You are about to enter into a negotiation with a company in Mexico involving your company buying cameras from them. You have been brushing up on Spanish and reading books about the culture in Mexico City, where the negotiation will take place. A day before you are going to leave the United States you receive a call from your counterpart in Mexico asking if they can set up a telephone conference rather than have everyone come down from San Diego, which is where you live and work. You have just finished a very long negotiation in San Francisco and you are exhausted. You have not had a chance to visit with your wife and two children (ages 5 and 7) for weeks. What is your first response to the suggestion that you use the phone conferencing? Does it make any difference after an in depth refection?

Let's role-play. Professor can pair the students and have them take the roles of the San Diego and Mexico negotiators. Have one-half of the teams "schmooz" with each other by having a strictly social five-minute, get acquainted conversation before negotiation. For the other half of the groups instruct them to keep the interaction "entirely businesslike" and formal. Compare and discuss the results.