Guy Olivier Faure

Negotiations to Set Up Joint Ventures in China

Establishing joint ventures in China is an interesting test of cross-cultural negotiation under conditions of uncertainty within a complex network of constraints. On one side is the huge Chinese company, heavily bureaucratic and focused on taking care of all dimensions of its employees lives. On the other side is the Western enterprise focused on quality performance and financial effectiveness. The negotiation process can be distinguished by several stages, each of them related to a specific issue such as the basic policy of the future joint venture, the technical issues, the financial aspects, and the legal aspects. Among the many issues, 16 are considered in this analysis as key issues of crucial importance in the building up of the agreement. A number of difficulties encountered by both parties during the negotiation are scrutinized, such as hidden differences in objectives, the obstacles due to non-overlapping perceptions, the lack of managerial culture, conflicting values behind behaviors, and the decision-making process in an administration-run economy.

Social-emotional aspects of negotiation

Abstract The negotiation problem representation in evolutionary systems design (Shakun, 1988) is interpreted to include social-emotional as well as task aspects. Controls are actions having task and social-emotional components taken to deliver preferred combinations of task and social-emotional goals. Thus, normative controls (actions) recommended by a group decision and negotiation support system (GDNSS) such as Mediator (Shakun, 1988) can include both task and social-emotional components. We use as controls the categories of social interaction developed by Bales (1950), as well as the interaction rate. We study empirically the relation between these controls and the agreements reached by negotiators in a buyer-seller negotiation. The role of social-emotional interaction in the negotiation process and thus in its support by GDNSS is analytically specified.

When Chinese Companies Negotiate with Their Government

Drawing on case study material, this paper analyzes a complex negotiation between a Chinese company and local government. It highlights the main char acteristics of such a negotiation and describes the rationale and outcomes of the process. Observations made in a Chinese context may provide insights for negotiators working in other cultural contexts when they address the question of resolving universal difficulties in government-organization negotiations. Lessons are drawn on matters such as the logic implemented in order to deal with power within an asymmetric setting or some workable approaches used in conflict handling, especially in case of deadlock. Finally by emphasizing three cultural dimensions — national—ethnic, organizational and profes sional — this study analyzes some key features of negotiated management in the Chinese context.

Chinese Society and its New Emerging Culture

China has gone through major changes during the last two decades. The following research aims to present and analyze the current evolutions taking place in the less visible stratum of the Chinese social structure, that of values. The study is based on in-depth interviews and brings to the fore a number of themes that have undergone radical changes. Among the 220 analytical categories initially considered, 12 main themes have been identified as being strongly subjected to changes. Focusing on significant themes, such as a growing process of ‘individuation’, a materialistic orientation, a resurgence of ancient creeds, changes within the family, a shift in womens status, a transformation of role models, a social change from equality to differentiation, and a shift in the vision of the world, this article presents key indicators of the major trends in contemporary urban China.

Negotiating with terrorists: The hostage case

This article provides an overview of hostage negotiations, drawing upon historical cases and analyzing them from the perspective of negotiation theory. Various situational factors are studied, including the parties involved, hostage taker motivations and profiles, negotiator objectives and what is considered to be negotiable, the issue of legitimacy, and the negotiation context. The article also analyzes the dynamics of the negotiation process, addressing the different phases, hostage attitudes, information gathering, and the role of the media and public opinion. The intercultural and psychological dimensions of hostage negotiation are also addressed. The final section of the article considers end-game scenarios, and assessing the negotiation outcome of such complex and uncertain processes.

Escalation of Images in International Conflicts

A negotiation process is a process of construction: a modification of representations that goes far beyond what can be drawn from rational actor models. If reality is considered unattainable, perceptions are the data with which negotiators have to work. Perceptions and their associated evaluations relate to values and judgments that influence behavior, and also strategic choices. As indicated in Confucius’ Analects, without common principles, there is no point in negotiating. Even when parties only agree to disagree, their disagreement concerns issues, offers, suggestions, problem framing, and methods that go through their own perceptions. Representations may take a dramatic turn, for example in the case of the escalation of negative images of the counterpart – leading, for instance, to demonization. Negotiators act not on the basis of facts, but on the basis of their perception of facts. Thus, subjectivity plays an essential role – and rather than being static, that role can evolve during the negotiation process. This can be a key element in the evolution of the problem’s perception, its framing, and possibly its transformation. Changes in the perception of the other party, in the perception of one’s own subjective utility function or that of the other party, or in the perception of the context, may greatly facilitate the reaching of a common solution. However, the same phenomenon may also work the other way round. Those changes may contribute to an increase in the level of conflict and the perceived incompatibility of goals. In that case, they become highly counterproductive (Faure 2009).

Negotiating with Terrorists: A Discrete Form of Diplomacy

Crisis negotiation has been burdened with an additional and most problematic task, that of dealing with terrorist issues. Negotiators must engage in a very peculiar type of diplomacy because, officially, states do not negotiate with terrorists. This track-II diplomacy involves an asymmetrical relationship between a state and an often nebulous and evasive group. Its management is most paradoxical, for the negotiation is a non-negotiation and the counterparts are the most unlikely of negotiators. This article analyses the very specific elements of such negotiation, in which the actors no longer play classical diplomatic roles but instead fulfil a much less urbane function that is embedded in the register of terror, even murder. It examines methods that are fundamentally alien to classical diplomacy because of the nature of the counterpart (who is not perceived as legitimate/equal), the issues at stake, the context, and the paradigms governing negotiating with terrorists, where psychological asymmetry and poor communication are basic attributes. Specific processes such as demonization and media management, as well as negotiation-effectiveness evaluation methods, are also studied. Two types of situations are finally investigated, those where discussions can take place immediately, such as hostage-taking via kidnapping or barricade hostage-taking, and those where the potential for negotiation must be created because the terrorists make no demands and consider their actions as strictly punitive.

Negotiating Hostages with Terrorists: Paradoxes and Dilemmas

There are few negotiations where it is so necessary to be fast and effective than in those that deal with hostages. This is an almost unfeasible task that has to be carried out with the most unlikely negotiator, the terrorist, in an extremely hostile context. Considering the issues at stake – the freedom of the hostages and, very often, their lives – a negotiator has to manage many challenges. There are seven dilemmas and paradoxes in reaching agreement. A negotiator has to solve a Shakespearian dilemma, manage contradictory objectives, deal with incompatible rationales, handle the toughness dilemma, come to grips with contradictions between empathy and assertiveness, handle cultural dilemmas, and cope with a moral dilemma.

Negotiating Risks across Cultures: Joint Ventures in China

If politics is the art of taking good decisions on insufficient evidence (Benedick, 1993), then international negotiations and the joint decisions they produce come under much the same heading. Many decisions in international negotiations involve risks, but negotiators are often unable to evaluate how significant the risks actually are because of a lack of data. In addition to the concrete aspects of risk, the perception of risk plays an important enough role for it to affect the way actors conduct negotiations.

Abraham and the Lord

The Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”