Successful intercultural natural resource management collaboration is challenged by divergent worldviews and power disparities. Studies of non-intercultural collaboration efforts demonstrate that good outcomes emerge when procedural conditions are met, such as fostering open and high-quality deliberations, use of interest-based bargaining techniques and collective definition of the scope of the process. The applicability of these procedural conditions to intercultural collaboration efforts, such as negotiations between Aboriginal people, government resource managers and sustainable forest license holders, has not been explored. The aim of this thesis is to examine the outcomes and factors influencing two intercultural collaborations in the northeast region of Ontario. Semi-structured interviews with collaboration participants, negotiation meeting minutes and draft agreements are used as data sources. Following a general inductive coding approach and using QSR NVivo 2, the analysis of outcomes in both cases highlights improvements in relationships, increased understanding among the parties and the gradual definition of the scope of the negotiation. The findings also demonstrate that several barriers, including a lack of clear policy and legislative framework for collaboration and different definitions of the problem discourage intercultural collaboration. In one negotiation process, frequent and high quality deliberations, using an interest-based negotiation approach, and efforts to mutually define the scope of the negotiation prior to substantive negotiation do not overcome these systemic barriers to collaboration. However, in another negotiation process, the social and relational characteristics of the community and participants do contribute to the parties recognizing their interdependence, focusing on shared goals and undertaking joint action. This research demonstrates that the development of shared goals and acknowledgement of divergent problem definitions are more important to intercultural collaboration success than the development of improved relationships and establishing a mutually acceptable scope prior to collaboration. In the absence of a supportive legislative basis for the distribution of forest decision-making authority and responsibilities, this understanding of how Aboriginal, government and forest industry participants can collaborate is useful for developing more effective and equitable intercultural collaboration.

Successful intercultural natural resource management collaboration is challenged by divergent worldviews and power disparities. Studies of non-intercultural collaboration efforts demonstrate that good outcomes emerge when procedural conditions are met, such as fostering open and high-quality deliberations, use of interest-based bargaining techniques and collective definition of the scope of the process. The applicability of these procedural conditions to intercultural collaboration efforts, such as negotiations between Aboriginal people, government resource managers and sustainable forest license holders, has not been explored. The aim of this thesis is to examine the outcomes and factors influencing two intercultural collaborations in the northeast region of Ontario. Semi-structured interviews with collaboration participants, negotiation meeting minutes and draft agreements are used as data sources. Following a general inductive coding approach and using QSR NVivo 2, the analysis of outcomes in both cases highlights improvements in relationships, increased understanding among the parties and the gradual definition of the scope of the negotiation. The findings also demonstrate that several barriers, including a lack of clear policy and legislative framework for collaboration and different definitions of the problem discourage intercultural collaboration. In one negotiation process, frequent and high quality deliberations, using an interest-based negotiation approach, and efforts to mutually define the scope of the negotiation prior to substantive negotiation do not overcome these systemic barriers to collaboration. However, in another negotiation process, the social and relational characteristics of the community and participants do contribute to the parties recognizing their interdependence, focusing on shared goals and undertaking joint action. This research demonstrates that the development of shared goals and acknowledgement of divergent problem definitions are more important to intercultural collaboration success than the development of improved relationships and establishing a mutually acceptable scope prior to collaboration. In the absence of a supportive legislative basis for the distribution of forest decision-making authority and responsibilities, this understanding of how Aboriginal, government and forest industry participants can collaborate is useful for developing more effective and equitable intercultural collaboration.

With our increasingly competitive globalized economy, we are experiencing an emerging trend of firms competing on new international business markets (Bell et al. 2001; Huang 2010). In order to successfully negotiate in an international context, cultural sensitivity needs to be taken into consideration (Manrai & Manrai 2010). This study aims to examine how and to what extent professionalnegotiators’ international negotiation process is influenced by different businesscultures. The study was made by in-depth interviews of five Swedish based professional negotiators and their experiences from negotiating in France, Brazil and Singapore. The mentioned negotiation process was based on Ghuari’s(2003) international business negotiation model which consists of a pre- negotiation stage, a face-to-face negotiation stage and a post-negotiation stage. These stages have been analyzed and interconnected with several cultural variables such as cultural intelligence, adaptation, communication, hierarchy and the Hofstede (2011) parameter of collectivistic versus individualistic cultures to substantiate our two research questions: 1) How does culture intervene in the different stages of the negotiation process? And 2) How are the negotiators adjusting their negotiation strategy to better accommodate the specific culture? The empirical findings showed that there are several differences in both theFrench, Brazilian and Singaporean business culture as well as the negotiators’experiences of their need of adapting to the culture they are negotiating with. The data highlighted the importance of cultural understanding and obtaining the knowledge in a pre-negotiation stage in order to prevent unnecessary misunderstandings which could obstruct the negotiation. The major differenceswhich required the negotiators’ understanding and adaptation was the crucialfactor of building a relationship with the Singaporean delegation, the French’stough negotiation approach and the hierarchical setting in Brazil. The conclusions demonstrated the benefits of cultural adaption as well as the potential pitfall of over-adapting and the imperative preparatory work needed in the pre-negotiation stage of the negotiation.