In the field of intercultural communication this book represents an important change in how companies should train their employees to do international business. Blackwell themselves term it a "new approach to international communication" (Blackwell, 2004) for the academic world, individuals and companies. This claim is not without justification since the authors make great efforts to propose to the reader a practical framework in intercultural training. This proposal entails the exchange of what they call CDFs (Communication Display Portfolios) between companies. The Appendices outlines how these portfolios can be practically implemented, and so, in this sense, the book can feasibly be seen as a text for academics and company training personnel.

The rationale for this new approach to intercultural training is based on the concept that companies training their employees should reject standardized norms of business practice as models, particularly those which are North American. In essence, no global or "ethnocentric" standards (ix.) should exist which force businesses to adopt alien norms. This is highly resonant with work in the training field conducted by Clyne (1994), and Wierzbicka (1991) in the field of pragmatics who advocates that "monolingual universals" be rejected for use in evaluating communication by non-English speakers. Instead, Pan et al. focus on the specific company norms of doing business rather than on cultural or regional stereotypes, meaning that companies preparing to do international business need to learn from each other directly in a spirit of self-reflection and exchange of "best practices", rather than training their staff in the broad, and consequently often inaccurate cultural rules of doing business with other nationalities. Yuling Pan is perhaps highly instrumental is putting forward this change in inter-corporate, as opposed to inter-cultural, training since she has conducted much research into highlighting the differences in interaction between people from different regions of China.

The research undertaken looks specifically at business practices from data gathered in China (Beijing and Hong Kong) and Finland in four areas of communication: telephone calls, resumés, presentations and meetings. Insights are gained into how new technologies of communication affect professional communication, with sometimes contradictory results; for example, in Chapter 4, it is suggested that PowerPoint presentations tend to focus the audience on the technology of presenting, rather than the message actually being delivered from the speaker. A further example can be seen in Chapter 2 on telephoning, where it is noted that "…the C - B - S style of clarity, brevity, and sincerity advocated by textbooks in business communication at least in part grew out of early telephone technology and may no longer be necessary or appropriate with contemporary technology" (p. 51). The information relayed by calls is often enhanced by ID systems, e-mailing and faxing to supply extra information. This, along with the fact that the costs of telephoning have been drastically reduced, means that the concept of brevity is perhaps no longer the priority it used to be. This shows how recent technology has changed the way in which telephoning now takes place, and so the authors question the approaches taken towards teaching telephoning in textbooks on business communication programmes which still frequently advocate brevity in conveying information. This is a harsh, yet valid criticism and shows how quickly technology has started to outdate many business English textbooks with chapters on telephone communication which seem to adopt the Gricean (1975) anglo-centric norms of interaction.

In Chapter 2, which addresses the use of resumés, the researchers' findings from focus groups in Hong Kong and China alone show the hugely diverse expectations about the length and content of what should be written when applying for a job, especially regarding the inclusion of personal accomplishments. Interestingly, in Finland, as in China, there appears to be reticence in expressing personal details in a manner which sells the individual.

The various difficulties that originate when a global standard, national or regional cultural stereotypes are assumed are further outlined with regard to conducting meetings in Chapter 5. This chapter is of deep interest to those involved in negotiations, particularly with companies in China and Hong Kong. There is a myriad of ways in which misunderstanding can occur in attitudes towards setting the agenda, pre-and post -meeting talk, as well as who should actually be present and the style in which meetings themselves should be conducted. Videotapes of meetings were discussed in focus groups among the Finnish and Chinese participants revealing many insights into the expectations concerning appropriate discourse and the power relations at play. Of particular interest to those conducting business with Chinese companies is the importance of the various forms of power which exist (leadership, administrative and expertise) and the development of interpersonal guanxi (connections).

After detailing the findings from their research into the four areas of communication, the authors then put forward their main proposal in Chapter 6 of training via the mutual company-to-company exchange of CDFs. This process entails the exchange of information outlining the "best practice" of how companies do business in telephone communication, applying for jobs through resumés, doing presentations and conducting meetings. The authors stress the idea of the "reflective view" in which companies prepare a portfolio of two videos (showing how a company employees typically communicates in internal company settings and externally with clients), various written documents (e-mails, letters, faxes, memos and brochures) and a language audit (the language(s) and their style and register commonly used by the company in various functions).

The subsequent Appendices go to great lengths to detail the practicalities of implementing this proposal for Communication Display Portfolios (CDFs) and its practicalities. They present models for practical use of CDFs and can possibly be used as stand-alone components for training courses (Gump, 2004, p. 253).

In brief, this is a valuable contribution to the field of intercultural training for professionals and academics engaged in, or simply interested in, how inter-corporate business can be improved in international contexts. The idea of avoiding anglo-centric norms of how to conduct business is a priority and is supported implicitly by the underlying belief that even regional differences within a country can be misleading. The proposal of Communication Display Portfolios is an important step forward in business training but is open to some criticism by even the authors of being time-consuming and costly to set up and implement. This reflection on their proposal is praise-worthy yet must be balanced with the long-term practical benefits that CDFs can bring about. The concept of moving away from cultural stereotypes into reflective study of how particular businesses see themselves and others in examining the exchanged portfolios is clearly of benefit to companies operating in areas other than China, Hong Kong and Finland.

Clyne, M. (1994). Intercultural communication at work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. and Morgan, J. (Eds.) Speech Acts. Syntax and Semantics Vol. 3. (pp 41-58 ) New York: Academic Press.
Gump, S. E. (2004). Review of Professional Communication in International Settings. Business Communication Quarterly, Vol. 67/2, pp. 250 - 254.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter