STYLES OF BUSINESS NEGOTIATION FROM A CULTURAL ASPECT

Na temelju načina, stilova i karakteristika poslovnog pregovaranja te kulturoloških aspekata, odnosno kulture visokog i niskog konteksta provedeno je istraživanje visokog menadžmenta u četirima europskim zemljama. Svrha je ovoga istraživanja popuniti istraživački jaz zbog nedovoljne istraženosti na polju stilova i karakteristika poslovnog pregovaranja s kulturološkog aspekta te obogatiti znanstveni korpus istraživanjima novijeg datuma. Provedena je metoda intervjua, komparacije, analize i sinteze kako bi se utvrdio kulturološki kontekst te spoznalo je li došlo do promjena u poslovnom pregovaranju kada se radi o sklonostima prema neformalnom uvodu u pregovaranje, tempu pregovaranja, neverbalnoj komunikaciji (gestikulacijama), sklonosti prema stvaranju osobnih odnosa, iskazivanju emocija i međusobnom darivanju. Istraživanje je pokazalo kako promjene u načinu poslovnog pregovaranja puno brže prihvaćaju zemlje nisko kontekstualne kulture, kao što su Njemačka i Švedska. Dok se zemlje visoko kontekstualne kulture, poput Hrvatske i Bosne i Hercegovine, još uvijek drže ustaljenih karakteristika poslovnog pregovaranja. Budući da su ispitivane odgovorne osobe, najveću prepreku ovom radu predstavljalo je vremensko trajanje istraživanja, s obzirom na širinu teme s usklađivanjem brojnih obveza ispitanika.Based on methods, styles and characteristics of business negotiation and cultural aspects, i.e. culture of high and low context, a survey was conducted among executives in four European countries. The aim of this research is to fill the research gap caused by the insufficient research in the field of styles and characteristics of business negotiation under cultural aspects and to enrich the scientific corpus with recent research results. The method of interview, comparison, analysis, and synthesis was used to determine the cultural context and to find out whether there have been changes in business negotiations in terms of the tendency to start negotiations informally, the pace of negotiations, nonverbal communication (gestures), the tendency to build personal relationships, the expression of emotions, and giving gifts to each other. The research found that countries with a low context culture, such as Germany and Sweden, are much quicker to accept changes in the way business negotiations are conducted, while countries with a high context culture, such as Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, still adhere to the established characteristics of business negotiations. Since the responsible persons in the companies were interviewed, the main obstacle for this work was the time duration of the research considering the scope of the topic and the harmonization of the respondents commitments