The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century [Hardcover]

Jeswald W. Salacuse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2003

In today's global business environment, an executive must have the skills and knowledge to navigate all stages of an international deal, from negotiations to managing the deal after it is signed. The aim of Global Negotiator is to equip business executives with that exact knowledge. Whereas most books on negotiation end when the deal is made, Jeswald W. Salacuse will guide the reader from the first handshake with a potential foreign partner to the intricacies of making the international joint venture succeed and prosper, or should things go poorly, how to deal with getting out of a deal gone wrong. Salacuse illustrates the many ways in which an international deal may falter and the methods parties can use to save it, provides the necessary technical knowledge to structure specific business transactions, and explores the transformations to the international business landscape over the last decade.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This unique, outstanding guidebook breaks down the intricacies of international negotiations into understandable segments and provides the tools to ensure success in the creation, management, and remediation of international deals." --Library Journal, Best Business Books 2003

"This handbook offers advice covering the life of an international agreement..."--Theodore Kinni, Richmond Times-Dispatch

"...a comprehensive guide to handling all types of deals...."--Ft. Worth Morning Star-Telegram, 6/30/03

"The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing, and Mending Deals Around the
World is a unique and outstanding work filled with practical advice for
anyone faced with negotiating a transnational deal or having to address
issues that arise before, during or after the negotiation. I wish that
Professor Salacuse's valuable book would have been available when I
first began traveling the world to negotiate with governments and
international entities over 25 years ago. This highly useful and easy
to comprehend work provides a wealth of knowledge, normally gained only
through years of success and failure in complex negotiations. Professor
Salacuse breaks down the complexity of negotiations into understandable
segments, providing the tools to ensure success in the creation,
management and remediation of any type of international deal. This is a
work that all professionals who are involved in global deal making
should study and review every time they are involved in any part of an
international transaction. The 'go to' resource for all global deal
makers." -- Alan R. Crain, Jr., Vice President & General Counsel, Baker Hughes Incorporated
"This is the best book I know to help business negotiators expand their skills to meet the needs of negotiating internationally. It is a volume filled with wisdom, useful tools, and sound advice." -- Roger Fisher, Director, Harvard Negotiation Project, Co-author Getting to Yes.

About the Author

Jeswald W. Salacuse is a professor of law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He also teaches executive training programs sponsored by the Harvard Program on Negotiation. He is author of 11 books, including Making Global Deals and The Art of Advice. He lives outside of Boston, MA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1 edition (July 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312293399
• ISBN-13: 978-0312293390
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #563,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, July 13, 2003

By 

John D. Baker "Editor, The Negotiator Magazine" (Scottsdale, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Hardcover)

Roger Fisher, Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project and author of Getting to Yes, has written for the book jacket that The Global Negotiator "...is the best book I know to help business negotiators expand their skills to meet the needs of negotiating internationally." It is high praise and well deserved.

The author, Jeswald W. Salacuse, is the Henry J. Braker Professor of Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Harvard Program on Negotiations. Professor Salacuse has an extensive background in international negotiations. He has participated in negotiations involving persons from over forty countries, spent years living abroad and explored the field of global negotiations through research and teaching involving hundreds of international executives, lawyers and officials.

This is a guidebook about "making, managing, and mending international business transactions" (p.viii). Its aim, Professor Salacuse tells his reader, "...is to equip business executives, students, lawyers and government officials to navigate each of these stages effectively" (p.3).

Unlike most books on the art of negotiating, Professor Salacuse goes far beyond making the deal and gives careful attention to managing and repairing deals once made. It is, therefore, a work with special insight and value for the negotiator. Let us examine some of these insights.

The central issue in global negotiations, Professor Salacuse tells the reader, is about the nature of the deal itself. "Is it a contract or a relationship?" (p. 20).

The answer to this seemingly simple issue should be at the heart of the preparation for any negotiation. Alas, far too often, it is a topic casually addressed by negotiators. Ideally, it should be both a relationship and a contract in most deals.

In fact, however, in American practice the contract often takes the central focus. As unfortunate as this approach may be, its problems are amplified in an international arena in which the goal of a potential partner in a negotiation may be a relationship and the contract is secondary. Neglecting that core difference in expectations may not only destroy the possibility of reaching a deal, but also imperil the success of future fulfillment of any agreement reached by the parties. Without clarity on this matter, any agreement may be founded on the most fatal of flaws: the failure of the parties to have a meeting of the minds.

"A deal is a prediction. A negotiation is always about the future," Professor Salacuse states (p.62). It is a true statement about all deals whether local or global, but particularly significant in the cross-cultural environment.

The wise negotiator recognizes that negotiators are "inherently incapable of predicting all of the events and conditions that may affect their transactions in the future" (p.65). Additionally, due to resource constraints and cultural differences, the understandings and expectations of the parties are rarely capable of being fully captured in the written contract. Given these factors, Salacuse concludes, may be "more realistic to think of the transaction as a continuing negotiation" rather than a deal fixed in time. (pp.185-186).

"Various studies," Professor Salacuse writes, " have found that between 33 percent and 70 percent of international alliances surveyed eventually broke up" (p.194). Given this record, the author approaches international negotiations and agreements as encompassing three distinct, but closely related essential areas: making the deal, managing the deal and mending the deal. His approach is cross-cultural, practical and insightful.

The global negotiator will find a lengthy and thorough guide to preparing and negotiating international agreements. The author takes the reader through such matters as selecting the place for the negotiations to recognizing and managing the many cultural differences that will be encountered and need to be overcome in an international deal. We find advice on handling cultural barriers ranging from concepts of time and differences in styles to the structure of the deal itself.

Additionally, the author examines such critical matters as who's law will apply, dealing with foreign government officials at the table, and the complexities as moving money and sharing risk among the parties. It is a wide-ranging and complete exploration of the field.

Importantly, Professor Salacuse moves from negotiating the deal to examinations of managing and mending international agreements. Treated for clarity as separate sections, these topics are intended as elements to be explored and included in the negotiation of the basic agreement itself. How will the parties manage the relationship is a critical question. There is valuable advice on planning for this process in the second section of his work.

In the last section of his work, the author turns to the third vital area of global negotiations: deal mending and dispute resolution. If we know that disputes and changed circumstances are probable, then prudent negotiators need to include methods of handling these matters in their original agreement.

Professor Salacuse explores three types of renegotiations that are expectable in the life cycle of the deal: post deal, intra deal, extra deal (p.229). He then turns his attention to the need for the parties to plan and incorporate into the deal method for resolving disputes. Here, the author again provides a thorough discussion of the operation, benefits and disadvantages of the international dispute resolution options along a continuum ranging from negotiation through mediation to arbitration and finally to adjudication. It is a valuable review.

Readers will find a rich appendix section, including a top-notch global negotiator's checklist, a detailed primer on international business transactions and an extensive bibliography of suggested further reading.

Truly, as Roger Fisher concluded, "this is the best book" in its field.

My highest recommendation.

John D. Baker, Ph.D.
Editor, The Negotiator Magazine

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to negotiate with other cultures, September 24, 2010

By 

K. Lisson "15K Runner, Wine Teacher, eCornell... (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Hardcover)

I have just finished reading `The Global Negotiator' by Jeswald W. Salacuse. Salacuse is a member of the Steering Committee of the Harvard Program on Negotiation.

Salacuse identified Culture as special barrier #2 to global deal making. He identified the four elements of culture as Behavior, Attitudes, Norms and Values. Salacuse also identifies ten ways that culture affects deal making, and provides data on how different cultures value each of these factors.

He brings up an interesting point in this part of the book - cultures may be different, but professions often carry their own set of values which are similar among workers from different cultures around the world. The military, for instance, appreciates risk taking and does not make decisions by consensus. This military `culture' is the same, whether the soldiers are American or Japanese.

I would recommend this book for anyone involved in professional or personal interactions with a member of a different culture. Understanding the framework of how culture operates in personal and professional life has given me the tools to more easily identify and compensate for my own cultural beliefs.