Posted Article 2007:

Negotiating and handling of conflicts

Conflict

What is a conflict actually ? Disagreeing with another? Difference of opinion with another? A conflict can happen easily and there are a lot of ways to get involved in a conflict. There are five basicstyles of resolving conflicts in business. These are:

• Avoidance

  Compromise

  Competition

  Collaboration

• Accomodation

Dimensions of Hofstede

According to the dimensions of Hofstede, Germany and Switserland have almost the same scores. Both scores are high on individuality. This means that most people in Swiss and Germany have also high scores on distribution. This because individualistic countries are looking more to themselves. If a country scores high on masculinity they will score low at integration. Germany and Switserland have a high masculinity. This means that there will be a competition conflict handling style. It is important with the merger between Adecco and DIS AG, that if there’s a conflict, they will use the same kind of conflict handlingstyle. Conflicts will then get solved more faster and easily.

Negotiating

German people will have during business negotiating t

heir ideas based on well worked plans and policiy’s. They take decisions on the basis of hard facts, otherwise you can’t convince them. Do not expect the Swiss to tell you abruptly that they do not agree at all with your opinion. They will hear you out, just saying yes, yes. If they do not answer frankly to a question—or even do not answer at all—that does not mean that they do not have a perfectly clear opinion.  To do international business it is important to be aware of each others cultures differencess in order to be succesfull. Also the merger between Adecco – DIS AG had to suffer from these differencess. 

Uncertainty Avoidance Index

The scores according the UAI show us that Germany scores higher. German doesn’t like changes in their negotiation. Also they will not trust the negotiator if he/she can’t come with written facts.  Swiss people are also likely like that. They score a little bit under Germany. Therefore whe think the start of te negotiation will go slowly, but slightly after they trusted each other it will get a comfortable negotiaton. 

Power Distance Index
Power Distance focuses on the degree of equality, or inequality, between people in the country's society.  A high PDI score means that people are comfortable with: hierarchic structures, clear authority figures and the right to use power with discretion.  Countries with a low PDI prefer a shared authority. Boss and employee are almost at the same level.
The PDI score for both countries Switserland and Germany are the same. During the negotiation there will not be any influence of the difference from the PDI.

Masculinity
Achievement, control and power. If there is a high masculinity the male will dominate. In a low level woman and man are equal. Germany and Switserland scored 66 and 70.  A problem that might occur during the negotiations is the roll of the women. One of the parties will not like it so much. Even if the woman has a high function it might have influance. The luck is that there is not a big diffence in score between these two countries.

Individualism
We think that trough individualism of both countries the negotiation was hard, because Adecco and DIS AG will try to get the best deal for themselves. The scores were 67 for Germany and 68 for Switserland. Both cultures are on the same level of individualism.

Conclusion

The dimensions of Hofstede made it clear to us how different kind of cultures can have a big influance on a negotiation. The merger between Adecco and DIS AG, a Swiss and a German organisation didn’t had any big disputes we think. Both organisations were on the same cultural level according to mister Hofstede. Culteral different is a beautiful thing, respect each other, learn from each other, be patience....Sources:

geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_resources/hofstede_religion_1.shtml, Intercultural Management, M036, switzerland.isyours.com/ e/guide/backgroundinformation.html

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