Many scholars wrote about social status and
respect of hierarchy as another cultural characteristic of the Chinese business, it is
given a strong visibility in Chinese business meetings, the status means the
role and the position of a person in the company, the Chinese will agree to
work only with a person from the same hierarchical level or a higher one (Woo,
Prud’homme, 1999). However, Graham and Lam (2003) emphasized the importance of
rank and status by showing its repercussions, it can ruin a business meeting with
the Chinese, in a way that high-level negotiations will involve directly
executives of both companies, and it has nothing to do with sales
representatives. A negotiation usually requires the meeting of equals, so that
more cooperation is visible. Some of the reflections of hierarchy would be how
Chinese people greet themselves and address each other, who speaks during
business meetings and who makes decisions (J. Sebanius,C.Qian, 2008). A social
status implies directly a mutual trust between a business negotiator and his
counterparts.
The Chinese feel that hierarchy is
something very important and thus the manager makes all decisions. Usually, a
diminutive amount of authority and decision-making power is delegated down in
the organisation since hierarchy is extremely important.
It is very important for the Chinese to know
that the persons they are negotiating with have authority to make relevant
decisions. More often than not, western negotiators have the authority
to make decisions and answer the customer’s questions while the chinese negotiating counterpart perhaps has to confer with a superior before a decision can be
made.
Another important thing to consider is the
way people are seated around a meeting table. The highest manager sits in the
centre and the rest of the group is placed in hierarchical order alongside him.
The expatriate team has to position itself in the same manner in order to facilitate
the understanding of who is in charge.
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