During the online teaching period, the students in the classes of International Negotiation taught by Prof. Hongyan Zhao at UIBE and Global Negotiation taught by Prof. Erin Johnson at the University of Iowa, USA gave high praise to the cross-cultural negotiations conducted between the two classes.

Thanks to the organization and coordination from Profs. Zhao and Johnson, the students from the two universities successfully held "cloud negotiations" from April 14^th to April 20^th, 2020 through E-mail, WeChat, Zoom, or other network platforms.

From the feedback, the students in UIBE’s International Negotiation class agreed that they have gained a lot from the cross-cultural communications. Some students accumulated practical negotiation experiences by experiencing the negotiation processes. Some students said that, through cross-cultural negotiations, they understood the American negotiation style better from their partners’ personality, negotiation strategy, and language style, and gained excellent cross-cultural experience and international perspectives.

Even for students who are familiar with negotiations, this activity was an opportunity to improve their ability to communicate in English. Many students pointed out that this is not only a challenge, but also an opportunity to practice English.

In addition, many students said that the cross-cultural negotiation partly changed their "stereotype" of American cultural style. Based on the practice, students have a deeper understanding of theories on American style learned from class and textbooks, which is helpful for students to understand American culture and negotiation style from a new perspective.

The students said that they really appreciated this unique opportunity of cross-cultural negotiation. They felt lucky to launch the one-to-one communications with American students who have shown great sincerity and enthusiasm, overcoming difficulties such as long distance and time difference.

Similar positive responses were received from the American students. Professor Johnson indicated that her students “enjoyed it [the negotiation] a lot and found it useful”. Her students suggested a more complicated case for next time. Currently Profs. Zhao and Johnson are planning another collaboration scheduled for Spring 2021.

(Reporter: Yunmeng Gao)