A Holistic Analysis of Japanese and American Business Negotiations

An inductive, holistic method of analysis of face-to-face communication is presented.Simulated business negotiations between Japanese and American businesspeople arevideotaped and analyzed to demonstrate the utility of the methods. Briefly, the participantsin the negotiations and trained observers review the videotapes and identify focal points(e.g., difficulties in communication) for in-depth analysis. Antecedents and consequencesof the focal points are described.