As business expand globally, international negotiations has become daily activity rather than an occasional event. Negotiations across borders occur every day in both SME´s and MNE´s in order to develop specific strategies for exporting, importing, setting up joint ventures or managing subsidiaries in foreign countries. Successful collaboration of any kind requires a willingness to engage. However, the majority of many negotiation efforts fail even though both sides want to reach a successful collaboration. The failures are usually caused by cultural aspects rather than economic or legal.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the cultural factors that have influence on cross-cultural negotiations between Swedish and Turkish businessmen. A hermeneutic and qualitative approach was used and three deep interviews with Swedish businessmen with vast experience were conducted.

There are a variety of cultural factors that are considered to affect negotiators in their work. With the results provided by the interviews, it is found that the most important affecting factor when it comes to do business with Turkish businessmen are personal relationships. It is found that lack of personal relations in Turkey could get one in inferior negotiation position. It is also found that non-verbal communications are important since Turkish businessmen extensively use it and lack of knowledge in understanding non-verbal communications can lead to misunderstandings and hamper the negotiation. It is also found that norms and formalities plays a vital role since this study shows that improper clothing and improper way to address people can be insulting for the Turkish counterpart and can therefore affect the negotiations and further lead to unwanted effects