Cultural dimensions in communication and negotiations: case of small business enterprise

Straipsnyje analizuojamos tarpkultūrinės komunikacijos smulkaus verslo įmonės pavyzdžiu. Atlikto kultūrinio tyrimo rezultatai rodo, kad kultūrinės dimensijos atlieka svarbų vaidmenį komunikacijos ir derybų procesuose. Taip pat analizuojami derybų stilių lemiantys atskirų kultūrų kultūriniai veiksniai ir darbuotojų kultūriniai ypatumaiModern dynamic business environments, which seeks to maintain competitiveness and strengthen position in products or services market, in many countries organizations tend to economical interdependency. Almost all for-profit companies’ owners in Lithuania, top, mid and purchase managers have to inevitably cooperate and negotiate with suppliers or manufacturers from other counties. In other words, for business growth it is vital to maintain connection with people of different culture. Cross cultural communication and negotiation between members of different culture often is accompanied with various threats due to cultural differences and low cross cultural competence of members. This could also be because it is impossible to create a share understanding of the environment with two or more culturally different parties participating. Culture may be different in various aspects: language, behaviour, values, attitude, beliefs, traditions, so trying to guess other culture spokesman according to oneself rarely pays off. That’s why participants of cross cultural communication meet serious challenges occurring with clarification of message initial meaning and correct way of decoding the message. Process of international transaction formation is accompanied by invisible barriers which are inspired by negotiation styles, verbal and non-verbal language and behaviour, but most often there is ethnocentrical understanding and interpretations. In such case cross cultural communication process is affected and hardened and as a result many cross cultural business deals are insoluble just as they start. This is important cross cultural communication and negotiation problem which should be discussed in various organizations and in international level. [...]Ekonomikos ir vadybos fakultetasVadybos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta