Negotiating by e-mail
Who has not typed out an angry reply to an e-mail message, hit the send button - and then regretted it? Surely no technology has led to so many conflicts and lost friendships as electronic mail. But nowhere is e-mail more dangerous than in negotiations.
Experiments by Michael Morris, an academic at Stanford Business School, and a group of colleagues have now demonstrated what many people have always thought: negotiations are more likely to go well if they are conducted, at least in part, face-to-face, rather than between strangers with keyboards and screens. E-mail is not necessarily a bad way to negotiate, but the research suggests that it needs to be used carefully.
Together with Leigh Thompson, of the Kellogg Graduate Business School at Northwestern University, and several other academics, Mr Morris studied mock negotiations that used only e-mail and compared them with ones where there was a brief getting-to-know- you telephone call before the negotiations. The second type went more smoothly. Other experiments found that electronic negotiations were easier when the negotiators began by swapping photographs and personal details, or when they already knew each other.
From The Economist
VIII. Imagine that each paragraph in the article has a heading. Choose the best heading for each paragraph from the list below and number them in the correct order. Two of the headings are not used
a) Examples of real-life negotiations.
b) Face-to-face negotiations work better than ones bye-mail.
c) Negotiations in the construction industry.
d) E-mail can easily lead to conflict.
e) Studies of negotiation.
IX. Choose the correct alternative
1. If you regret something you did, you are
a) happy about what you did.
b) unhappy about what you did.
2. If you demonstrate something, you
a) show that it is true.
b) just say that it is true.
3. If you conduct negotiations, you
a) take part in them.
b) observe them from the outside.
4. Academics are
a) full-time businesspeople.
b) university teachers.
5. Mock negotiations are
a) real. b) experiments.
6. If you swap photographs, you
a) exchange your photographs for others.
b) keep your photographs.
X. Are face-to-face meetings necessary when you do business with someone? Or can everything be done by phone and e-mail?
XI. Render the following text into English
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UNIT 11. NEW BUSINESS
I. Lead-in
Look through the table 3 and say what you have learnt about conditions and difficulties of starting new business.
Table 3
| Low taxes → | imply a flexible labour market, where there are not only low taxes on companies but also low social cots (low payments from companies and employees for benefits such as health care and unemployment benefit), where it is easy to fire people when activity decreases, and where people quickly find new jobs when activity increases again. |
| Skilled staff → | imply the requirement for a good national education system and good company training of employees. |
| Low interest rates → | mean that it is cheap to borrow money to develop new business activities. |
| Cheap rents → | for office and factory space are of course more attractive than expensive ones, but having your office in the right place at a higher rent may be more attractive than having it in the wrong place at a lower one. |
| Stable economy → | is beneficial because businesspeople are able to plan better when there is less uncertainty about future inflation, taxes, etc. |
| Good transport links → | are important for employees to get to work and for salespeople to get to customers, but also for distribution of goods if your business does this. |
| Training courses→ | provided or funded by the government can be helpful in developing the skills of budding entrepreneurs. |
| High unemployment → | may mean that the wages you can pay are lower, but you may not be able to find the people with the skills you want if you set up your business in an area with a high level of joblessness. |
| Strong currency → | in manufacturing means that imported raw materials are cheaper but that your exports will be more expensive than those from some competing countries. But if your products offer more benefits, they may justify a higher price. |
| Government grants → | may be used to try to persuade companies to set up in areas with high unemployment but, if the area is unsuitable for other reasons (such as unskilled staff, distance from markets, etc), these grants will not be enough |
II. Study the vocabulary
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merit ,
to drum up ,
mutual benefit
play off against -.
just-in-time delivery , ( JIT , , , , , , )
total quality management
start-ups , , , "-"
to strike out ,
serial entrepreneurs , ,
viable
mundane ,
to break into new markets
growth rate ,
tax incentives ,
GDP (gross domestic product)
balance of trade ,
monetary policy - ,
benchmark - ,
approximately
bribery
