Negotiating Cultural Encounters

Discusses the challenges of intercultural communication in engineering, technical, and related professional fields Given today's globalized technical and engineering environment, intercultural communication is an essential topic for engineers, other technical professionals, and technical communicators to learn. Engineering programs, in particular, need to think about how to address the ABET requirement for students to develop global competence and communication skills. This book will help readers learn what intercultural communication is like in the workplace which is an important first step in gaining intercultural competence. Through narratives based on the real experiences of working professionals, Negotiating Cultural Encounters: Narrating Intercultural Engineering and Technical Communication covers a range of design, development, research, and documentation projects offering an authentic picture of today's international workplace. Narrative contributors present firsthand experience and perspectives on the complexities and challenges of working with multicultural team members, international vendors, and diverse customers; additional suggested readings and discussion questions provide students with information on relevant cultural factors and invite them to think deeply and critically about the narratives. This collection of narratives: Responds to the need for updated firsthand information in intercultural communication and will help us prepare workplace professionals Covers various topics such as designing e-commerce websites, localizing technical documentation, and translating workplace safety materials Provides hands-on studies of intercultural professional communication in the workplace Is targeted toward institutions that train engineers for technical communication tasks in diverse sociocultural environments Presents contributions from a diverse group of professionals Recommends additional material for further pursuit A book unlike any other in its field, Negotiating Cultural Encounters is ideal for all engineering and technical communication professionals seeking to better communicate their ideas and thoughts in the multicultural workplaces of the world.

Richard Lewis - world famous lecturer on intercultural issues and best-selling author of WHEN CULTURES COLLIDE - has collected 50 unique, critical cross-cultural incidents during his encounters in 135 countries around the globe. Some of these anecdotes are humorous, some are poignant, some are mysterious - all are insightful snapshots of the complex tapestry of cross-cultural business. If you're dining with a Finn, negotiating with the Japanese or attempting to climb a mountain with a team of diffident Italians, you need this book.

Spanning Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Encounters with Emotions investigates experiences of face-to-face transcultural encounters from the seventeenth century to the present and the emotional dynamics that helped to shape them. Each of the case studies collected here investigates fascinating historiographical questions that arise from the study of emotion, from the strategies people have used to interpret and understand each other’s emotions to the roles that emotions have played in obstructing communication across cultural divides. Together, they explore the cultural aspects of nature as well as the bodily dimensions of nurture and trace the historical trajectories that shape our understandings of current cultural boundaries and effects of globalization.

The Language of Negotiation aims to heighten awareness of language and to suggest practical ways to use language-related tactics to get results. It encourages the reader to recognise negotiation as a specifically language-centred activity and demonstrates how learning to use language effectively can radically improve negotiation skills. The book features: A step-by-step guide on the practice of negotiation, from preparation to follow-up after the event Chapters on various aspects of negotiation, such as the spoken, written and interpersonal sides, as well as media interviewing and using the phone. Specific and useful strategies for actions like advising, complaining, confirming and dismissing. A range of effective and informative examples throughout, designed to show the value of enhanced language use and practical exercises to encourage the reader to apply the ideas to their own practice. The Language of Negotiation will be of value to all those in business and professional life whose work involves negotiation. It will also be of particular interest to students in graduate schools of business or management and to anyone who has an interest in improving their negotiation skills. No prior knowledge of language theory is assumed on the part of the reader.

Diploma Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Communications - Intercultural Communication, grade: 1,7, , course: Diplomarbeit, language: English, abstract: The aim of this work is to investigate the role of culture in a cross-cultural business encounter and to investigate the potential of mediation for these specific situations. The results should help to reach an understanding and improvement of communication in these situations - knowing that communication is one of the most vital manager’s tasks that takes up between 50 and 90 % of a manager’s time. Therefore communication that is not disturbed by cultural misunderstandings is essential for the success of any cross-cultural enterprise. The first main part examines if there are any differences in the way that these nations approach business - especially negotiations – and if so, the disclosed differences will be laid down and explained with an outlook on the cultural roots of these specific issues of behaviour. The main focus rests on Germany as a starting point with which the other cultures will be compared. Different approaches regarding research findings in the cultural field will be presented and applied to the particularities found in the named nations. In the second main part mediation will be scrutinized as a possible tool to facilitate cross-cultural negotiations. It will be questioned whether mediation may be helpful in a cross-cultural context, which aspects of mediation can help to overcome the special barrier culture in negotiations, working methods and which factors may have to be considered with special care in such a situation. This will be done with a focus on the cultural dimensions presented in the first part. In a next step, cultural training will be briefly presented as a human resources tool that may help to prepare for a temporary stay abroad and for cooperation with members of other cultures. For this different training methods will be explained. In a conclusion the findings of this paper will be summarised, specific advice for negotiations with the cultures under scrutiny will be given and a general checklist for cross-cultural negotiations will be presented. It must be stressed that this paper will not be an empirical work, but concentrate on the analysis of the existing literature and partly resort to interviews carried out by the author. In total this work should be an inducement for further research on the influence of culture on negotiations within Europe and the advantages that mediation can offer for cross-cultural encounters.

Ukraine and Europe challenges the popular perception of Ukraine as a country torn between Europe and the east. Twenty-two scholars from Europe, North America, and Australia explore the complexities of Ukraine's relationship with Europe and its role the continent's historical and cultural development. Encompassing literary studies, history, linguistics, and art history, the essays in this volume illuminate the interethnic, interlingual, intercultural, and international relationships that Ukraine has participated in. The volume is divided chronologically into three parts: the early modern era, the 19th and 20th century, and the Soviet/post-Soviet period. Ukraine in Europe offers new and innovative interpretations of historical and cultural moments while establishing a historical perspective for the pro-European sentiments that have arisen in Ukraine following the Euromaidan protests.

Negotiating Transcultural Relations in the Early Modern Mediterranean is a study of transcultural relations between Ottoman Muslims, Christian subjects of the Venetian Republic, and other social groups in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Focusing principally on Ottoman Muslims who came to Venice and its outlying territories, and using sources in Italian, Turkish and Spanish, this study examines the different types of power relations and the social geographies that framed the encounters of Muslim travelers. While Stephen Ortega does not dismiss the idea that Venetians and Ottoman Muslims represented two distinct communities, he does argue that Christian and Muslim exchange in the pre-modern period involved integrated cultural, economic, political and social practices. Ortega's investigation brings to light how merchants, trade brokers, diplomats, informants, converts, wayward souls and government officials from different communities engaged in similar practices and used comparable negotiation tactics in matters ranging from trade disputes, to the rights of male family members, to guarantees of protection. In relying on sources from archives in Venice, Istanbul and Simancas, the book demonstrates the importance of viewing Mediterranean history from a variety of perspectives, and it emphasizes the importance of understanding cross-cultural history as a negotiation between different social, cultural and institutional actors.

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Corporate communication, grade: 1.3, University of Applied Sciences Aschaffenburg, language: English, abstract: The paper focuses on the role of culture in negotiations across cultures in business. Starting point of the paper will be the theoretical analysis of the selected cultures of Portugal and Iceland with the help of relevant theories/approaches regarding culture’s impact on negotiations. The impact of culture on negotiations in business will then be analyzed in a practical part with the help of a specific critical incident with focus on the Portuguese and Icelandic culture. The paper focuses on selected cultural aspects. The focus was chosen on aspects that show the most interesting differences between the cultures of Iceland and Portugal and that are most interesting for the critical incident. The paper focuses on communication aspects, that are important during negotiations, as well as the monochronic and polychronic time orientation and Gestelands’ pattern of relationship-focus and deal-focus. Cross-cultural negotiations are getting more and more important in the business context. Doing business abroad, using sources and hiring workforce from other cultures make cross-cultural negotiations between professionals necessary, especially in times of globalization. In international business, great benefits can be gained from cross-cultural negotiations, nevertheless negotiations across cultures are more complex than negotiations between persons from the same country or culture. Negotiations between people from different cultures add an entire dimension to any negotiation introducing inter alia language barriers, differences in body language and alternative ways of expressing pleasure or displeasure with the elements of the deal that is negotiated. A professional negotiator has to understand the cultures of the participants, as well as culturally specific aspects. People that are involved in international negotiations have to acquire a skill set that is useful in the prevention of undesired perceptions and that promotes successful negotiation outcomes. According to the authors Shi and Wright the business executive’s work has an increasingly international orientation and international business negotiation becomes an important competency in a global business environment.