[originaltext]M: I’m talking to Janet Holmes who has spent many years negotiati

M: I’m talking to Janet Holmes who has spent many years negotiating for several well-known national and multinational companies. Hello, Janet.
W: Hello.
M: Now Janet, you’ve experienced and observed the negotiation strategies used by people from different countries and speakers of different languages. So, before we come on to the differences, could I ask you to comment first of all on what such encounters have in common?
W: OK, well, I’m just going to focus on the situations where people speak English in international business situations.
M: I see. Now not everyone speaks English to the same degree of proficiency. So maybe that affects the situation?
W: Yes, perhaps. But that’s not always so significant. Well, because, I mean, negotiations between business partners from different countries normally mean that we have negotiations between individuals who belong to distinct cultural traditions.
M: Oh, I see.
W: Well, every individual has a different way of performing various tasks in everyday life.
M: Yes, but, but isn’t it the case that in a business negotiation they must come together and work together, to a certain extent? I mean, doesn’t that level out the style of... the style of differences somewhat?
W: Oh, I’m not so sure. I mean, there are people in the so-called Western World who say that in the course of the past 30 or 40 years that a lot of things have changed a great deal globally. And that as a consequence national differences have diminished or have got fewer, giving way to some sort of international Americanized style.
M: Yeah, I’ve heard that. Now some people say that this Americanized style has acted as a model for local patterns.
W: Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t. Because, on the one hand, there does appear to be a fairly unified, even uniform style of doing business, with certain basic principles and preferences—you know, like "time is money", that sort of thing. But at the same time it’s very important to remember that we all retain aspects of our national characteristics—but it is actually behavior that we’re talking about here. We shouldn’t be too quick to generalize that to national characteristics and stereotypes. It doesn’t help much.
1. What situations will Janet focus on with regard to negotiation strategies?
2. According to Janet, what factor would most affect negotiations?
3. What’s said to be true about the style of differences in business negotiations?
4. What is Janet’s attitude towards the Americanized style as a model for business negotiations?
5. Why does Janet think we shouldn’t come to generalization too quickly?