Today’s globalization requires professionals to deal with their counterparts in countries with different economic, cultural, legal, and political environments. You may need to resolve a dispute with a supplier, finalize a counterproposal for a state-owned enterprise, or lead a multicultural team. Thus in a globalized market, few subjects are as critical as negotiating across cultural boundaries. When negotiators are from diverse cultures, they often rely on quite different assumptions about social interactions, economic interests, and political realities. Consequently, culturally sensitive negotiating skills are necessary for managing in an international setting.
Creative Solutions to Global Business Negotiations has been prepared for all those who negotiate globally: managers, lawyers, government officials, and diplomats. The book provides an insightful, readable, highly organized tour de force of both the conceptual and practical essentials of international business negotiation.
Negotiation is a lifelong activity. In business, you can do much better by negotiating successfully. Those not skilled in negotiation will get less than they deserve, perhaps significantly less. Surprisingly, it is often easier to sharpen your negotiating skills by simply trying. To do this, you must acquire proven negotiation strategies and tactics as well as the latest techniques of dealing with the challenges and opportunities of today’s complex global alliances and quickly forming partnerships. At the same time, you must know how to navigate across national, organizational, and professional cultures at the negotiating table.
The book provides a clear framework to guide global negotiators around diverse cultural boundaries to close deals, to create value, to resolve disputes, and to reach lasting agreements in a constantly changing competitive context. In other words, this book will help managers and professionals acquire knowledge and develop indispensable skills in today’s global business environment.
The book emphasizes the hardheaded sense of reality at its core. It makes negotiators feel how it will likely be at the international negotiating table. It tells you how to avoid mistakes and how to optimize your goals.
It helps you strengthen the skills that are keys to success in conducting business in a multicultural environment. The strength of your agreements and the development of lasting relationships can be the difference between success and failure. Poor agreements with overseas companies result in frequent and endless disputes affecting the profitability of the outcome. Mutually beneficial agreements help you reach and exceed your objectives and give the other party greater satisfaction at the same time. This is true whether you are (a) determining the price and terms of the deal, (b) closing with a key customer, (c) persuading others to work with and not against you, (d) setting or meeting budgets, (e) finalizing and managing complex contracts, (f ) working on a project with someone important to you, or (g) breaking or avoiding a serious impasse.
While brief, our acknowledgments express our deep gratitude to all who have helped us to design and shape this book over the last several years. Many concepts are grounded on the work of others and are intended as a tribute to those found in the bibliography—a dedicated group of authors recognized for their research on cross-national negotiations. Some of them may agree or disagree with this book, and that reaction is to be expected.
Closer to home, we wish to acknowledge the support of colleagues Eric Willumsen at the International University in Geneva and John Elliott at the University of Connecticut. We are thankful to our students at the International University in Geneva and at the University of Connecticut who read drafts and provided excellent feedback. The staff at the International University in Geneva and the University of Connecticut have been extraordinarily gracious in supporting the project and providing help in numerous ways. We owe a special word of thanks to the talented staff at Business Expert Press for their role in shaping the book.
Finally, we are thankful to our wives for their gracious support and inspiration in countless ways.
Claude Cellich, Geneva, Switzerland
Subhash C. Jain, Storrs, Connecticut, United States
March 2016