Jeswald W. Salacuse has found that ten particular elements consistently arise to complicate intercultural negotiations. These "top ten" elements of negotiating behavior constitute a basic framework for identifying cultural differences that may arise during the negotiation process. Applying this framework in your international business negotiations may enable you to understand your counterpart better and to anticipate possible misunderstandings. This article discusses this framework and how to apply it.

Just like hitting a baseball, timing is everything when talking to your customer. If you don't provide the right message using the right delivery vehicle at the right time, chances are your customer is going to ignore your hard-crafted pitch. In an article in the November issue of Harvard Business Review, authors Kirthi Kalyanam and Monte Zweben envision a computer-based model called "dialogue marketing" that interactively tracks and communicates with customers at the exact moments the customer deals with the company, be it during an address change or the purchase of a baby seat.

This excerpt discusses how a company might launch dialogues during customer "transitions," such as when they trigger a loyalty program or are poised to defect to a competitor.

One reason that visionary leadership is in short supply today is the value our society places on one particular kind of capital--material capital. Too often the worth or value of an enterprise is judged by how much money it earns at the end of the day, or how much worldly power it gives us over others. This obsession with material gain has led to short-term thinking and the narrow pursuit of self-interest. It is true that any kind of enterprise we want to engage in requires some kind of financial wealth if it is to succeed in the short term. But for leadership to inspire long-term, sustainable enterprises, it needs to pursue two other forms of capital as well: social and spiritual. These three types of capital resemble the layers in a wedding cake. Material capital is the top layer, social capital lies in the middle, and spiritual capital rests on the bottom, supporting all three.

People remember best what you say last. So in one sense, the end of your presentation is the beginning for the audience. One of the ways a speaker can ensure beginnings for an audience is by having a strong ending; this article will provide a few simple tips to achieve this concluding spark.

A recent Accenture global survey of more than 500 companies, combined with 32 in-depth interviews with experienced outsourcing executives, demonstrates a new maturity in the way businesses and governments are working the outsourcing lifecycle, and reveals hard-won expertise in getting the most from outsourcing partnerships. These executives embrace outsourcing as a mainstream management tool for improving performance and increasing productivity. Far from a one-shot quick fix, outsourcing plays a pivotal role for these organizations in optimizing processes, expanding capabilities and building the competitive strength of the enterprise. This research has enabled us to identify 15 distinct best practices in four key phases of the outsourcing lifecycle.

Are you smarter than your employees? Since leaders are generally expected to have greater knowledge than their staff, let's assume that you are. Extrapolating from that, does being smarter than your employees individually mean you are also smarter than them collectively? If your answer is "yes," you are either an unbridled egomaniac or you simply do not understand the power of collective intelligence.

During the tech boom of the 1990s, leading edge companies began buying up smaller firms -- and their promising, if untested, technologies -- to stay one step ahead of the competition. Then the tech bubble burst and M&A activity came to a screeching halt. It became evident that while some purchases helped acquirers reap benefits, many failed to create the intended value. Wharton management professor Saikat Chaudhuri believes he knows why. His research is especially timely given the recent growth in M&A activity in the tech sector and other innovation-driven industries.

While many IT organizations claim to focus on the customer, few actually do. To provide guidance, A.T. Kearney developed an innovative framework called the "IT Front Office Model" that applies world-class sales, marketing and product development processes to the IT organization. In this model, the IT organization delivers valued services and products to its customers at a lower cost by building better relationships and focusing its efforts on a core portfolio of offerings.

Most companies assume they're consistently giving customers what they want. Usually, they're kidding themselves. When we recently surveyed 362 firms, we found that 80% believed they delivered a "superior experience" to their customers. But when we then asked customers about their own perceptions, we heard a very different story.

For open-book management to succeed, companies need to harness the ideas and abilities of all employees. Here's how three complementary disciplines, the "I-Power Program," the "Breakthrough Process" and the "Collaborative Way," can create a culture that maximizes employee contribution.

Here are five ways organizations can radically rethink their strategy.

Editor's Note: I found the first half of this article of little value, but the five ways to radically rethink their missions in the second half is good stuff.

Find out what employers want in business-school grads and how some interviewers evaluate candidates.

Different local market environments create quite different opportunities for pricing. You must understand these environments to set prices optimally.

Psychologists know false stories thrive in situations of heightened anxiety. Chip Heath, a Stanford-trained psychologist, is doing research to try and explain why, in more normal times, people tell each other rumors and urban legends on a day-to-day basis.

12 techniques used to value intangible assets.

Acquiring new customers is the "show biz" side of direct marketing: The budgets are much larger, and you get to be more creative and perhaps use a broader variety of media. There's this problem, though: It costs five times as much to find a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

That's why smart organizations are focusing more of their resources on keeping and growing current customers. The key is to exceed customers' expectations. Here are 10 ways to accomplish that.

One of the messages of reengineering is that companies, once structured as hierarchical pyramids, now need to be "turned on their sides" and restructured as horizontal organizations. The logic for this restructuring flows from the logic for reengineering: if processes, not functions, are the correct way to organize work, then horizontally must be the correct way to organize a company. It seems obvious. And it is wrong.

The world's biggest factory is also a fake goods hotbed. Here are 13 ways to protect your company. The second in a CSO series on counterfeiting.

RBC Royal Bank has opened a window on the unmet needs of its customers-and grown its market share-using segmentation.

This article provides a closer look at how effective measurement systems are built, used, and altered to meet the challenges of a dynamic business environment. The key to marketplace success is finding the measurement framework that provides a balanced picture by designing measures that are important to the strategic objectives and actionable; linking those to important organizational systems; aligning measures top to bottom; monitoring measures; and using internal and external benchmarking to improve the numbers and achieve goals. Based on over 27 years of experience, APQC has studied measurement and its impact on the corporate world. This research covers four challenges in measurement; how to develop meaningful measures; and five steps to design and measure success.

Toxic leadership is a growing - and costly -- phenomenon. Yet individuals and organizations can stop the insidious spread of toxicity, by understanding why we are seduced by the false promises of toxic leaders, and by setting up organizational defence mechanisms to counter the creep of toxicity.

Knowing what makes the company valuable is important, but it's not enough. Getting from knowing to doing requires real change. Given that the creation of value resides at the core of every company, it's amazing that we remain hung up in theorizing about how to do it, rather than rolling up our sleeves and making it happen. This article highlights eight behaviors that have helped companies bridge the "knowing-doing" gap and cultivate the value habit. [BNET Annotation]

An operational leader is someone who sees how the individual elements of an organization fit together and work to create the larger outcome. When they think about issues, the operational leader's focus is on the systems and processes that are needed or will be affected.

These leaders serve a key role in ensuring that things get done in an effective and efficient manner.

High performers excel at consistently making the critical decisions that give them the right strategic direction and a winning market focus and position.

How to reward the best without alienating the rest.