Abstract
Fifty-six Soviet businesspeople and 160 American businesspeople participated in simulated intracultural, one-on-one, buyer-seller negotiations. All participants completed questionnaires after the negotiation sessions, and six negotiators from each cultural group were videotaped during the interactions. Analysis of the questionnaire data indicated that Soviet negotiators achieved higher individual profits when using a competitive approach in negotiations. This result is in contrast to a more cooperative approach associated with higher profits for the American participants. Analysis of the videotapes suggests both similarities and differences in observed bargaining behaviors across the two cultural groups.
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This study was conceived and conducted in the context of a Soviet Union. Data were collected in Moscow in 1989. Needless to say, the context has undergone, and will continue to undergo, changes beyond our abilities to immediately comprehend. The findings of our study must thus be interpreted within the social, political, and economical contexts of the future, whatever they may be. Given this unique set of circumstances, we have decided to maintain the presentation of the study in its original “Soviet”context.
*Dr. John L. Graham is Associate Professor of Marketing and Director of International Business Programs at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He is presently a visiting professor at the Madrid Business School in Spain.
**Dr. Leonid I. Evenko is Dean, Graduate School of International Business at the Academy of the National Economy, the U.S.S.R. Cabinet of Ministers. A management scholar, previously he was Chief of the Department, Management Studies, at the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.
***Mahesh N. Rajan, a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Irvine, currently is in Japan, as a Japan Foundation Research Fellow, pursuing research on Japanese industrial restructuring. His research interests include corporate strategies in declining industries, industrial policy and business-government relations, corporate diversification, and cross-cultural issues. Mr. Rajan has consulted for firms in India and the United States.
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Graham, J., Evenko, L. & Rajan, M. An Empirical Comparison of Soviet and American Business Negotiations. J Int Bus Stud 23, 387–418 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8490272
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8490272