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Confucian Ideal Personality and Chinese Business Negotiation Styles: An Indigenous Perspective

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Abstract

China has become one of the most important economies in the global market, but negotiating with the Chinese remains a great challenge for most Westerners. This study is to help better understand Chinese business negotiation styles with an indigenous perspective by exploring the impact of Confucian ideal personality on business negotiation process in China. This study tests the effects of three key components of Confucian ideal personality—benevolence (Ren), wisdom (Zhi), and courage (Yong) on Chinese negotiation behaviors and further on negotiation outcomes with 200 business students in a simulated negotiation exercise. The results support the significant effects of benevolence and courage on Chinese business negotiation styles but wisdom is not found to have any significant impact in China. The overall pattern of the results substantiates the strong influence of Confucianism on Chinese negotiation styles, and provides an important supplement to negotiation theories developed in the West.

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Notes

  1. We are very grateful to one anonymous reviewer for the suggestion on identifying the appropriate level of analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Odette School of Business, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, N9B 3P4, Canada

    Zhenzhong Ma

  2. School of Economics and Management, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai, China

    Weiwei Dong

  3. Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Jie Wu

  4. Faculty of Business Administration, University of Macau, Macau, China

    Jie Wu

  5. HIT-UMKC Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China

    Dapeng Liang

  6. School of International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China

    Xiaopeng Yin

Authors
  1. Zhenzhong Ma
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  2. Weiwei Dong
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  3. Jie Wu
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  4. Dapeng Liang
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  5. Xiaopeng Yin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhenzhong Ma.

Additional information

This study is partially supported by a Standard Research Grant of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC #410-2009-0271) to the first author.

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Ma, Z., Dong, W., Wu, J. et al. Confucian Ideal Personality and Chinese Business Negotiation Styles: An Indigenous Perspective. Group Decis Negot 24, 383–400 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-014-9394-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-014-9394-6

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