CULTURAL ASPECTS OF CROATIAN MANAGERS’ BUSINESS NEGOTITATION

In the context of negotiation, it is of the utmost importance to understand the differences across cultures and their impact on the negotiation process and its outcomes. Furthermore, cultural awareness allows negotiators to anticipate and interpret their counterpart's behaviour. Consequently, it facilitates achieving the desired negotiating objectives and enhances negotiation performance. The aim of this paper was to explore the impact of the selected features of Croatian negotiators (age, hierarchical level and negotiation frequency) on cultural aspects of negotiation (use of titles, nonverbal communication and expression of emotion). The research was conducted on a sample of 256 firms in the Republic of Croatia. The research results revealed a positive correlation between the following variables: expression of emotion and negotiation frequency, age and the use of titles and negotiation frequency and nonverbal communication. Multilinear hierarchical regression provided a more detailed insight into the correlation between variables. Beta coefficient showed a statistically significant dependence of variables expression of emotion and nonverbal communication on the predictor negotiation frequency; as well as the dependence of the variable use of titles on the predictor age. The paper provides insights into the Croatian negotiation practice and it could serve as a basis for conducting future empirical research in the field.