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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.

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:

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.

Recent studies in Japanese and American negotiating styles are reviewed, and it is found that bargaining behaviours are affected by culture from the beginning of the negotiation process. These differences can be viewed as a set of styles, habits, skills and expectations that might be understood through ethnographic analysis. Once the bases for the differences in negotiation styles are understood, negotiating across cultures may be a more efficient process.

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.

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”.

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.

Treating negotiations as a technique which can be learned and adapted to international business, this article takes a problem solving approach and endeavors to provide some guidelines for successful negotiating. It addresses the different stages of the negotiation process and provides a strategic planning model for negotiations.

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.