Negotiation styles between Pakistan and USA: A comparative study

National Scientific advancement engulfing virtually every sphere of human life and resultant inception of modern means of communications, international trade has registered unprecedented growth over the past couple of years. Fresh impetus has been lent to trade and commerce activities. This has brought different regions, cultures and communities in a fold. Therefore inexorable interaction and interdependence has heralded a new era of cooperation and mutuality among divergent cultures previously separated by time and space. Concurrently, the need for sound knowledge and understanding of different cultures is greater than ever before since this can facilitate favorable environment for interaction and provide necessary peep into psyche, attitudes and style of negotiators coming from alien cultural backgrounds. This paper gives a general overview of the essence of negotiations itself, its styles while narrowing down focus on negotiation styles pursued by Americans and Pakistanis. Various studies undertaken in the past to examine similarities and differences of negotiation styles among selected countries show Americans have little understanding of other cultures and are impatient listeners. Being result oriented, they prefer competing and aggressive styles while adopting direct approach in negotiation thereby bypassing the long term relationship, sacrificing individual interests and preventing emotions to influence negotiation process. However, Pakistani negotiators prefer collaborating and compromising styles. They employ emotions and personal relationship while negotiating. Pakistani negotiators unlike their American counterparts focus on long term relationship. They employ indirect communication channels and rely on assumption instead of realism.