Actual Negotiation Research Articles

Ethically questionable negotiation tactics in the Austrian workplace

Purpose This study aims to generalize the research findings about the impact of individualism-collectivism, ethical idealism and inter-personal trust on ethically questionable negotiation tactics, such as pretending, deceiving and lying, in a Germanic culture, namely, that of Austria. Design/methodology/approach Survey questionnaires translated from English to German were collected from 304 respondents. A regression analysis was used to test the contribution of the independent variables to the explanation of negotiators’ attitudes towards questionable negotiation tactics. Findings The research empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely, pretending, deceiving and lying, in Austria. Austrian negotiators who scored high on vertical individualism tended to score high on the endorsement of the pretending tactic; those who scored high on horizontal collectivism tended to score low on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on vertical collectivism tended to score high on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics; and those who scored high on inter-personal trust tended to score low on the endorsement of the pretending negotiation tactic. Idealistic negotiators tended not to endorse the use of pretending, deceiving and lying negotiation tactics. Research limitations/implications The study investigated the respondents’ perceptions, rather than their actual negotiation behavior. Findings are limited to Germanic culture. Practical implications The study provides negotiators in Austria with a tool that has the potential to predict the extent to which Austrian negotiators would use various ethically questionable negotiation tactics. Originality/value This is the first study to present a model of the antecedents of negotiation tactics in a Germanic cultural context, where negotiation studies are limited. This study validates in Austria three questionable negotiation tactics groups of varying severity, which had previously been studied only in non-Germanic cultures. This research significantly contributes to the generalization of a model of the antecedents of the endorsement of questionable tactics across cultures.

Are You Angry (Happy, Sad) or Aren’t You? Emotion Detection Difficulty in Email Negotiation

This research investigates consistency of emotion detection in email negotiations. Conveying and detecting emotions in negotiation is important because emotions can function strategically. Therefore, this research systematically explores in four separate studies how consistently individuals detect discrete emotions in text-based (email) negotiations. Study 1 compared the ratings from two coders using a high quantity of thought units (n = 1317) and a negative bargaining zone negotiation scenario. In studies 2 and 3, three different negotiation scenarios were explored, first on a thought unit level and then on a message unit level using a hierarchical emotion coding scheme. In all three studies, coders’ perceptions were also compared with the text analysis program LIWC. Study 4 compared coding from seven of the actual negotiators with that of an independent coder and a computerized text program. All four studies found low emotion recognition consistency across 14 different coders with only one negotiation scenario in study 3 showing a moderate level of consistency. Comparisons of computerized coding with human coders did not show improved agreement. High amounts of contrary coding by independent coders were also found. Our research makes an important contribution to the literature by challenging the common assumption that emotions can be reliably detected in email negotiation. Factors that might influence more consistent emotion recognition and conveyance as well as implications for practice and future research are discussed.

“When your anchor sinks your boat”: A replication and extension study

Most of the literature on behavioral decision-making suggests the presence of a first-mover advantage in negotiations, and this is based on the anchoring heuristic. Maaravi and Levy (2017) recently demonstrated a second-mover advantage in distributive situations, in which one party has information about the market value while the other does not. Because this finding contradicts most of the previous literature, we replicated their Studies 3 and 4, in which the seller had information about the market value while the buyer did not. Our Study 1 asked both the seller and the buyer to move first and provide their offer, and our Study 2 asked participants to role-play actual negotiations. The second-mover advantage suggested by Maaravi and Levy was replicated. We also found that these results were most likely to occur when the buyer who was not knowledgeable about the market price, and expected a price higher than the actual market price. However, when the unknowledgeable buyer expected a lower price than the actual market price, it was advantageous to the knowledgeable seller to move first in the negotiations, otherwise an impasse was more likely to occur.

Gender Differences in Wage Expectations: Sorting, Children, and Negotiation Styles

This paper presents evidence from a large-scale study on gender differences in expected wages before labor market entry. Based on data for over 15,000 students, we document a significant and large gender gap in wage expectations that closely resembles actual wage differences, prevails across subgroups, and along the entire distribution. To understand the underlying causes and determinants, we relate expected wages to sorting into majors, industries, and occupations, child-rearing plans, perceived and actual ability, personality, perceived discrimination, and negotiation styles. Our findings indicate that sorting and negotiation styles affect the gender gap in wage expectations much more than prospective child-related labor force interruptions. Given the importance of wage expectations for labor market decisions, household bargaining, and wage setting, our results provide an explanation for persistent gender inequalities.

Context aware Q-Learning-based model for decision support in the negotiation of energy contracts

Automated negotiation plays a crucial role in the decision support for bilateral energy transactions. In fact, an adequate analysis of past actions of opposing negotiators can improve the decision-making process of market players, allowing them to choose the most appropriate parties to negotiate with in order to increase their outcomes. This paper proposes a new model to estimate the expected prices that can be achieved in bilateral contracts under a specific context, enabling adequate risk management in the negotiation process. The proposed approach is based on an adaptation of the Q-Learning reinforcement learning algorithm to choose the best scenario (set of forecast contract prices) from a set of possible scenarios that are determined using several forecasting and estimation methods. The learning process assesses the probability of occurrence of each scenario, by comparing each expected scenario with the real scenario. The final chosen scenario is the one that presents the higher expected utility value. Besides, the learning method can determine which is the best scenario for each context, since the behaviour of players can change according to the negotiation environment. Consequently, these conditions influence the final contract price of negotiations. This approach allows the supported player to be prepared for the negotiation scenario that is the most probable to represent a reliable approximation of the actual negotiation environment.

Achieving Effective International Cooperation: How Institutional Formalization Shapes Intergovernmental Negotiations

This article explores how formalization of institutions and domestic constraints influence the outcomes of international cooperation and negotiation processes—particularly in a regional setting like the European Union (EU) or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Examining different forms of institutional setup along the formal‐informal continuum, this study evaluates their impact on the successes and failures of intergovernmental negotiation processes. While some scholars have been vocal about the importance of institutional setting on negotiation outcomes, there has not yet been any systematic analysis of the impact of institutional variations on the actual negotiation process. This project specifies under what conditions domestic actors constrain governments, and how these conditions depend on institutional structures. I analyze the impact of institutional variations, concentrating on negotiation failure and deadlock situations, to form a framework that can differentiate between various bargaining situations and to understand their impact on the possibility to facilitate successful negotiation outcomes. The central argument highlights the need for more nuanced connections between institutional design, domestic constraints, and the level of formalization to understand the likelihood of success or failure of intergovernmental negotiation processes.

The dilemma down under

Synopsis The dilemma down under is a two-party distributive negotiation with integrative potential. A large airline, Transpacific Airlines (TPA), created an internal tour operator brand named Transpacific Vacations as a separate profit center. After licensing its brand to Global Tour Services and establishing operations in the UK, negotiations to take over the internal tour operations of TPA-Australia are about to begin. The case involves the negotiation between Mr Edwards, representative of GTS, and Ms Bentley, representative of TPA-Australia. Research methodology The dilemma down under is based on a real negotiation with altered names and facts. All names of companies have been changed. All names of protagonists have been changed. The year of the case has also been altered. The case was created after an extensive interview with an individual engaged in the actual negotiation. Relevant courses and levels Students in courses related to negotiation and/or decision making. The case also works in international management/strategy courses where students are asked to apply market entry mode decisions along with the accompanying negotiations. The case is most appropriate for undergraduate courses, but can be used for graduate courses. The case can easily be used with common negotiation textbooks, such as Negotiation, 7th edition by Lewicki et al. (2014). Theoretical bases The exercise will be able to reinforce basic distributive negotiation concepts, including identifying issues, positions, interests, alternatives to a negotiated agreement, reservation (resistance) points, target (aspiration) points and opening bids, while at the same time challenge students to look for integrative potential among and across the issues. The case also provides an opportunity to explore the connection between negotiation and international market entry choice.

Challenges of Deliberation and Participation

The future of sustainability is tied to the future of our ability to manage interconnectedness and interdependence, and thus to our abilities to engage in cooperative, value-creating public deliberations and negotiations. To understand these issues, we need a better understanding of the micro-politics of planning and public participation, the relationships between our received theories and our practices, and in particular, the work of public dispute resolution and its implications for democratic deliberation and governance. We need better to understand the differences between dialogue, debate, and negotiation, as well as the corresponding work of facilitating a dialogue, moderating a debate, and mediating an actual negotiation. Contrasting processes and practical attitudes of dialogue, debate, and negotiation can teach us, in the context of creating a sustainable future, that we must devise discursive and conversational political processes and institutions that explore possible commitments so that we not only know the right things to do but actually bring ourselves and one another to do those right things.

Angels or Sharks? The Role of Personal Characteristics in Angel Investment Decisions

We use actual negotiations between angel investors and entrepreneurs to study the impact of personal characteristics on investment outcomes. We construct a unique data set with 707 investment requests led by 1,089 entrepreneurs and find that the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur, including gender, race, and age, are correlated with requested valuations, the likelihood that an offer is received, and the implied valuation when an angel investor extends an offer. Shared personal characteristics between entrepreneurs and investors also affect the likelihood that an investor makes an offer, the entrepreneur accepts an offer, and the implied valuation when an offer is extended.

LA APLICACIÓN DE LOS MUNDOS INMERSIVOS PARA LA RESOLUCIÓN DE PROBLEMAS ASOCIADOS A CASOS REALES EN EL MUNDO DE LA INGENIERÍA AGRONÓMICA, DE MONTES Y DE LA ENOLOGÍA

El Plan de Innovación Docente 2016-2017 de la Universidad de Córdoba planteaba en sus líneas prioritarias de proyectos el trabajo por competencias, las actividades académicamente dirigidas y la transferencia del conocimiento teórico a la práctica. En este contexto, se planteó desarrollar una serie de casos prácticos en un espacio virtual adaptado a las características de los mismos donde, a través de juegos de rol (en los que participaran no sólo los estudiantes sino profesionales del sector) los estudiantes organizados en grupos tendrían que resolver problemas y/o plantear y analizar sus posibles soluciones. Se presenta en el siguiente trabajo un proyecto colectivo donde diferentes escenarios prácticos y agentes involucrados en los temarios de asignaturas como Proyectos y Comercialización y Regulación de Mercados Agrarios comunes al Grado de Ingeniería Agroalimentaria y del Medio Rural, Ingeniería. Forestal y Enología fueron representados. En el primer caso, se propuso la elaboración y presentación de una licitación pública y en el segundo caso, la simulación de los actores de una subasta pública en una lonja. Entre los resultados del proyecto, se destacan los vídeos protagonizados por los alumnos reproduciendo las entrevistas reales y negociaciones de los agentes de la lonja o en el caso de la licitación, la preparación de los pliegos de una licitación por parte de los técnicos de un ayuntamiento, la elaboración de las plicas por parte de empresas licitadoras y la evaluación de las mismas por parte de la mesa de contratación. Además, los resultados de las encuestas a los estudiantes pusieron de manifiesto la importancia de este tipo de proyectos para mejorar la adquisición de conocimiento práctico de las asignaturas así como competencias de comportamiento y particularmente de tipo creativo.

Angels or Sharks? The Role of Personal Characteristics in Angel Investment Decisions

This paper uses actual negotiations between angel investors and entrepreneurs to study the impact of personal characteristics on investment outcomes. Using a new dataset of 611 investment requests led by 928 entrepreneurs, we find evidence that the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur, including gender, race, and age, are correlated with entrepreneurs’ requested valuations, the likelihood that an offer is received, and the implied valuation when an angel investor extends an offer. We also find evidence that homophily influences the outcome of negotiations. Specifically, shared personal characteristics affect the likelihood that an investor makes an offer, the entrepreneur accepts an offer, and the implied valuation when an offer is extended.

Ups and Downs: Emotional Dynamics in Negotiations and Their Effects on (In)Equity

Organizational scholars now acknowledge the relevance of emotions in virtually every aspect of organizational life, including negotiations and conflict resolution. Integrating negotiation phase model theory with social functional models of emotion, we test hypotheses about the development of emotions in negotiations and their effects on the degree of economic (in)equity of the counterpart’s subsequent offer during the actual negotiation process. By comparing stalemate dyads with efficient settlement dyads, the study identifies emotional dynamics that characterize successful as opposed to unsuccessful negotiations. Results show that observed differences are primarily the result of impasse dyads spiraling into a negative emotional climate rather than efficient settlement dyads having overall higher levels of positive emotions or increasing them throughout the negotiation process. As predicted by social functional models, the study further confirms that emotions are not only a reaction to the economic (un)fairness of a proposed offer, but their display also influences the payoff (in)equity of the counterpart’s subsequent offer. Whether a specific emotional expression increases or decreases the economic fairness of the counterpart’s subsequent offer, however, differs across negotiation phases and between dyads that reached an agreement or not. Furthermore, the results show distinct differences between emotions that address individual goal realization in negotiations and emotions that focus on the relational, interpersonal aspect of negotiations, both with regard to their development as well as their function. Taken together, the results shed light on the mechanisms leading to the emergence of conflict spirals.

Mind the Gap – The Discrepancy between the Normative Debate and the Actual Use of Human Rights Language in International Climate Negotiations

There has been an emerging normative debate in political theory literature on how the impacts of climate change not only affect the environment, but also have dire consequences for the enjoyment of basic human rights in vulnerable regions. A human rights-based approach to climate negotiations could improve the debate beyond a mostly scientific and technical discussion. This paper analyzes a case study of how human rights are actually articulated within international climate negotiations and what role they play in the international political debate on climate change. Through an inductive analysis of state submissions and interview data collected at the 2 nd session of the ADP during UNFCCC COP-19, we examine how state parties make use of human rights in international climate negotiations. The paper shows that despite the growing normative debate on the topic, almost no parties refer to human rights directly in the actual climate negotiations. When human rights are mentioned, they are more likely to be articulated by state groups, they are often referred to in an indirect way, and non-binding rights are articulated more often than universally binding human rights. This shows that there is a clear gap between the normative debate and the political realities of the linkages of human rights and climate change. Author’s Note The authors are graduate students of political science and are finishing their Master of Arts in International Studies/Peace and Conflict Studies at the Universities of Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Darmstadt, Germany. They regard the fight against climate change as an important step towards sustainability.

Television Format as Cultural Negotiation

Despite the growing number of publications on television formats, specific theorisations regarding formats and format adaptation, in particular, are still rare. In this article, I introduce a synthesizing approach for studying format appropriation. Drawing on format study, media industry research and structuration theory, I suggest that television formats should be understood and studied as a process of cultural negotiation in which global influences and local elements amalgamate on various levels of television culture (i.e., production, text, and reception); every level includes several sites of symbolic or actual negotiation. These sites emerge in the duality of structure and human agency.

Weep and get more: When and why sadness expression is effective in negotiations.

Although recently some research has been accumulated on emotional expressions in negotiations, there is little research on whether expressing sadness could have any effect in negotiations. We propose that sadness expressions can increase the expressers' ability to claim value in negotiations because they make recipients experience greater other-concern for the expresser. However, only when the social situation provides recipients with reasons to experience concern for the expresser in the first place, will recipients act on their other-concern and, eventually, concede more to a sad expresser. Three experiments tested this proposition by examining face-to-face, actual negotiations (in which participants interacted with each other). In all 3 experiments, recipients conceded more to a sad expresser when, but only when, features of the social situation provided reasons to experience other-concern for the expresser, namely (a) when recipients perceived the expresser as low power (Experiment 1), (b) when recipients anticipated a future interaction (Experiment 1), (c) when recipients construed the relationship as collaborative in nature (Experiment 2), or (d) when recipients believed that it was inappropriate to blame others (Experiment 3). All 3 experiments showed that the positive effect of sadness expression was mediated by the recipients' greater other-concern. These findings extend previous research on emotional expressions in negotiations by emphasizing a distinct psychological mechanism. Implications for our understanding of sadness, negotiations, and emotions are discussed.

Spectacular Bodies: The Swimsuit, Sexuality and Hollywood

This article explores the mutually beneficial relationship between the American swimsuit and film industries during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Three examples will be used: Fatty and the Bathing Beauties from 1913 (prior to regulated film content), Footlight Parade from 1933 (when limited self-regulation had been put in place, but was not yet rigorously enforced) and the Tarzan film franchise (which spans both the second period and a later, third period of actual implementation and subsequent negotiation). Using these examples, the paper will consider several of the popular associations attached to the swimmer and the swimsuit. It will discuss the ways in which Hollywood utilised the swimsuit, the swimmer and swimming in both its films and its promotional materials and will demonstrate how through the sporting associations of both the garment and sports stars, film producers negotiated the processes of censorship and self-regulation while allowing the continued use of semi-naked and eroticised bodies, to their own profit and to that of the increasingly fashionable swimwear industry.

Unraveling Business Negotiations Using Practitioner Data

AbstractAlthough negotiations are a core business activity, there is a lack of information about what actually occurs during a business negotiation. This study addresses this issue though an international survey of managers focusing on actual negotiations. The 294 respondents reported on what actions they took as they sought to achieve an agreement, including how information was exchanged and how they looked for new solutions and managed concession making. The analysis suggests a pragmatic approach to negotiation, whereby information is not withheld, but neither is it freely given. Solutions emerge from discussion of priorities and commonalities rather than through more formal creative processes. The underlying script of negotiation appears to draw more on competitive than overtly collaborative tactics, suggesting that business negotiators are cautious co‐operators. Further research avenues include investigating the pressures and context that impact upon negotiators' decision‐making and closer examination of interactions between negotiation tasks en route to an agreement.

Narrative Cultures, Situated Story Webs, and the Politics of Relation

As Thomas King afffirmed in his 2003 Massey Lectures, truth about stories is that that's all we (2). This is why I am genuinely excited about this new journal, Narrative Culture, and find myself responding somewhat foolheartedly its editors' call for an opinion piece.1 is the scope of culture? are some of the challenges and opportunities the framework of culture poses specific disciplines? in this framework can the place of folk narratives and folk-narrative scholars be? The stories about stories I tell here in answer these questions can only be informed by the stories-experiential, historical, imaginative, place-based, and scholarly-I know. The stories about stories I hope read in Narrative Culture would move us engage with narrative cultures in the plural as situated and interrelated practices where knowledges, desires, and conflicts are negotiated within and across worldly storytelling networks.As the editors' Introduction in the first issue suggests, culture invites interdisciplinary approaches all kinds of narratives circulating in and adapted a wide range of contexts and media: By widening the scope from culture, we acknowledge that informs and reigns supreme in a large variety of cultural phenomena and that culture encompasses more than, for instance, folk narrative, oral literature, popular narrating, or narratology (Marzolph and Bendix 1). Significantly, the editors also remark on wanting to foster exchange and learning across boundaries of learning, boundaries that are not simply disciplinary, but rather result from economic as well as geopolitical imbalances. Knowing that location has a strong impact on scholarship as culture, the editors seek honor . . . the diffferent points of departure taken for granted or simply available scholars in diffferent locations (Marzolph and Bendix 6).From my own location, I take the journal's offfering of a scholarly forum for culture across disciplines and media as well as sociohistorical boundaries deploy culture, a much-contested term, in specific ways. Narrative culture is a set of practices concerned with the production, exchange, and consumption of shared meanings-narratives, in this case-that depend on the work of representation and circulate in competition with one another.2 One of the challenges, then, of contributing the study of culture is construct and engage scholarly tales that decode not only the workings of texts as discourse and story, recit and histoire, in relation one another and as performances their storytelling contexts, but also the workings of power and knowledge that permeate the representational, conceptual, and material practices and efffects of these texts.While this is a specialized and relatively recent understanding of culture,3 it informs a widening range of approaches narrative, and it helps clarify how weighty King's claim actually is. The first Massey lecturer of Native descent, Cherokee fiction writer and theorist King tells stories about family, literature, and history as well as a creation about Charm, a woman who fell from the sky (10-21). In retelling this Earth-Diver creation story, King highlights its principles of curiosity, balance, and cooperation. He comments on how such a is entertaining but easily forgotten in North America where the legacy of Genesis dominates (21). Then he asks, What kind of a world might we have created with that kind of story? (28). Because we live by stories and in stories, he challenges his audience take action: Take Charm's story, for instance. It's yours. Do with it what you will. Tell it friends. Turn it into a television movie. Forget it. But don't say in the years come you would have lived your life diffferently if only you had heard this story (29). Stories construct our worlds and us at the same time, emerging from actual negotiations with and in these worlds. …

Digital sales negotiation stories

Cultural features influence international sales negotiations. Cultural distance and cultural intelligence are key factors related to successful outcomes. To explore these influences on sales negotiation, digital stories based on actual sales negotiations are used. The digital stories were complemented by a cultural analysis of the sales professionals involved. The analysis covered the cultural dimensions, cultural intelligence and adaptive behaviours of the negotiators. The study showed that cultural intelligence is not a sufficient predictor of sales negotiation outcomes. In contrast, the cultural distance dimensions of performance, humane and short-term orientation do relate to sales outcome. Comparing cultures at the country level indicate that flexibility in negotiation and a low context culture also results in positive outcomes. It is important to assess the cultural distance of customers and to adapt negotiation styles related to what occurs during the actual process.

The Negotiations of the United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations: Experience and Lessons Learned

Many of the issues that are today part of the discussions surrounding international investment agreements were first dealt with when governments sought to negotiate a United Nations Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations (and various related instruments) almost 40 years ago. The Code was meant to establish a multilateral framework to define, in a balanced manner, the rights and responsibilities of transnational corporations and host country governments in their relations with each other. This article looks at the origins of these negotiations, the underlying interest situations of the participating country groups, the experience of related negotiations, the actual negotiations of the Code, the reasons for the failure of the negotiations, the current situation, and factors driving change. The article concludes with lessons learned from the Code and related negotiations. These lessons may be of interest to current efforts to improve the international investment law and policy regime.