One of the books I read in preparing for a new leadership course on negotiation I taught this year was Robert Azar’s Negotiating in Asia: A Practical Guide to Succeeding in International Negotiations. I ended up assigning it as one of the textbooks for the course because it provided a good general overview of Asian negotiation.
In some ways, this might be a niche book so unless you’re into the topic, an international business person, or love exploring how culture impacts relationships and efforts to get things done, you may not find your way to this book.
Azar is an American who spent most of his life working in Asia. His focus is primarily on China, Japan, and Korea as those cultures and contexts in which he is most familiar and knows the best. Therefore, the book is of high value for those cultures and those that resonate. I had several students from other countries like India, Vietnam, and the Philippines that found a lot of parallels to their own countries – China especially. So I enjoyed seeing how some themes seemed to carry across many areas of Asia, though it is very fascinating to continually learn about the diversity within Asia.
The book covers the basics of negotiation practice from opening statements to positions and interests, but the strongest component of the book is how Azar unpacks the ways that relationships drive negotiation in Asia in ways that they do not in the West. That carries a lot of value for Asians and Westerners alike. Personally – I wish more Americans would read some of this because it draws out some cross-cultural themes that many don’t seem to pick up through basic intercultural exposures or texts – for any international effectiveness as well as domestic relationships across cultures as well. A lot of the content in this book would help White Americans and Asian Americans navigate some of the cultural differences in working together as well.
This may be too niche for most, but there’s a lot of value for getting into the details of how people build trust, navigate relationships and interests, and form partnerships. I think the cross-cultural competency arena sometimes misses some of the nuances of establishing long term relationships that cross-cultural negotiation can help surface – though even that arena sometimes neglects some of the ethical areas that could merit more attention.
