International Business Advice - Avoid This Global Business Mistake

Americans tend to be legalistic and adversarial. They defend themselves with legally binding contracts which is not only tolerated by Americans, but they consider it an essential business practice. However, the Japanese do not follow this practice, and neither do most firm in international markets. In Japan, they do business with people the Japanese know and trust rarely using the law to handle conflicts between the two parties. One American firm arrived in Japan to negotiate a joint venture with a contract in their hands. In the first meeting, the Americans put the 50-page contract in front of the twelve Japanese negotiators. The meeting took the entire afternoon and none of the Japanese negotiators opened the contracts and they only talked about general business conditions in both countries. After the meeting, the Americans could not get the Japanese to the negotiating table again and had to leave the country empty-handed. The Japanese saw having the contract at the first meeting rude and decided not to do business with such an inept firm Get our Podcast: http://internationaltoolkit.com Get our videos: http://internationalbusinessminute.com