Negotiating Across Cultures: How Global Differences Shape Expectations at the Bargaining Table

People from different parts of the world often bring very different expectations to the bargaining table.

Cross-cultural negotiations hinge more on differing views of time, communication, and trust than on strategy. Here, Bhaskar Pant compares and contrasts high-context, relationship-driven cultures with those that are low-context and outcome-driven, and considers how to approach negotiations that aim to span the divide between them.

I’ve spent my career working and negotiating across cultures—in media and now in education—and I’ve learned that timelines don’t carry the same weight in every room. Today’s trade negotiations show it clearly: one side pushes hard deadlines and penalties, while the other waits for trust to form. I first learned that lesson decades ago.

When I was the president of Turner Broadcasting in South Asia in the 1990s, the company scheduled talks for a partnership that would bring CNN’s international coverage and domestic news in India to a single television channel.

Executives flew in from the network’s headquarters in Atlanta, and from the company’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. But when they arrived for their meetings in India, they discovered that their counterparts had very different ideas about how this negotiation should go.

The Turner executives brought three lawyers with them, hoping to pin down the deal as soon as possible so they could announce what promised to be a groundbreaking partnership in a press release; for them, the ticking clock was the most important thing. But the Indian officials, who hadn’t brought a single lawyer into the room with them, weren’t in any hurry. This would have been the first time a foreign partner had ever had an ownership stake in a local news channel, and the officials felt they were taking a significant risk. For them, the important thing was not to hammer out a deal quickly, but rather to get to know their prospective partners and establish a solid, trustworthy relationship first.

In the end, the partnership never materialized—not because the opportunity wasn’t there, but because the two sides couldn’t bridge their very different cultural approaches to negotiation and results.

To successfully negotiate across cultures, each side must understand the other’s different conceptions of communication, time, and negotiation itself.
Although this happened over 30 years ago, cross-cultural negotiation is perhaps more relevant than ever. For the past several months, international trade policy has dominated the news, with the U.S. repeatedly threatening consequences for missing hard deadlines. But, as we can see from these ongoing trade talks—and from other international policy decisions and corporate negotiations—various cultures tend to look at deadlines and other negotiation elements very differently from one another.

To successfully negotiate across cultures, each side must understand the other’s different conceptions of communication, time, and negotiation itself.

High-Context vs. Low-Context Cultures

When we talk about the world, we often divide it into Eastern and Western cultures, or sometimes “developed” and “developing” countries. But, for the purposes of negotiation, there is a much more helpful lens: high-context and low-context cultures.
In a high-context culture, much of the meaning comes from implicit clues and understanding. Nonverbal signals, social bonds, and established trust can carry as much weight as what is spoken aloud. In Japan, for example, a direct “no” is often seen as impolite, or even confrontational, and so speakers use softer phrasing (such as “very difficult”), pauses, or facial gestures, and it is up to the negotiator to interpret the refusal from that context.

In low-context cultures, by contrast, clarity comes from making things explicit. People tend to prioritize direct speech, clear rules, and detailed agreements, which, in their view, minimizes the chance of misinterpretation and ensures accountability across participants.

High-context cultures are more prevalent in Latin America, the Middle East, and much of Asia, but geography isn’t everything here. Within Europe, for example, Germany and the Scandinavian countries are generally considered low-context cultures, while Italy and France are much higher-context cultures where communication and negotiation styles are markedly different from their northern counterparts. Even within the U.S. (often viewed as low-context overall), people notice contrasts. It is sometimes said that Midwesterners are “nice but not kind” and Northeasterners are “kind but not nice.” That’s essentially just a casual, joking manner of pointing to higher- and lower-context tendencies.

The differences go beyond conversation style, however. High-context cultures often emphasize collective identity and continuity of relationships, whereas low-context cultures often highlight individual responsibility and task efficiency.

While both perspectives bring strengths, when these different priorities meet, even something as simple as a deadline can become a fault line. To see why, it helps to look at how different cultures conceive of time.

Different Views of Time

Time is such a fundamental part of our lives that, for many of us, it seems unimaginable that anyone might view it differently from the way we see it. But consider this: when you picture yourself moving through time, which way do you see yourself facing? If you’re European or American, you likely answered that you see yourself facing toward the future. However, in some cultures, it is the past that is conceptualized as “in front” of a person (since it is already known), while the mysterious future is pictured as something behind us.

Edward T. Hall, the American anthropologist who first introduced the concepts of high-context and low-context cultures in the late 1950s, also noted that many high-context cultures tend to have a more fluid conception of time. In these cultures, time is often seen as something flexible and elastic; meetings might start late and then stretch on as long as needed to push a project forward, with minimum regard to clock time. It’s worth noting that many of these cultures, especially those in Asia, are thousands of years old, which may contribute to the sense that time is abundant, if not infinite. For people from cultures that measure time in millennia, the prospect of shaving three or four days off an important negotiation process can seem relatively trivial.

Low-context cultures, by contrast, think of time as linear and limited, and people from these cultures tend to prioritize punctuality and efficiency. Consider something as simple as start time. For people from low-context cultures, 3 p.m. means 3 p.m., and showing up even a few minutes late may seem rude, unprofessional, and perhaps even disrespectful. In high-context cultures, however, time is often treated more flexibly—less a fixed point and more as a guideline—because relationships or unfolding circumstances may take precedence over the clock. Here again, these cultural differences can easily cause misunderstandings and rocky starts.

It’s possible to get everyone on the same page, but only if each side is empathetic and considers the other’s point of view. People from high-context cultures may not always value deadlines for their own sake (especially if they view them as more arbitrary), but they are much more likely to take deadlines seriously if they see them as important for maintaining long-term relationships. And while people from low-context cultures do tend to value deadlines, they are often willing to be flexible if a logical reason for an extension is communicated in advance.
 

From Win-Lose to Win-Win

In lower-context cultures like large parts of the U.S. and Europe, negotiation is often framed in terms of clearly defined outcomes where the emphasis is more on “task” rather than “relationship”. This approach aims at measurable results and clear accountability, but it can also project an adversarial posture to a side that is driven more by achieving a harmonious relationship.

Think of a merger negotiation. One company aims to achieve greater market share and enhanced revenues through a fast-paced merger, and the other is looking to build cultural bridges first to achieve a successful merger in the long run. In relationship-oriented approaches, negotiation is viewed as a way to build trust and strengthen ties, with the details of the agreement fitting into that broader purpose. For instance, what may feel slow or drawn-out to an American or German counterpart can appear deliberate, careful, and responsible to a Japanese negotiator.

Both approaches have value. Outcome-driven styles offer clarity and efficiency; relationship-driven styles foster longevity and resilience. The challenge—and the opportunity—comes when negotiators recognize these differences and work toward agreements that deliver both measurable results and durable partnerships.

Lessons That Last

Business tips are often framed in terms of fads. When I bring up high- and low-context cultures, people want to know if the research was published in the past year or two. When I tell them the concept dates to a book published in 1959, they’re sometimes skeptical of such an “old” finding—even though the concept is new to them and largely aligns with their lived experience.

While business cycles are short, culture is slow to move; its movement is generally measured in decade terms, contrasted with business results that are measured quarterly. That’s good news for people who seriously want to learn about how culture affects complex interpersonal business processes like negotiation. If you take a course on how to use AI tools, some of the tools might be outdated in six months or less, but any time you spend learning about how to communicate across cultures will likely pay off for the rest of your career.

A century ago, international air travel made it possible for more government and business leaders from different countries to communicate with one another face-to-face. Over the past several years, the rise of internet-based communication tools like Zoom has meant that it’s even easier to get people from all over the world in the same “place.” In fact, it is likely that there are more people negotiating across cultures than at any other point in history.

Those negotiations are more likely to be successful when both sides take the time to understand the cultural expectations of the party across the table.