Negotiating International Business 

Presentations—Few areas present greater challenges and pitfalls than negotiating across cultures. Differing views of acceptable practices and misguided assumptions about a counterpart’s intentions may not only cause friction, they may result in unfavorable or lost deals. In this presentation, Lothar Katz, author of Negotiating International Business – The Negotiator’s Guide to 50 Countries Around The World, discusses the cultural and economic factors that influence attitudes, styles, and bargaining practices and provides clear negotiation do’s and don’ts.  Katz covers how to adjust your negotiation style and timing to an international environment; how to deal with unusual negotiation techniques; how to build relationships with your foreign counterparts and speed up the negotiation process; how to avoid conflict around ethical and cultural disagreements and, how to confirm agreement and close dependable contracts.
(42 slides)

Managing International Projects 

Impressive cost savings, access to new ideas and expertise, and exposure to new markets provide powerful incentives for companies to forge new partnerships with overseas employees and distant companies.  However, projects operating in this new environment often face unfamiliar and unanticipated challenges.  This audio session, led by Sue Freedman, Ph.D. and Lothar Katz,  presents an approach for anticipating and addressing the special challenges of project management in international settings. The presenters discuss adapting project planning and initiation to the special challenges of international work; building and managing communication systems that work across different cultures, language and time zones; avoiding the confusion and delays caused by cultural differences in work practices and relationship rules; creating local ownership for foreign teams and maintaining critical project alignment around tasks, deadlines, and work standards; and designing and managing projects to meet the challenges of remote management.
(39 slides)

Leading in China: Building an Executive Team to Drive Success in the World’s Fastest Growing New Economy 

Presentations—A Presentation by David Everhart, Managing Director,
Asia Leadership Development Solutions
According to Everhart, a leading U.S.-East Asian-relations expert, one of the biggest obstacles Western companies face in China is a lack of the proper organizational structure and leadership skills. He identifies four specific issues that multinational firms face in China: 1. High turnover rates that impede the development of a strong corporate culture. 2. Expatriate executives who don't know how to lead a Chinese workforce. 3. Locally-hired Chinese leaders who lack the international experience and language skills to interact effectively with global headquarters in the U.S. or elsewhere. 4. A Chinese management team that doesn't understand how to work within a 'matrixed' global organization. To meet these challenges, Everhart discusses the leadership styles that are most effective in China’s fast-growing environment. He presents recent data related to Chinese leadership styles and discusses the practical applications for talent management. The presentation also covers the selection of expatriate managers, recruiting expatriates to lead in China, and the challenge of retaining Chinese talent.
(23 slides)

General Electric Healthcare Global Technology Center: A Phased Approach to Developing and Mentoring R&D Leadership in China 

Feature Articles—For the past seven years, Xiangli Chen, Ph.D., has had the opportunity to observe Research and Development teams in China at close hand. In 2000, he became the first Managing Director of the Global Research Center established by General Electric Company in Shanghai. Since 2003, Dr. Chen has served as General Manager for GE’s Healthcare Global Technology organization, based in Beijing. The new product- and service-development engineering teams he leads for this organization focus on research and development for technologies used in GE Healthcare’s medical imaging products and healthcare information systems sold in markets worldwide. In this article, based on interview with Dr. Chen, he discusses a staged approach for mentoring Chinese R&D teams. He also discusses some tactics for motivating Chinese teams in ways that differ from their Western counterparts. Finally, Dr. Chen presents lessons learned from the forefront of an R&D Center in China and gives his prediction for where R&D in China is headed over a five-year horizon.
(6 pages)

Why China? The Opportunity and The Threat 

Event Summaries—This summary of a March 2007 presentation by Roger N. Nagel of Lehigh University examines some of the fundamental cultural assumptions Western businesspeople are likely to encounter when interacting with their Chinese counterparts. Nagel contrasts these assumptions with Western cultural preferences, discusses their management implications, and provides tips on how to bridge the cultural divide. Nagel then discusses the ways in which China is a source of R&D and innovation and explains why China is an attractive region for R&D investment, citing several examples of Western companies’ activities there. Finally, Nagel presents some sources of current information regarding China. He lists the major industries in China and where they are centered in the various regions of the country. This summary is a useful compilation of existing research on R&D in China and serves as an overview of the subject.
(16 pages)

Taking the Next Step: R&D Centers in China and the Shift Toward the Internal Market – An Interview with Jihong Sanderson 

Interviews—Jihong Sanderson is Executive Director of the Center for Research on Chinese-American Strategic Cooperation, affiliated with the University of California at Berkeley and a lecturer in UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business as well as in its School of Information. Her expertise is based on more than 18 years of experience with organizations and businesses in China and the United States and on her subsequent academic research. In this exclusive interview she discusses the background behind the growth of R&D centers and co-development in China. Sanderson emphasizes that one of the challenges facing Western firms in China is that this vast country is as diverse culturally as the EU. She also provides tips on such topics as partner selection, communication with Chinese partners, protecting Intellectual Property, and the role of the Chinese government. Sanderson has concluded that an important shift is occuring in terms of product development activities in China. Whereas most partnerships with Western companies have been aimed at Western markets, Sanderson foressees a future where a great deal more R&D and product development in China favors internal markets.
(6 pages)

Negotiating and Initiating a Partnership for Co-Innovation in China  

A presentation by Lothar Katz, Leadership Crossroads
In this slide presentation, Lothar Katz provides an overview of the background information necessary for negotiating co-innovation partnerships in China. Katz divides the phases of the negotiation into preparation, relationship building, information gathering, bargaining and decision-making, and agreement and closure. He covers the cultural cues and expectations that enable successful negotiations and discusses the bargaining tactics Western firms must expect from their Chinese partners. The presenter discusses, especially, the differing communication styles of Western and Chinese negotiators. Katz also provides helpful references to other resources.
(67 pages)

Open Innovation in China - Is it Possible? Audio Session Summary  

Related Links: Audio | Transcript (22 pages) | Slides

A discussion with Roger Nagel (Lehigh University) and  John Tao & Bobby Chen (Air Products and Chemicals).  In this session, the participants discuss the important cultural cues required for successful partnering with Chinese co-developers. They also cover the use of intermediaries to establish partnerships, protecting Intellectual Property in China, and the qualities that Chinese partners are seeking in their Western counterparts. The panelists stress the need to perform due diligence in partnering with Chinese firms and the advisability of partnering with firms that have a clear track record of partnering with Western businesses. They also stress the need for a local presence to manage the relationships. Finally, the panel emphasizes taking great care and patience in building relationships of trust with your Chinese partners.
(10 pages)

Selection Criteria for Global Projects: Audio Session Summary  

Event Summaries, Presentations, Transcripts—Related Links: Audio | Slides (39 slides) | Transcript (19 pages)
In this audio session, Lothar Katz, President of Leadership Crossroads, examines the key criteria for decision-making when outsourcing development projects offshore. For Katz, the level of project complexity must be mapped to the characteristics of the target culture. Some cultures, for example, have a greater aversion to uncertainty, making it difficult to perform high-risk projects in such an environment. Katz also advises that the benefits gained from global projects are far beyond cost advantages. Over time, global projects can create speed-to-market advantages as well. Katz also strongly advises companies to develop – and retain – managers with global skills and experience. Even very experienced managers can under-perform in a global context if their management experience does not include cross-border experience. Katz’s presentation lists the key factors to consider when making global project decisions and provides a country-by-country breakdown of how some of the more popular offshore outsourcing destinations perform with respect to these factors.
(10 pages)

Palm, Inc. Global Partnerships Give a Small Player a Large Footprint

Case Studies—The emergence of a global market provides fresh opportunities for smaller enterprises to demonstrate that agility can compensate for size. Today’s worldwide market also demonstrates that a smaller company has plenty of room to make use of the abundance of offshore resources that, leveraged carefully along with its own, can help it to compete with larger firms. Palm, Inc., has been doing precisely that by effectively partnering with non-US based ODM (original design manufacturing) firms to design, develop and launch new products. These offshore firms, especially those in Asia, enlarge its resource base, enabling Palm to have the kind of market presence enjoyed by larger companies in its product space.
(6 pages)