenwich, CT JAI Press.Ghauri P. and Fang T. (2001), Negotiating With the Chinese, Journa l of field Business Vol. 36, pp. 303-325.