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Despite the recessionary nature of the world economy the Asian Pacific circle has managed to maintain itself as one of the most rapidly growing areas. During 1978, for example, the annual rate of growth in real GDP for Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan was 10 per cent, 11.8 per cent and 12.6 per cent respectively. Even at the lower end of the table Japan and the Philippines still managed a respectable 6 per cent.

For the West, the opening up of China has raised the prospect of a vast market for a range of goods and services and their associated technologies. For the interested observer, it has provided an opportunity to obtain answers to issues which, since 1949, have been a source of constant speculation. China, coping with one in four of the world's population and organised according to a unique political experience, can hardly fail to stimulate interest and curiosity. The open‐door policy, whilst undoubtedly providing answers to many questions, has also raised many more which show the degree of difference between East and West, indicating the efforts in understanding that will have to be made by anyone wishing to establish relations with the Chinese. A recent publication on Trade with China began with the following sobering comment:

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

This article is an attempt to describe a negotiation skills model originally derived for business negotiations and applied to collective bargaining situations. It is based on a view of collective bargaining which emphasises behavioural predispositions and interpersonal skills and the environmental and situational influences on participants. The emphasis is placed on the skills needed within successive phases and those needed to move the negotiations through these stages.

An international marketing strategy can only be as good as its implementation. Because implementation becomes more and more difficult through changes in international relations, economic ideologies, pressures of competition and growing professional competence, the negotiations by which implementation largely takes place assume an increasing significance in the outcomes.

EVERY time we have occasion to compare the work of different libraries or to obtain exact information about certain of their activities we wish once more that some standardised form and method could be generally adopted for statistics. We would like to see the Library Association take up this matter, which is at least as necessary as the Standardisation of Accounts. The L.A. Outline for Annual Statements is very useful, but it does not go far enough. Not only should it be decided what information should be presented; it should be laid down exactly what should be included under the different headings. The most necessary definition is what shall be embraced and excluded under the heading “fiction.” Some librarians, rightly or wrongly (personally we think wrongly, because it leads to confusion and ambiguity) classify (as literature, or according to subject matter) and count as “non fiction” a varying proportion of the novels issued. Consequently, they are able to boast of a large non‐fiction percentage. Probably the practice has the reverse effect to that intended, since once it is realised that any novels are included in the non‐fiction percentage doubt arises as to the amount of “real” non‐fiction issued. The librarian who openly asserted that his non‐fiction percentage was so and so, but that it did not include a single work of prose fiction, would surely be in a stronger position. A more serious objection, however, is that comparison is impossible, and misleading. The librarian who keeps strictly to the old practice of calling a spade a spade is placed in a very unpleasant position if he is asked why another town, where he knows the non‐fiction issues to be on a par with his own, records a much higher non‐fiction percentage. Few reports, again, show what part of the juvenile issues are of non‐fiction. In fact, in every part of our statistical work we all follow our own methods and so make comparative studies impossible.

This chapter concentrates on sales negotiation and reveals that negotiating agreements on goods and services among the Igbo traders involves demystifying many complexities – such as nature of persuasion, trust and communication patterns between traders, among other concerns. To aid our understanding, the authors surveyed three Igbo-dominated markets including Computer Village, Ikeja – dealing in the sales of phone accessories; Tejuosho Market – dealing in the sales of clothing materials; and Ojuelegba Market – dealing in the sales of vehicle spare parts. The authors concluded that the negotiation pattern and approach adopted by the Igbo trader often depends on several variables, including the product, the market, the buyer, the individual trader and other invisible circumstances surrounding the bargaining process. When negotiation breakdown arises, the Igbo traders have a well thought-out strategy that can be adopted to address the situation and persuade future bargains.

The buyer‐seller relationship in international consumer markets is investigated from the behavioural point of view. Seventeen matched‐pair relationships between Cypriot exporters and their corresponding British import customers comprised the research sample. The majority of these relationships were described as successful, with success being measured by the degree of satisfaction received from them. They exhibited the following common characteristics: exercise of an asymmetrical power which had an expertise base, prevalence of a low level of conflict of a functional and overt nature and existence of a high level of voluntary co‐operation. Overall, it was revealed that relationship management is a crucial component of a firm′s export behaviour and a determinant of its future export development.

A number of recent research papers have suggested that the contingencies surrounding marketing decision making in organisations are such that marketing management may usefully be analysed as a political process. In this, the key to evaluating the power and politics of marketing is marketing information — as a source of formal organisational power and as a resource which can be manipulated politically to gain desired outcomes. This article examines briefly the basis for this style of analysis, but focuses mainly on the implications for the management of marketing in organisations, where a political analysis suggests that the management of marketing should concentrate not on techniques — of marketing research, or of rational, scientific decision making — but on structure and process, i.e. on power and political systems, to influence and control outcomes. To the familiar risks of “marketing myopia” may be added the danger of “political myopia”.

Describes an investigation into the individual, organization, and demographic‐related ante‐cedents to industrial negotiation encounters in two culturally diverse countries. Focuses in particular on antecedent factors that influence sellers’ co‐operative orientation. Two con‐current surveys were conducted among Philippine and American industrial exporters. Our results suggest that the antecedents leading to co‐operative negotiation behaviours differ between Filipino and American sales representatives.