The Impact of Cultural Difference on Online Text-based Negotiation Behaviour: Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods

Abstract

隨著電子商務與資訊技術的發展，全球化的電子商務談判已是必然之趨勢，瞭解文化差異對於線上談判行為的影響，將有助於提升線上談判成效。因此，本研究以探討線上談判者自身文化及對手文化對談判行為的影響為主要研究目的，先採用內容分析法詳細分析80組東西方文化談判者的談判對話記錄，再加上統計分析，結合質量研究，希望對於談判行為有更細緻的觀察。本研究先針對整體談判行為的差異部分，依過去文獻提出檢定假說，以卡方分析檢定之；接著，則彙總第一階段的分析結果進一步針對各個談判行為類目提出命題，作為日後實證研究之基礎。綜合本研究結果發現，就整體行為而言，東西方文化者的談判行為都顯著受到自身文化及對手文化的影響。就自身文化影響部分，東方文化談判者明顯地較西方文化談判者顯現出較多比重的實質行為、程序行為與打招呼行為；反之，西方文化談判者則出現較多的任務行為與私人溝通行為。這些差異，部分似乎不符合原來傳統東西方文化分別屬於高低情境的行為特質。就對手文化影響部分，整體而言，東方文化談判者受到的影響是比較多的。在個別行為部分，本研究發現：(1)異文化談判會比同文化談判顯示較高比例的任務行為與說服行為，但顯示較低比例的程序行為與私人溝通行為；(2)相較於西方文化談判者，東方文化談判者在異文化談判比在同文化談判中會表現明顯較高比例的說服行為；(3)相較於西方文化談判者，東方文化談判者在同文化談判比在異文化談判中會表現明顯較高比例的程序行為。上述這些發現可能除了來自於文化特質的差異，也可能源自於線上媒體豐富度及語文溝通能力的綜合影響。如何針對每一個可能的影響因素，加以控制，以得到各因素單純的影響效果，是未來值得努力的方向。

Ever since the booming of global e-business and its severe competition, crosscultural e-negotiation has been getting popular. To understand how national culture may affect negotiation behaviour becomes critical for doing business. This research is to explore how negotiators` own and their counterparts` cultural backgrounds impact their negotiation behaviour. We applied content analysis to 80 pairs of online negotiation transcripts and then conducted chi-square test to compare the differences in negotiation behaviour between Eastern and Western and their counterparts. Hopefully, the integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods could provide more thorough observations on negotiation behaviour. There are two stages in this research. First, for overall negotiation behaviour, we proposed hypotheses based on literatures and then conducted chi-square test. Second, for differences in single category of negotiation behaviour, we proposed propositions based on the chi-square analysis results. We found that the negotiation behaviour of Eastern and Western is impacted not only by their own cultural backgrounds but also by their counterparts` cultural backgrounds. Overall, compared with Eastern negotiators, Western has more consistent negotiation behaviour no matter if there is cultural difference between dyadic negotiators. For single category of negotiation behaviour, Eastern and Western negotiators in intra- and cross-cultural present different negotiation behaviour. We infer that these results could come from synergistic effect of cultural differences, media richness and language familiarity. It deserves further study in the future.