A Comparison of American and Russian Patterns of Behavior in Buyer-Seller Negotiations Using Observational Measures.

The study compares American and Russian patterns of conversational behaviors in the context of a simulated buyer-seller negotiation involving 60 American and 52 Russian businesspeople participating in intracultural, face-to-face bargaining sessions. Each session was tape-recorded, and the tapes were subsequently transcribed, translated, and coded for 20 content analysis categories. The behaviors of the Russians differed in some respects from the Americans, but overall we discovered surprising similarity in the patterns of bargaining behaviors. However, most importantly, the effects of those behaviors on negotiation outcomes (i.e., profits and satisfaction) were found to vary substantially across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]