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Title: Rational Games : A Philosophy of Business Negotiation from Practical Reason by Mark A. Young ISBN: 1-56720-413-9 Publisher: Quorum Books Pub. Date: 30 August, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $95.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: A new introduction to the classical theory
Comment: Since there are a lot of books talking about negotiation skills, but ¡§Rational Game¡¨ introduce the negotiation of business world with the exploration of classical theory that I think is quite unique. The author points out a new theory ¡§considered economic rationality¡¨, CER, which is developed from the classical theory. The book let me know that theory is essential in business negotiation and the challenge given to the classical theory like Nash equilibrium and Pareto-Efficiency.

At the first few chapters, there are a lot of philosophies, which the author wants readers to have a basic knowledge about the classical theory that is essential in business negotiation. However, readers (like me) not familiar with the classical theories may not easy to catch up with the idea discussed in the later chapter. Moreover, the use of German case studies for the illustration of the negotiation issue is quite difficult to follow because of the unfamiliarity with the situation of the German privatization. And, it is suggested that the book should use a more ¡§global¡¨ example of business negotiation to illustrate the ideas the author wants to deliver.

Although the content may not be easily understood, the central idea of the book are delivered through the chapter of introducing the CER and how to use it properly. I think that the CER can be well illustrated without going through the philosophy in the early chapters.

One main insight I got from the book is how negotiation may change depending on the interaction with others. And, different people may have different rationality, so that negotiation may be difficult to be measured or predicted accurately by the theory.

Actually Mark Young showed the limitations of the classical theories, like Game Theory, in the real situation of negotiation. I am looking forward for Mark Young to investigate and discuss more about other theories relating to negotiation topic.

Rating: 5
Summary: For the Serious Negotiation Researcher/Practitioner
Comment: Because negotiation is a very important topic, ranging from everyday life interactions, to complex business and political deal-making, there is an enormous amount of books on the topic. But this book offers an extremely unique analysis that I have not experienced in any other book.

Books on negotiation are broadly split into two major categories: the "normative" approach to negotiation, which draws on mathematical game-theory, and the "pragmatic" approach, which builds on studies in psychology, management studies and real-life experience. On one hand, normative models based on game-theory are elegant and rigorous, but fail to capture and solve a vast amount of real-world negotiations, due to the oversimplification of the complex mental processes that drive negotiators. On the other hand, pragmatic approaches seem to be ad-hoc, lacking rigour in the analysis of issues, and largely consumer-oriented (Of course, there are exceptions, based on solid empirical studies, such as those coming out of the Harvard Program Negotiation).

What this book offers, however, is the best attempt I have seen to achieve both rigorous normative validity as well as pragmatic prescriptive advice. Mark Young digs as deep as the most fundamental philosophical traditions that underlie the current common conception of rationality (that of utility maximisation), and builds, buttom-up, a new theory of "considered" economic rationality, which forms the basis of his theory of business negotiation. Hence, the book represents a very interesting and unique grounding of negotiation in philosophy, reaching a normatively valid account of negotiation, both descriptive and prescriptive, without falling into the trap of oversimplification that the elegance of mathematical game-theory leads people to.

I recommend this book to any serious negotiator or researcher on negotiation, both normative and pragmatic. I recommend the book particularly to game-theorists, since it would give them very interesting insights about the limitations of game-theory that might eventually lead to a paradigm shift in the study of strategic interaction.