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Jeswald W. Salacuse Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2003, 320pp. ISBN: 0-312-29339-9
Developing cross-cultural negotiation skills is essential, given the challenges most business people face in the international business environment. This book is definitely a valuable resource that fulfils the needs of managers and negotiators looking for guidance when negotiating in a new territory. Written by a professor of law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and who teaches executive training programs sponsored by the Harvard Program on Negotiation, the book draws on the author's extensive background, experience and research in international negotiations.
The book is organized into 18 chapters. In the initial chapter, the author introduces the theme of the book and its structure. He arranges the subsequent chapters into three parts of unequal length based on the three distinct stages where negotiation is needed during an international deal: deal-making, deal-managing, and deal-mending. Part I (chapters 2-12) considers the challenges of and solutions to negotiating in the global environment. The concepts presented include rules for creating the foundation for a relationship; steps for preparing and conducting effective global deals; and principles and special barriers to global deal-making as well as ways of overcoming the barriers. Salacuse explicitly warns global negotiators not to overlook the relational dimensions in deal-making, since 'the essence of the deal between the parties is their relationship, not the contract' (p. 20).
Part II (chapters 13 and 14) addresses the complexities of deal management. The author describes measures for converting the contract into a...