The editors Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Khairuddin Abdul Rashid, George Ofori and Stephen Ogunlana have brought together 32 authors to produce this text. The book deals with joint ventures in construction reflecting the impact of globalisation and interconnectedness. The book itself is a symbol of the subject it deals with being a joint venture from so many authors and reflecting globalisation with authors from Australia, Bahrain, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, USA, and Vietnam with the largest number of authors coming from Japan. The authors are drawn from both industry and academia.

Taken all together the number of distinguished authors, the spread of countries contributing, the knowledge of different cultures and the experiences and the wisdom from both industry and academia sets this book out as one making an important statement on the subject of joint ventures and as an important source of information for practitioners and students seeking to understand joint ventures in today's globalised market place. The effort of bringing together so many authors from so many disparate backgrounds can only be admired and the editors deserve congratulations for their efforts.

This book deals not only with the impact of globalisation on joint ventures it recognises the influences of many different cultures. It also skilfully recognises that the countries that come together in multi-national joint ventures are invariably at different stages of economic development. This is particularly true as the book largely concentrates on the Asia Pacific region. Part of the differences in economic development stems from the pace of privatisation taking place in the newly industrialised economies as the previously public sector bodies are progressively replaced.

Why are joint ventures important to these economies? The reason is simply that in developing economies projects tend to be of a large (even grand) scale bringing with them a demand for specialist skills not available locally.

Over the decades the response to these demands has seen different models. An early one being importing completely the skills and resources of the international contractor. This proved to be unsatisfactory as the host country did not develop its own skills as part of the process. As a result the preferred model of joint ventures between the international contractors and local firms has evolved as the most viable form of delivering major projects in developing economies whilst simultaneously developing the skills and expertise of the host country.

Describing the issues arising from such joint ventures is the basis of this book. The authors are keen to see such joint ventures become more effective and they believe they can achieve this by 'education' and 'information' through the medium of this book. The book primarily draws on data from case studies.

Part 1 comprising four chapters deals with Cultures and Ethics in Government, Firms, Civil Society, the Workplace and ethics in Multi-National Projects

Part 2 with five chapters addresses Co-operation and Relationships drawing on examples from Hong Kong, India, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia and ranges over a number of relationships including Partnering and Alliancing. Issues such as Relationship Marketing and a review of the influential factors in international construction are also included.

Part 3 in six chapters addresses Legal, Contractual and Government issues such as Shari'ah Law, Civil Liability, Third Party Reviews, Trust Formation, PPP also linked to uncertainty, lessons from PFI and Appraisal of Joint Ventures. These experiences are based on projects from the Middle East, Thailand, Japan and Malaysia.

Part 4 in the final five chapters address Investments, Productivity, and Sub-Contracting and also includes 'goal setting', migrant workers, investment and evaluation.

As you can see from this brief description this book contains a wide range of topics and is an excellent reference for practitioners involved in the setting up joint ventures, for Government and aid agency policy makers framing policies to encourage successful joint ventures and for students of the management of large construction projects, particularly post-graduates

It is not a manual on how to set up a Joint Venture but it is very nearly a comprehensive check list of the cultural issues needed to be addressed by all the parties involved in large multi-national joint ventures eg Governments, Aid Agencies, Consultants, Contractors and Suppliers. Indeed the thought occurred to me when studying this book that the authors could easily produce such a check list and it might be an effective means of assuring that all the parties address the issues covered by this book.

Professor Ronald McCaffer