Mañana and Manners may not be Enough! The Cultural Interface of New Zealand and Argentinean Business Negotiating Preferences

Being one of the smaller players in Australasia, New Zealand and its exporters have no choice but to seek new trading partners in countries with often-unfamiliar cultures. This paper presents guidance for marketing managers seeking to trade with an emerging Pacific Rim trading partner for the Australasian region, Argentina. Prior research into international cultural differences was used to construct a negotiating-preference questionnaire sent to New Zealand /Argentinean business managers doing business with each other. New Zealand and Argentinean managers tended to rank and rate negotiation elements similarly, but the behaviours comprising these elements were seen differently. Argentinean evaluations were dramatically opposed to stereotypical conceptions of South American behaviour regarding the relative importance of social elements and the supposed unimportance of time. The results suggest further research and represent a strong warning against basing Australasian/South American market actions on stereotypical notions alone -regardless of how widely they may be held.