UNDERSTANDING CHINESE CULTURAL DIMENSIONS WITHIN BUSINESS

        The relationship between China and the rest of the world has expanded considerably since the implementation of the open-door policy after the “program of four modernizations”. Chinese growth continues at a rate often close to 10% per year, and the country attracts more foreign investments than any other country in the world. Transfer of technology, creation of joint ventures, foreign subsidiaries, facilities on the Chinese territory, equity in business and Chinese industry groups are the main events. All these transactions involve negotiations, that is to say, the implementation of an adjustment process is often long, complex, and punctuated with the unexpected. Negotiating with the Chinese gives rise to a very special mix of uncertainties and misunderstandings which become excessive sometimes. This is because the Chinese negotiator sits on his set of assumptions that are radically different from those underlying the approach of his Western interlocutors. This disjunction leads to reactions tinged with doubt and mistrust putting the foreign negotiator in the situation of a fisherman trying to catch the reflection of the moon in a pond.

          From one country to another, from one continent to another, a negotiation requires a prior knowledge in different registers. Out of respect for a climate of trust, to know the attitudes held during negotiations to adapt to different communication styles, to minimize the differences of meaning of terms such as design planning, commitment, to minimize risk errors, loss of time, it is crucial to discover, to know the culture of others. In this present article, we are more interested in the interaction between Western countries and China in terms of business negotiations, we do mean by Western countries: Northern America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

         During the second half of the 20th century, several scholars and practitioners had created substantive knowledge in the area of Western-Chinese business negotiations, especially since the implementation of the economic reform in China after the 1980’s. Many authors described cultural difference to be the most influential antecedent in Western-Chinese business negotiations (Boyacigiller et al. 1996, Pye 1982, Hofstede/Usunier 1996, Redding 1980, Shenkar/Ronen 1987). Hofstede (1980), who identifies five cultural dimensions which are : high long-term orientation, high collectivism, high masculinity, high power distance, and high uncertainty avoidance; he did use Hong Kong and Taiwan samples in his research to determine the rankings of China within these five dimensions, which  made the findings of his research questioned by Shenkar (1994) and Tung (1988). In contrast, the Chinese Cultural Connection (1987), an international scholars' network, outlined four Chinese cultural dimensions derived from Chinese cultural values which are: Integration, Confucian work dynamism, Human-heartedness, and Moral Discipline; but these dimensions remain general, because they are not tailored to a business paradigm for measuring Chinese culture (Shi, Xinping, 2001). Another point is that within the literature and the negotiation practice, it has been found that political, economical and institutional factors are the basic influences behind the Western-Chinese business negotiations (Tung, 1988), while Weiss (1993) highlighted in his analysis that relationship behaviours, and environmental conditions influence Chinese negotiations.

          Furthermore, Xiaohua Lin and Stephen J. Miller (2003) examined direct and indirect effects of national cultures from a West-East negotiation approach, they characterised two dimensions of Hofstede(1980) as direct effects of national culture, firstly, individualism-collectivism assuming that in China, group goals and needs are emphasized under the shadow of maintaining relational harmony (Hsu, 1985), this is why they are always seeking the middle or a moderated position in conflicts; and secondly, high-low contexts in communication assuming that the Chinese do not express their opinions directly and openly, they rely more on non-verbal communication, in addition to this, the tolerance of ambiguity is highly emphasized in Chinese culture as ambiguous expressions and thoughts serve social purposes, such as uncertainty of the future and believing in more than one truth(Leung, 1988). Concerning the indirect effects of national cultures, two other dimensions are characterised, firstly, ingroup-outgroup consciousness meaning that the Chinese are more likely to take different approaches while interacting with foreigners, to seek the relational harmony, even if Chinese negotiators do exchange information indirectly using influence in an intra-cultural negotiation, they do adapt their behaviour in an inter-cultural negotiation, while Western negotiators remain consistent in both settings. And secondly, the mode of exercising authority differs in China, where power is considered as a tool used to facilitate a collective process, rather than adopting top-down decisions, so that important problems should be coped with by consensus and not by majority of vote (Wang, 1992).