In lightly regulated economies many jobs are becoming subject to a process of ‘marketization’ involving an externalization of the employment relationship in the context of intensified product market competition. At the same time, a number of front-line jobs are becoming redefined to encompass more proactive sales aims. This study examines two sites at an intersection of these trends — sites where financial service jobs have been marketized and redefined to revolve around proactive sales activity. It examines the key social relations of the sales workers — relations with managers, immediate colleagues, back-office staff, customers and referrers — in considering how far marketization leads to the social relations of the cash nexus along bare market principles. It is found that one group of workers is enmeshed in a dehumanized, instrumental and antagonistic set of relations, while another, smaller, group of workers is insulated against such relations by the functioning of tight trust-based referral networks. It is concluded that the texture of the social relations of sales work under marketization is centrally influenced by the social constitution of the specific product market in which sales workers act. In addition, it is argued that the process of marketization tends to corrode the factors that support the functioning of tight trust-based networks.

Does high long-term orientation (LTO) as a distinctive feature of Chinese and Asian national culture still influence modern business decisions? It is difficult to answer this question when any such cultural impact must be qualified by the influence of local Chinese institutions. We study, therefore, different nationalities of international joint ventures (IJVs) within the same institutional setting of China. With foreign partners distanced from their national institutions, this isolates any cultural influence on strategies.We report that strategic commitment does indeed seem to be higher in IJVs with overseas Chinese and other Asian partners, but this conclusion is not general, and is limited to the subset of human resource strategies.

We live in curious times. People’s sense of individual autonomy co-exists with structures of power. How do these two phenomena co-exist? An important answer to this lies in the menu. The menu operates as a key form of mediation between people’s sense of individual autonomy and larger structures of power, allowing both to co-exist. This article illustrates the operation of the menu in society within consumption, within production, and within citizenship. The article also considers how far the metaphor of the menu in society is compatible with important contemporary attempts to characterize the macro-nature of society. The conclusion articulates how the metaphor of the menu in society can help open up the nature of society to critical investigation.

This article uses an intercultural bargaining framework to analyze cooperation and conflict between buyers and sellers in intercultural negotiations. On the basis of game theoretical reasoning, culturally embedded bargaining patterns are transformed into culturally determined strategies in intercultural negotiations. The cultural differences of the players can be seen in the initial offer, the strategic approach, the valuation of time, the frequency of rejection and the objectives of the negotiation. In order to provide prescriptions for cross-cultural bargaining, the clash of cultures is dealt with in nine scenarios to show potential conflicts and cooperation between the players.

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