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This study compared the negotiation behaviors of Japanese and U.S. managers in intra- and intercultural settings. Transcripts from an integrative bargaining task were coded and analyzed with logistic and linear regression. U.S. negotiators exchanged information directly and avoided influence when negotiating intra- and interculturally. Japanese negotiators exchanged information indirectly and used influence when negotiating intraculturally but adapted their behaviors when negotiating interculturally. Culturally normative negotiation behaviors partially account for the lower joint gains generated by intercultural, relative to intracultural, dyads. The behavioral data inform motivational and skill-based explanations for elusive joint gains when cultures clash.

 

Because there is substantial empirical evidence of cultural differences in negotiation behaviors (see Wilson, Cai, Campbell, Donohue, & Drake, 1995, for a review in negotiation context; Weldon & Jehn, 1995, for a review in conflict management context), it would seem reasonable that when negotiators are from behaviorally distinct cultures, one or both may have to adapt to reach a successful agreement. Weiss (1994), for example, suggests that the negotiator who is most familiar with the other's negotiation culture should do the most adaptation. Adler (1997) cautions that although cultural adaptation does not guarantee a positive outcome, it increases the chances of one. In this study, we investigated whether a failure in adaptation explains why the agreements negotiated by a group of U.S. and Japanese intercultural negotiators were significantly less integrative than those reached by groups of intracultural U.S. and Japanese negotiators. We used previously unpublished negotiation behavior data from a subset of participants in the Brett and Okumura (1998) study on cultural values, negotiation schemas, and joint gains.

Both Graham (1985) and Brett and Okumura (1998) reported that intercultural negotiations between U.S. and Japanese...