Mediated Negotiations Research Articles

The Upper Karabakh Predicament from the UN Resolutions to the Mediated Negotiations: Resolution or Hibernation?

Despite the third party efforts of the significant international and regional organizations, such as the UN and the OSCE, the Upper Karabakh problem remains unresolved for over 20 years. Neither the four resolutions related to Armenia’s invasion of Azerbaijani lands adopted by the UN SC in the early 1990s have worked, nor the formal negotiations over this conflict that have taken place under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group for more than 20 years have reached any tangible results. These facts give rise to questions about effectiveness of the role of this institution in reaching a resolution to the conflict. The ceasefire regime is in effect since May 1994 without changing the situation, in which Armenia still keeps about 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands under invasion and is effectively involved in building a new state over the invaded lands. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of UN resolutions in liberating Azerbaijan’s invaded regions, both within and outside of Upper Karabakh, as well as the OSCE mediation efforts to resolve this conflict. It also discusses effectiveness of the negotiation process, and raises a question about impartiality of the mediators and usefulness of the mediation institution of the OSCE in general. It argues that the OSCE Minsk Group has failed to successfully establish and lead the process of negotiations, thus expecting a fruitful yield is not realistic.

The Upper Karabakh Predicament from the UN Resolutions to the Mediated Negotiations: Resolution or Hibernation?

Despite the third party efforts of the significant international and regional organizations, such as the UN and the OSCE, the Upper Karabakh problem remains unresolved for over 20 years. Neither the four resolutions related to Armenia’s invasion of Azerbaijani lands adopted by the UN SC in the early 1990s have worked, nor the formal negotiations over this conflict that have taken place under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group for more than 20 years have reached any tangible results. These facts give rise to questions about effectiveness of the role of this institution in reaching a resolution to the conflict. The ceasefire regime is in effect since May 1994 without changing the situation, in which Armenia still keeps about 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands under invasion and is effectively involved in building a new state over the invaded lands. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of UN resolutions in liberating Azerbaijan’s invaded regions, both within and outside of Upper Karabakh, as well as the OSCE mediation efforts to resolve this conflict. It also discusses effectiveness of the negotiation process, and raises a question about impartiality of the mediators and usefulness of the mediation institution of the OSCE in general. It argues that the OSCE Minsk Group has failed to successfully establish and lead the process of negotiations, thus expecting a fruitful yield is not realistic.

Media Effects on the Formation of Negotiator Satisfaction: The Example of Face-to-Face and Text Based Electronically Mediated Negotiations

Recently, scholars have highlighted the importance of subjective negotiation outcomes such as negotiator satisfaction for future negotiations and the relationship between negotiators. This study considers the major antecedents of satisfaction formation in negotiation and analyses how the communication medium, i.e. the face-to-face (FTF) and the text based electronically mediated (TBEM) mode, influence satisfaction formation. Drawing on grounding in communication (Clark and Brennan in Perspectives on socially shared cognition. American Psychological Asociation, Washington DC, pp 127–149, 1991), hypotheses are developed and tested in an experimental gaming simulation in which graduate students negotiated in n = 52 dyads. The empirical analysis supports the notion that the communication medium has a mediated and a moderating effect on negotiator satisfaction. Aspirations, individual profit and positive relational messages mediate the medium’s effect on satisfaction. Furthermore, the impact of contentious behaviour and positive relational messages on negotiator satisfaction is stronger in TBEM than in FTF negotiations. This study also contributes to the wider negotiation literature by employing a context-rich gaming simulation for experimental purposes.

Mediated Negotiations: A Case Study of a Transcultural Exchange between Lebanon and Israel

This article examines the strategies and practices by which the Israeli news media negotiated and (re)appropriated a Lebanese documentary that was produced in cooperation with a French company and was purchased and broadcast by an Israeli commercial channel. Using this transnational textual event, the article explores the dynamics, opportunities and pitfalls associated with transcultural exchanges that take place in a conflictual, translocal context, and the ways in which such exchanges are shaped by an interplay of material-institutional and discursive-symbolic dimensions. The article also provides a multi-layered framework for analyzing the broadcasting and journalistic practices surrounding such textual events, and establishes the relationship between appropriation and witnessing strategies. I show how the Israeli media—driven by commercial interests and applying complex forms of witnessing and appropriation—worked to sustain national myths and suppress the potentially disruptive aspects of the documentary, while at the same time exposing the weaknesses of these myths, as well as the limits of the State's power. Emerging from this case study is a complex picture of the multifaceted roles played by national news media in a transnational economy, and of the ways in which commercial media interests serve as both hegemonic and disruptive forces within the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Negotiator Satisfaction in Face-to-Face and Electronically Mediated Negotiations

Development and availability of modern communication technology has changed communication in negotiation fundamentally – different media can today be used for similar negotiation tasks. The process of negotiator satisfaction formation has not been studied in different media settings yet. Hence in this paper, we examine the role that communication medium (EM, FTF) plays in the development of negotiator satisfaction. Negotiator satisfaction is conceptualized as a negotiator’s socio-emotional evaluation of the negotiation outcome and process immediately after conclusion of the negotiation. Using data from an experimental roleplay simulation we can show that the communication medium’s influence on negotiator satisfaction is mediated by behavioral process variables and economic perceptions. In general, we find higher negotiator satisfaction in EM negotiations and explain this finding with lower aspirations in EM negotiations while individual negotiator profits are similar across conditions. Differences in negotiation behavior across media, namely positive relational messages and contentious behavior also account for differences in negotiator satisfaction. Interestingly, only the latter two relationships are also moderated by communication medium.

Analyzing Computer Mediated Buyer-Seller Negotiations: Advantages of Conceptual Precision and Observational Methods

The relative effectiveness of three communications media is examined using laboratory methods and applying social presence theory. The three media - face-to-face interaction (FTF), instant messaging (IM), and email (EM) - are conceptualized to have different levels of social presence. Their impact on the buyer-seller negotiation processes, such as integrative and distributive bargaining strategies, and negotiation outcomes, such as negotiation time, joint profit, and joint satisfaction were examined using negotiation simulations conducted in FTF, IM, and EM conditions. Participants completed questionnaires after negotiating in one of the three conditions, audio recordings were made for some of the FTF interactions, and transcripts of many of the computer mediated interactions were secured. The transcripts allowed for a comparison between perceptual measures and observational measures of bargaining behaviors in the three conditions. The central finding of the study is that higher social presence caused higher levels of distributive negotiation behaviors (measured using content analysis), which in turn caused more time spent, lower joint profits, and lower joint satisfaction for negotiators.

Chinese Immigrant Women Workers' Mediated Negotiations With Constraints On Their Cultural Identities

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this study examines the cultural identities of Chinese immigrant women workers in American society, that is, how the women negotiate with white supremacist cultural values that seek to interpellate them through their everyday use of media. I argue that through certain Chinese ethnic newspapers' cultural discourses, white supremacist cultural values penetrate the women's private lives and regulate their daily matters as minute as the color of their socks. Yet, the women's responses to these mediated discourses reveal that mainstream cultural values are only part of a more complex cultural quandary, which results from a number of constraints facing the women everyday: material difficulty, racial-cultural marginalization, and ethnic patriarchal control. In our group and individual interviews, my participants critically interpreted and negotiated with this cultural quandary. Their negotiation has great value, since it attests to their heightened cultural consciousness. From another perspective, however, their heightened consciousness has yet to develop into a strategic bicultural or multicultural identity, the “mestiza identity” in Anzaldua's words, as a result of the financial, racial, patriarchal, cultural, and psychological constraints in their lives. This situation leads us to reflect more on how we can help to lift these constraints, so that these women can strategically incorporate both Chinese and American cultural practices to improve their quality of life.

Long and Short Routes to Success in Electronically Mediated Negotiations: Group Affiliations and Good Vibrations

To understand why e-mail negotiations break down, we investigated two distinct elements of negotiators' relationships with each other: shared membership in a social group and mutual self-disclosure. In an experiment, some participants negotiated with a member of an outgroup (a student at a competitor university), whereas others negotiated with a member of an ingroup (a student at the same university). In addition, some negotiators exchanged personal information with their counterparts, whereas others did not. When neither common ingroup status nor a personalized relationship existed between negotiators, negotiations were more likely to end in impasse. These results are attributable to the positive influence of mutual self-disclosure and common group membership on negotiation processes and rapport between negotiators.

Avoiding traps mediators set for themselves

Reaching agreement in any negotiations that require the services of a media­ tor, but particularly those involving divorce or family issues, is a long, com­ plicated process. The success or failure of such negotiations depends on many factors, including: the disputants' willingness or ability to reach a settle­ ment (Haynes, 1985), power relationships between the disputants (Haynes, 1986), andlor the availability of resources to solve the dispute. One often neglected factor is a hurdle mediators create for themselves-their own behavior and strategies. My purpose here is to identify typical problems caused by the mediator's behavior, and suggest ways to overcome them. Although the case material used to illustrate these ideas derives from family disputes, the stages of medi­ ation process at which these problems occur are similar regardless of context. Thus I believe the ideas presented apply to most mediated negotiations, which generally include the following four stages: 1. An intake session; 2. Data gathering; 3. Definition of the problem; and 4. Bargaining.

Mediated negotiations: The function of the intake

Mediated negotiations: The function of the intake

MEDIATED NEGOTIATIONS IN DIVORCE AND LABOR DISPUTES: A COMPARISON

MEDIATED NEGOTIATIONS IN DIVORCE AND LABOR DISPUTES: A COMPARISON