Is negotiating with Chinese for Eastern European businessmen a paradox or a coopetition?

The purpose of the paper is to assess how dynamic nature of culture impacts negotiation strategies. This paper focuses on changing cultural values in relationship management in the context of negotiations. We illustrate the cross-cultural differences and commonalities by applying multiple case study method. We have found that negotiations in China are contextually and geographically based and can differ substantially in terms of the location within China, industry, business partner characteristics, and nevertheless guanxi (i.e. relationships, acquaintances, etc.) you and your partner possess. Most of the interviewees claim that negotiations in China are very much connected with the hierarchy, which is usually tight to the age of the counterpart. The most important and the biggest decisions are always made only by the firm owner, if the firm is private, or the highest ranked businessman. It is important to know, that in formal business meetings Asians seldom show any emotions with the face gestures. More importantly, their negotiation strategies are changing in time, which confirms the dynamic nature of culture. The added value of this paper is putting negotiation strategies in the context of a new yin-yang school of culture. Opposed to Chinese-Western relationship studies that are dominating the negotiation literature, we offer insights to Chinese-Eastern Europe relationships with a common cultural history. In sum, paper draws on literature from two disciplines, international trade and business negotiations, extending the scope of research contribution.