Introduction

The American company: Major Vehicle Component and the Chinese vehicle component company were negotiating the set up of a joint venture in China. During the negotiation, several conflicts and misunderstandings were raised from both sides, which made the negotiation hard to continue.

Purpose and Scope

The purpose of the report is to analyze the factors that led to conflicts and recommend actions that MVC negotiators can take.

This report focuses on problems before and during the negotiation and solutions in terms of the issues. It discusses differences between American and Chinese culture and what Mr. Jones should do to improve the understanding of cross-cultural communication.

It discusses neither the cost of the recommendations nor the way to maintain a long-term relationship after the negotiation.

Assumption

Recommendations are based on the assumption that resources and time of MVC are available.

Methods

Information in this report comes from print and online library sources. Cultureclassifications are retrieved from business Communication Now. A study in 2019 analyzing guanxi in Chinese culture and research on face-saving are retrieved from the library sources.

Limitations

The research has two limitations:

The case does include the perspective of the translator which limits the understanding of the actual negotiation. 

This report uses only three sources that cannot have a thoughtful understanding of Chinese culture.