International business negotiation in the South and North China

AbstractData: 2008 –09 – 29Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, 15 hp,Title: International business negotiation in the South and North ChinaAuthors: Xiaofeng Lin, Ran Yan, Argiris Christakopoulos,Supervisor: Leif SannerProblem: Concurred with China's economic development, the commercial activitiesamong China and different countries have become more frequent. Manyscholars have come to realize that China's different cultural background hasbeen a great extent influenced by the international business activities, andmany articles have been described about how the Chinese unique culturalinfluence the international business negotiation. But because the cultures inthe South and north China have some great differences, therefore, when wereviewed those articles, we found that those descriptions in the articleswere not comprehensive. Some of the opinions were feasible and effectivein north of China in business negotiation, but perhaps were not suitable inthe South of China.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to get a better understanding of how the differentcultures from north and south China affect the international negotiationprocess.Method: We have developed the qualitative approach to fulfill our thesis purpose. Thisqualitative study was conducted by interviewing two managers from ChinaOcean Shipping Agency Fuzhou (south China) and JINAN XiaoYa CO.Ltd(north China). All the final results are derived from the analysis of thegathered empirical data and the theories presented.Result: By analyzing the connection between the collected empirical data and thepresented theories, the main conclusion we get is that in an internationalnegotiation process, the different cultures from south and north China mayhave an effect on different levels