Inter-organizational Negotiation Research Articles

Exploring the concept and the communication principles of negotiation among Islamic corporate organizations

PurposeThe acceleration of globalized commerce and economic activities has meant that conventional and Shariah (Islamic law) compliant organizations transact and negotiate among themselves. Therefore, this study aims to explore the concept of corporate negotiation and the communicative principles that guide the negotiation process among Shariah-compliant organizations.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a qualitative method through an inductive interpretative approach by conducting 20 in-depth interviews among four groups of experts. These consist of three muftis, ten academicians in Islamic assets, finance and asset jurisprudence; three practitioners in charge of inter-organizational negotiation and decision-making; and four shariah board members of selected Islamic banks.FindingsThe findings reported that business negotiation is used by Islamic organizations for reconciliation, consultation, resolving disagreements and as a means of achieving spiritual satisfaction. Furthermore, the key communicative principles of the negotiation process consist of the credibility of informational exchange, flexible interactions and the openness and truthful disclosure of information.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical data discussed in this study supports the claim that macro-environmental factors and social and cultural values should be considered when examining business negotiating behaviors. However, this study focuses only on the banking/service organization negotiation. Therefore, future research should focus on the Islamic negotiation process in the context of diplomatic and international relations.Practical implicationsThe findings reported in this study offer insight for negotiators operating among Islamic organizations to understand the principles and process of negotiation in the purview of Shariah standards and principles.Originality/valueIn terms of theoretical implications, this study reveals a clear conceptual difference between the conventional concept and the Islamic perspective of corporate negotiation. Also, this study highlights the impact of organizational culture, specifically Islamic management strategies, on the business negotiation process and business communication principles.

Politics of Disclosure: Organizational Transparency as Multiactor Negotiation

AbstractTransparency is in vogue, yet it is often used as an umbrella concept for a wide array of phenomena. More focused concepts are needed to understand the form and function of different phenomena of visibility. In this article, the authors define organizational transparency as systematic disclosure programs that meet the information needs of other actors. Organizational transparency, they argue, is best studied as an interorganizational negotiation process on the field level. To evaluate its merit, the authors apply this framework to a case study on the introduction of open data in the Berlin city administration. Analyzing the politics of disclosure, they consider the similarities and differences between phenomena of visibility (e.g., open data, freedom of information), explore the transformative power of negotiating transparency, and deduce recommendations for managing transparency.

The Politics of World Polity: Script-writing in International Organizations

Sociologists have long examined how states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and professional groups interact in order to institutionalize their preferred norms at the transnational level. Yet, explanations of global norm-making that emphasize inter-organizational negotiations do not adequately explain the intra-organizational script-writing—that is, the codification of norms in prescriptive behavioral templates—that underpins this process. This article opens the black box of how scripts emerge and institutionalize within IGOs. Script-writing is a function of both world-cultural frames and material interests, held by different intra-organizational actors: scientific IGO staff and state representatives in governing bodies, respectively. The interplay between these frames and interests determines whether scripts will institutionalize. In this theoretical model, world-cultural and power-political explanations are pertinent to different, mutually informing, and coexisting aspects of the script-writing process. As a corollary of our approach, we present a conceptual framework for the study of intra-IGO script-writing, which is contingent on three normative struggles: among IGO staff, within an IGO’s board of directors, and between the staff and the board. To empirically substantiate our arguments, we examine scripts on taxation and capital controls by the International Monetary Fund. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of our model for the study of international organizations and the engines of global norm-making.

Negotiations as a tool of business strategy creation

In this paper, the problem of creating a company strategy within the strategic planning process is discussed. Instead of a traditional approach to solving this problem (thoroughly described in the literature on strategic management**), an alternative concept of company strategy elaboration is suggested. Namely, the author will try to prove that inter-organizational negotiations may be treated as a useful tool to be applied within the strategic planning process. Therefore, this paper aims to characterize such negotiations.

Inter-organizational Negotiation of Web-services

Inter-organizational Negotiation of Web-services

Negotiating as Institutional Work: The Case of Labour Standards and International Framework Agreements

Although institutional work has recently attracted considerable attention from organization research, there is a surprising neglect of inter-organizational negotiations as a form of institutional work. This neglect is astonishing, since negotiations provide a unique opportunity both to study institutional change in settings characterized by diverging institutional logics and to illustrate how institutional constraints and strategic agency are linked in interaction processes. Based on a combination of the literature on institutional work and the theory of strategic negotiations, we examine in detail three illuminating negotiation processes taking place around International Framework Agreements on global labour standards. This examination reveals three types of (proto-)institutional outcomes produced by these processes: institutional creation, modification and stagnation. Whereas institutional creation and modification, albeit differing in quality, show how integrative negotiation practices of global unions might engage management in a joint endeavor for institutional change, institutional stagnation illuminates some of the pitfalls of negotiation work.

Negotiators as Mediators: The Case of 1987-1995 Korea-United States Bilateral Trade Negotiations

Despite their widely recognized benefits, integrative approaches to negotiation have seldom been effectively used in interorganizational negotiations. This study analyzes the 1987–1995 Korea–United States Trade Negotiations, identifying elements in those talks that could have moved the negotiations in a more integrative direction. The role of building relationships — especially between key negotiators — is examined. Informal negotiations between the key negotiators from both sides were crucial in building such relationships, which helped both sides create solutions for mutual gains. This process was realized, inter alia, by the dual role that the key negotiators took on as negotiators and as mediators.

Interorganizational Negotiation and Intraorganizational Power in Shared Decision Making

The authors argue that closer attention should be paid to the interorganizational rules of decision making and their implications for intraorganizational processes. They claim that exogenous changes in macro-institutional rules, which result in a move from formal and sequential to informal and simultaneous interaction between collective actors, will lead to changes in individual actors’ respective influence over outcomes within organizations. Certain individuals controlling information flows between organizations will see an increase in their power over legislative outcomes. This begs the question of how organizations will respond to these shifts in the power balance among the individual actors that constitute them. The authors argue that collective actors that centralize coordination over dealings with external actors will respond effectively through internal rule change. In contrast, collective actors with multiple, ill-coordinated links to other organizations will find it difficult to change internal rules. The authors empirically explore the general argument by analyzing the relationship between the Council and the European Parliament in the process of codecision and its implications for intraorganizational processes.

Goal Achievement and Inter-organizational Negotiation Team Dynamics

Although organizations on the same side in a negotiation often work together there is little understanding about such dynamics at the operations level. The present paper uses the negotiation and structural theory to frame this intellectual problem, while identifying five structural factors that support inter-organizational negotiation team dynamics (i) inter-organizational relations, (ii) relations between organizational leaders, (iii) supervisory-subordinate relations and/or agent-constituent relations, (iv) inter-organizational negotiation team member relations and group dynamics, and (v) inter-organizational negotiation team relations with their environment. This typology of structural factors is then applied to a complex inter-organizational case study that contains commercial, governmental, political and international characteristics. Case analysis of inter-organizational negotiation team behavior assists in identifying how these five factors effect negotiation process and outcome, while prescriptive guidance for negotiation management is offered. Analysis and discussion considers inter-organizational relationship formation and negotiation planning, inter-organizational relations and power, inter-organizational control, and inter-organizational unity and goal achievement. An inventory of factors that enhance or diminish inter-organizational negotiation team unity is developed through the present study. Research questions that further our understanding of inter-organizational negotiation team behavior are proposed.

A Negotiation-Oriented Model of Auditor-Client Relationships

The increasing frequency and complexity of inter-organizational relationships suggests that inter-organizational negotiations should represent an area of increasing concern to management and academicians. Unfortunately, there is little theorizing about, nor study of, these negotiations. The few extant models are heavily influenced by models of individual negotiating styles that are then raised to the inter-organizational level with minimal change. The model developed here attempts to provide a framework for understanding the context of these inter-organizational negotiations by identifying and illuminating factors that influence the outcome of interactions in various long-term supplier relationships. Factors discussed include dynamic and stable environments, organizational cultures, role involvement, previous interactions between the individuals and organizations, and the unique characteristics of the decision-making processes that characterize the specific parties. As a framework for our presentation, we draw upon Kleinman and Palmon's (1999) theory of audit firm-client firm relationships, which is based on Kahn et al.'s (1964) Role Episode Model and Merton's (1966) Role Set Model. This paper incorporates Shakun's (1988) theory of evolutionary system design. The inclusion of the latter improves upon Kleinman and Palmon's work by first providing a better motive for the interaction between the parties, and second by shedding further light on the dynamics of the negotiation process.

Redesigning an airport for international competitiveness: the politics of administrative innovation at CDG

The opening of a train station in the heart of Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) marked a milestone in French intermodal planning. As in industries ranging from aerospace to telecommunications, French development has come from behind to lead the of European air-rail interconnections. From a total absence of direct train to plane links that persisted until 1994, France now boasts Europe's first and only high speed rail interconnections to air transport at both Paris-CDG and Lyno-Satolos. The extensive redesign effort need to bring the TGV into CDGs Terminal 2 offer an opportunity to explore how trade and regulatory policies that cut across national boundaries combined to act as an institutional solvent in domestic public policy making. Challenged by interstate rivalry for competitive economic advantage, policy actors were motivated to reconsider their role as it related to airport function. At the same time, a new pattern of decentralized governance facilitated inter-organizational negotiation over new policy making responsibilities. As a result, the long standing definitions of competence and authority that had guided French airport planning and administrative were radically revised. Definitions of mission and method that had previously constrained policy innovation were dissolved and then reconstituted in pursuit of new objectives. This article analyzes the forces responsible for transforming CDG airport from a buffer between transport modes into a facility serving linker intermodal travel.

Changes in the Scandinavian Model. From Bureaucratic Command to Interorganizational Negotiation

Scandinavian local government is increasingly changing its organizational pattern away from the principles of local centralized bureaucratic control that were held sacred after the reforms of the 1960s and 1970s ‐ reforms that made local government the building block for the welfare ‘state’. Organizational fragmentation is taking place, making room for both new managerial styles similar to those of the New Public Management, featuring contracting out and similar market‐like arrangements, and for democratic initiatives which place service users in command of service institutions. Such developments call for new approaches to the study of local government, approaches that take interorganizational relations more directly into account. Suggestions about such an approach are made, based on studies of intergovernmental relations. Distinctions are made between intergovernmental politics which is concerned with symbolic values linked to the status of an organization, and intergovernmental management where processes of making do are seen as most important. In spite of the managerial fashion for strategic goal‐setting, it is expected that the new political actors are more interested in day‐to‐day results and thus challenge politicians, moving them away from the abstract goals in favour of advancing and monitoring actual accomplishments. This increases the need to understand network relations and, in turn, may yield better understanding on the part of citizens of how local politics and management works.

Analysis of Complex Negotiations in International Business: The RBC Perspective

International negotiations between organizations project a complexity that makes them a challenge to describe, explain and improve. Their many elements and dynamics challenge especially those researchers and practitioners who seek a comprehensive yet essential understanding of these negotiations. Toward that end, this article develops a new analytic perspective that focuses on three key facets of negotiation—parties' Relationships, parties' Behaviors, and influencing Conditions (RBC)—and their basic B → R → C → B interaction. The first section defines international business negotiation, targets the subset of complex, interorganizational negotiations, presents as an example the 1985–86 CGE-ITT telecommunications merger, and considers the partial views of the merger talks provided by existing frameworks. Several reasons then enumerated underscore the need for and potential value of an inclusive, generally applicable perspective for complex negotiations. The RBC Framework, coupled with the Basic Model, are presented in detail, with each key facet defined, illustrated, and supported with references from diverse literatures. The Relationship and Behavior facets incorporate multiple levels of analysis (organizational, group and individual). Conditions encompass four types (circumstances, capabilities, cultures and environments). A temporal dimension completes the framework. The last section of the paper proposes empirical and practical applications of this perspective to international business. The former includes question-asking, model-building and testing, and cumulation of knowledge, and the latter, making sense of myriad details and identifying potential points of influence on counterparts. In these ways, the RBC Perspective integrates existing knowledge and will stimulate future work in the field.

Honesty in Interorganizational Negotiations in the United States, Japan, Brazil, and the Republic of China

The relationship between honesty and the outcomes of interorganizational business negotiations is investigated using a laboratory experimentation methodology. One hundred sixty-two business executives from four countries participated in a buyer/ seller negotiation simulation and then evaluated their own performances and made judgments about their opponents’ strategies and characteristics. Honest bargaining strategies affected negotiation outcomes in different ways across the four cultural groups.

Interorganizational Negotiation

Interorganizational Negotiation