Project: Cultural Rapport

This week, read The First Meeting at NTC and The Second Meeting sections of the case study provided in W1 Project. Also, review discussion questions 6 and 8 at the end of the case study document. Do not skip ahead to future sections of the case study or other discussion questions in the document for this week’s work. Many important issues for the case study lie below the surface and require both background research and critical evaluation to uncover.
 

Based on this week’s assigned sections (and all previous assigned sections of the case study), address the following topics:

Continuing Issues

Building upon the key themes and cues discovered in the week 1 portion of the final project, what cues exist in this week’s assigned portions that provide further insights on the business practice, task/relationship, communication, and structure issues?

 

Cultural Awareness

What cues exist that reveal the practices of cultural awareness (present or lacking) in the case? In particular:

How can a negotiator recognize needs and concerns of both parties?
How can a negotiator identify options and alternatives?
What can a negotiator do to understand strengths and weaknesses of both parties?

 

Conflict Management

What conflict management approaches are being used by the parties in the case study?
What better conflict management approaches could be used to create an enhanced negotiation environment and outcome?

 

Cultural Rapport

Based upon the cues within the context of the case study and the research you have completed, provide at least 3 best practices that international negotiators might use to develop cultural rapport. Defend your recommendations with research.

 

Important hint: You might find it helpful to begin each section of the paper by discussing the key themes and cues you observe. Then, do research on those key themes to both broaden and deepen your evaluation of the case and your understanding of the important issues. In the final product, about half your written evaluation of each topic should be research. About half should be application to the case study.
 

Recommendation for the level one heading for the body of your paper: 

Continuing Issues
 

Cultural Awareness
 

Conflict Management
 

Cultural Rapport Best Practices

 

Submission Details:

• Submit your evaluation in a four- to five-page Microsoft Word document, using APA style.

   

• Each Covered Heading must contain 3+ credible cited sources and a conclusion      summarizing talking points.

   

• Due by 4/7/25 at 7:00pm CST 

 Requirements:

1. Make certain to include in text citations from your course text in addition to your outside leadership resources within your main post. This adds credibility to your argument.
 

[Textbooks]:
Brett, J. M. (2014).

Negotiating Globally

, (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 9781118602614
 

and
 

Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M. and Barry, B. (2014).

Negotiation: Readings, Exercises, and Cases

. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 9780077862428

 

2. No plagiarism will be tolerated. Must be in 7th Edition APA format with cited sources within the last 5 years.

 

3. No AI support, score must be 0% and less than < 10% score on Turnitin

Project: Cultural Rapport

This week, read

The First Meeting at NTC
and

The Second Meeting
sections of the case study provided in
W1 Project. Also,
review discussion questions 6 and 8 at the end of the case study document.

Do not skip ahead to future sections
of the case study or other discussion questions in the document for this week’s work. Many important issues for the case study lie below the surface and require both background research and critical evaluation to uncover.
Based on this week’s assigned sections (and all previous assigned sections of the case study), address the following topics:

· Continuing Issues

· Building upon the key themes and cues discovered in the week 1 portion of the final project, what cues exist in this week’s assigned portions that provide further insights on the business practice, task/relationship, communication, and structure issues?

· Cultural Awareness

· What cues exist that reveal the practices of cultural awareness (present or lacking) in the case? In particular:

· How can a negotiator recognize needs and concerns of both parties?

· How can a negotiator identify options and alternatives?

· What can a negotiator do to understand strengths and weaknesses of both parties?

· Conflict Management

· What conflict management approaches are being used by the parties in the case study?

· What better conflict management approaches could be used to create an enhanced negotiation environment and outcome?

· Cultural Rapport

· Based upon the cues within the context of the case study and the research you have completed, provide at least 3 best practices that international negotiators might use to develop cultural rapport. Defend your recommendations with research. 

Important hint: You might find it helpful to begin each section of the paper by discussing the key themes and cues you observe. Then, do research on those key themes to both broaden and deepen your evaluation of the case and your understanding of the important issues. In the final product, about half your written evaluation of each topic should be research. About half should be application to the case study.

Recommendation for the level one heading for the body of your paper: 

Continuing Issues

Cultural Awareness

Conflict Management

Cultural Rapport Best Practices

Submission Details:

· Submit your evaluation in a

four- to five-page
Microsoft Word document, using APA style.

· Each Covered Heading must contain 3+ credible cited sources and a conclusion summarizing talking points.

·
Due by 4/7/25 at 7:00pm CST  

Requirements:

1.
Make certain to include in text citations from your course
text in addition to your outside leadership resources within your main post. This adds credibility to your argument.
[Textbooks]:

Brett, J. M. (2014).

Negotiating Globally

, (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 9781118602614

and

Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M. and Barry, B. (2014).

Negotiation: Readings, Exercises, and Cases

. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 9780077862428

2.
No plagiarism will be tolerated. Must be in 7th Edition APA format with cited sources within the last 5 years.

3.
No AI support, score must be 0% and less than < 10% score on Turnitin

Page 1 of 3
LEA6185_International Negotiations

© 2009 South University

Case 2.1. System Modification for Japan
by Junichi Yoshida

(Reprinted by permission of Junichi Yoshida and Infosys)

Note: This section was adapted and used by permission of the author and of Infosys.
This case study was developed by Junichi Yoshida, a Japanese Infosys engineer, for use in
internal Infosys training to illustrate cultural differences in the way business is conducted in Japan
and India. The events in the case are compiled and simplified from several different experiences
the case writer observed while working for Infosys. The case itself therefore is a fictitious event.

Background

As the broadband penetration rate in Japan increased, Nippon Tele Communication (NTC)
thought that there was a business opportunity for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service to
Japanese consumers. NTC selected the system used by American Tower Corporation (ATC), a
U.S. company, for its information technology (IT) system for this application, although it realized
that significant modifications and enhancements would be required for the Japanese context.
Infosys had worked with ATC to develop this application.

Infosys Japan thought that Infosys had a good chance of getting the opportunity to do the system
modifications and enhancements for the NTC project. Tanaka-san, a Japanese Infosys sales
manager, visited NTC in early November 2003 about bidding on the work but was told by NTC’s
head of IT that NTC was in the process of choosing Nippon Information System Processing
(NISP) to do the system modifications. Tanaka-san asked why Infosys Japan had not received a
request for proposal (RFP) for this Japanese localization work and was told there had not been
an RFP. Not ready to give up on this opportunity, Infosys asked ATC to recommend Infosys to
NTC. This tactic worked well. ATC recommended Infosys to NTC. NTC then asked Infosys to
form a team to make a proposal for the work, offering to pay Infosys for the expenses associated
with submitting a proposal.

Tanaka-san then requested that Infosys corporate headquarters (which are located in India) send
a consultant to help Infosys Japan develop a proposal for NTC. Infosys corporate was reluctant to
allocate resources for this project because no contract had been signed with NTC. After a long
teleconference between Tanaka-san and Infosys corporate, Infosys corporate decided to send a
relatively junior engineer named Sachin.

Sachin had an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Bangalore University. He was
an expert in Java programming, and during the five years he had been at Infosys since
graduation, he had been involved in several projects. Recently, Sachin had been the technical
architect on the ATC project.

The First Meeting at NTC

Sachin was not quite ready when Yoneyama-san, an Infosys Japan project manager and
engineer, arrived at Sachin’s hotel to take him to the first meeting with NTC. They took the train,
meeting Tanaka-san, the Infosys Japan sales manager, in the NTC lobby five minutes before the
meeting was to start.

Most of the meeting was conducted in Japanese. Sachin was bored, uncomfortable because the
room was too hot (he took off his jacket), and tired from the long trip. He was asked only one
question—about how many orders the ATC system processed daily. Sachin wasn’t sure but said
10,000.

Page 2 of 3
LEA6185_International Negotiations

© 2009 South University

The Second Meeting

After the first meeting, Infosys and NTC engineers met several times, working to develop enough
information so that Infosys could estimate the costs of the desired system specifications.
Communication at these meetings was challenging. For example, at the second meeting, Sachin
had questions to which he needed answers, but he hadn’t written them down. Some discussion
was held in English, but for the most part (especially regarding technical issues), Sachin asked
each question in English and Yoneyama-san translated the question into Japanese for the NTC
engineer. Then the NTC engineer would make a call, get the answer, and pass it on to
Yoneyama-san for translation back into English for Sachin.

During this second meeting, Sachin believed that the NTC engineer was saying yes, agreeing to
most of Sachin’s qualifications and conditions even when Sachin explained that the ATC system
only processed 5,000 orders, not 10,000 as he had mistakenly said previously. When Sachin
modified his estimate, he also explained that NTC could use faster equipment and be able to
process 10,000 orders. At the end of the second meeting, Sachin orally summarized what had
been discussed and politely refused to go out for a drink with Yoneyama-san and the NTC
engineer, since he did not drink alcohol.

More Meetings and Cost Estimate Negotiations

After several more meetings and more preparation, Infosys submitted a cost estimate of
$220,000. NTC requested a price reduction, since the total cost was almost 50 percent more than
NISP’s competing proposal. Infosys objected but ultimately reduced the price by 20 percent. NTC
also requested that the time be cut from 16 weeks to 14 weeks. Although doing so would require
overlapping the design and coding phases of the project, Infosys agreed to the time reduction.

Problems Executing the Project

In the course of development, NTC invited end users to test the system and entered the issues
these users raised into the tracking system. Sachin thought most of the end-user issues were
cosmetic, since they did not block the users from using the system. However, there were far more
issues than Sachin had anticipated. Fixing them all would adversely affect the cost of the project
or the schedule or both. Sachin told this to his NTC counterpart, trying to make the point that NTC
should have frozen the requirements when the contract was agreed to. NTC’s response was that
Infosys had been doing what it wanted to do without really knowing what NTC wanted. NTC also
said that no delay in delivery was acceptable because NTC was already advertising the new VoIP
service. NTC refused to pay extra for the new work associated with solving the end-user issues.

Discussion Questions

1. What did you notice about the way the opportunity for this project came about that was
an unusual business practice for Infosys?

2. Describe the contract negotiations. In what way were these negotiations a departure from

the way you would have expected negotiations to be conducted?

3. Why do you suppose NTC accepted Infosys’s 20 percent reduction, which still made its
proposal more expensive than the other vendor’s?

4. Shouldn’t Infosys have asked for something in return for reducing its price? What might

Infosys have asked for?

5. Once NTC got a price reduction, it asked for a two-week time reduction. Infosys agreed
to that, too. Who was Infosys negotiating with? What should Infosys have done at this
stage of the negotiation?

Page 3 of 3
LEA6185_International Negotiations

© 2009 South University

6. Communication during the meetings to develop specifications was difficult. Is there
anything that Infosys could have done to facilitate communication, reduce the transaction
costs associated with developing the bid, and minimize conflict once the project was
launched? Keep in mind that translation in Japan is expensive.

7. When Sachin tried to make the point that NTC should have frozen the requirements when

the contract was agreed to, NTC responded that Infosys did what it wanted to do without
really knowing what NTC wanted. What might have led to this response?

8. Should Sachin have gone out for drinks with Yoneyama-san and the NTC engineer? Did

Sachin need to drink alcohol?

image1

To earn the maximum, score in each section, that demonstrates knowledge of the topics:

A)  “exceeding the expectations” = 3 + different credible sources intext cited for each section per the rubric.
B)  Sufficiently supports = use of 2 different intext cited sources per section.
C)  Weakly supported credible sources used = 1 intext cited source
D)  Lacked credible sources = No sources intext cited
1.            Research needs to go beyond the course textbook or course lecture notes.
2.            Sources published, authored, and less than 6 years old.
3.            APA guidelines must be applied to intext cite information where used in the response.

Example1: A response has no intext citations but does have a reference section will be penalized in each section and graded as “Lacked credible sources” – as this demonstrates lack of APA application and potential plagiarism – as information was obtained from sources but no credit given to the authors.

Example2, the scope section can be written simply as a scope statement. However, to use information from credible sources to support the response: information can be used from sources that support scope importance, what it is, how it benefits a project, negative effects if no scope is developed.

2

Project: Cultural Differences

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Course Name

Instructor’s Name

Date

Project: Cultural Differences

Differing Business Practices

The case study shows that there is a difference in business culture between Japan and India. One of the most significant distinctions is the attitude towards the formalization of the procurement procedures. Business relationships are important in Japan as evidenced by when Nippon Tele Communication (NTC) selected Nippon Information System Processing (NISP) directly without an RFP. This is contrary to the RFP process that Infosys expected to go through. Infosys being an Indian company was very keen on having a very competitive bidding process while Japanese companies prefer more reliance on trust and relationship rather than competition. Hukkanen (2023) revealed that due to the significance of confidence and dependability in the selection of a supplier, Japan prefers to use relationship-based contracting over competitive bidding.

Another key difference is the negotiation style. From a transactional bargaining culture, Infosys prioritized cost efficiency and outcomes. However, NTC’s approach indicated a preference for flexibility and adapting to new information, even after agreements were made. Infosys expected the project to freeze after signing the contract, but NTC refined system upgrades based on end-user input. This suggests a Japanese preference for continuous improvement and responsiveness, which clashed with Infosys’ expectation of a fixed contract scope. Japan emphasizes iterative improvements and adaptation in commercial discussions due to its high uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation, according to Ge (2023).

Cues Demonstrating Cultural Differences

One major cue indicating cultural differences is the lack of an RFP. Infosys was astonished that NTC picked NISP without a bid. Infosys expected a competitive, systematic decision, whereas Japan relies on trusted connections in business. Another cue is how NTC responded to cost negotiations. NTC approved Infosys’ 20% price reduction, even though it was still more expensive than NISP. According to Mehra (2025), Japanese corporations favor dependability and relationships over cost-effectiveness, unlike Infosys, which anticipated pricing would be the main issue.  The third cue is how NTC expected continued modifications even after the contract was signed. Infosys expected a set of deliverables, while NTC insisted on flexibility, reflecting Japan’s focus on customer satisfaction and ongoing adaptability. This expectation led to tensions in project execution.

Differing Communication Styles and Structure

Communication and structural differences between Infosys and NTC were evident in how meetings were conducted. Japanese organizations’ hierarchical communication structure was crucial. Johnston and Miyamoto (2022) argue that top executives dominate approvals and negotiations in Japan’s vertical organizational hierarchy. For example, Infosys’ Sachin, who was relatively junior, was sent to lead discussions, whereas in Japan, seniority dictates authority. Mismatches in perceived significance may have eroded Infosys’ reputation. Additionally, the reliance on translation for technical discussions created inefficiencies and potential misinterpretations (Lewicki et al., 2014).

Cues Demonstrating Cultural Differences

One major cue is Sachin’s struggle with indirect communication. He misinterpreted Japanese indirectness and thought NTC agreed with his changes. Infosys expected approval or rejection, but Japan may see a “yes” as understanding. Japan’s high-context communication style uses high-context communication style, where agreement may reflect acknowledgment rather than actual consent (Levitt, 2022).

Another cue is the reluctance to discuss critical issues openly. After revealing their discontent, NTC said Infosys failed to understand their demands. According to Lin and Lou (2024), Japan’s high-context communication approach favors nuanced feedback over Infosys’ straightforward interaction.

The third cue is Sachin declining to go out for drinks. In Japan, casual meetings develop professional bonds. While Sachin did not need to drink alcohol, attending could have fostered rapport, an essential part of Japanese business culture. Infosys prioritized work over relationships.

Best Practices for Easing Cultural Tension

Relationship Building Before Business

International negotiators should invest time in building relationships before discussing contracts. Japanese businesses value trust and long-term collaborations. Companies should focus on relationship-building through casual meetings and networking events rather than formal procurement processes (Koporcic & Ivanova-Gongne, 2020). By stressing connections, Infosys might have become a trusted partner instead of a vendor.

Cultural Training for Employees

Companies engaging in cross-cultural business should provide employees with cultural training (Dominique, 2020). Sachin misinterpreted NTC’s assent as approval because Infosys was ignorant of Japanese communication techniques. Indirect communication, hierarchy, and negotiation training would assist professionals in overcoming cultural differences (Lewicki et al., 2014).

Flexibility in Negotiation and Project Execution

Flexibility is key when working in different cultural contexts. Sharma and Makhija (2024) found that adaptable business strategies and cultural intelligence improve cross-cultural negotiations by building understanding and lowering conflict. When NTC repeated revisions, Infosys assumed needs would be resolved after signing the contract, causing conflict. To ease such tensions, negotiators should anticipate evolving requirements and incorporate adaptability into agreements. Instead of resisting changes, Infosys could have negotiated phased deliverables to accommodate NTC’s iterative approach (Brett, 2014).

Conclusion

Cultural differences in business practices, communication styles, and negotiation strategies can create challenges in international business. Companies may improve cross-cultural cooperation by concentrating on relationship-building, cultural training, and flexible negotiating. These measures would have helped Infosys eliminate NTC misalignments and promote teamwork.

References

Brett, J. M. (2014).
Negotiating globally : how to negotiate deals, resolve disputes, and make decisions across cultural boundaries. Jossey-Bass.

Dominique, V. (2020). Business cultural training in a globalised economy.
Training, Language and Culture,
4(1), 33–43. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/business-cultural-training-in-a-globalised-economy

Ge, J. (2023). The Influence of Uncertainty Avoidance on Cultures and Business Practices.
Research and Commentary on Humanities and Arts,
2(2). https://ojs.scineer-pub.com/index.php/RCHA/article/view/4037/3799

Hukkanen, L. (2023). Building collaborative relationships by utilizing strategic supplier relationship management.
Lutpub.lut.fi. https://lutpub.lut.fi/handle/10024/165364

Johnston, A., & Miyamoto, K. (2022). Independent Directors and Team Production in Japanese Corporate Governance.
Asian Journal of Law and Society, 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1017/als.2022.22

Koporcic, N., & Ivanova-Gongne, M. (2020). The importance of Interactive Network Branding for business relationship development: insights from emerging markets.
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing,
35(1), 183–192. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim-10-2018-0294

Levitt, S. (2022). Intercultural Competence in International Teamwork: Understanding High-and Low-context Communication Styles.
CMAP),
2022(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.14456/cmap.2022.1

Lewicki, R. J., Barry, B., & Saunders, D. M. (2014).
Negotiation: Readings, Exercises, and Cases:7th Revised : edition. Mcgraw Hill Higher Education.

Lin, H., & Lou, L. (2024). A Study on Cross-Cultural Business Communication Based on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory.
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
12(09), 352–368. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2024.129021

Mehra, N. (2025).
Bridging Business Cultures: Japan’s Relationship-Driven Model vs. the West’s Transactional Approach. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5167932

Sharma, K., & Makhija, T. K. (2024). Bridging the Cultural Divides: The Transformative Power of Cultural Intelligence in Global Business Leadership and Negotiation.
Journal of Global Research in Education and Social Science,
18(2), 15–24. https://doi.org/10.56557/JOGRESS/2024/v18i28647