Negotiation Issues Research Articles

Peer Observation in Facilitating Teacher Professional Development: A Study of EFL Novice and Experienced Teachers Perceptions

Novice and Experienced English Teachers are inevitably confronted with a must to be a qualified and professional teacher. This is particularly relevant in Indonesia, where English teachers are graduates of English Education departments has challenged to teach not only English language, but also culture and should have preparation for their duties as English teachers. Peer observation has the potential to facilitate teachers to develop their teacher professional development, particularly those who teach EFL in navigating challenging elements of their teaching practice. For this reason, this qualitative study explored 10 participants’ perceptions of peer observation as an aid to professional growth. Data were garnered from questionnaires and in-depth interview. The findings of the study suggest that the participants’ understanding of peer observation as an opportunity for them to learn each other to improve their teaching quality and construct their professional identity. Then, the participants also talk about their experiences in doing peer observation, which Experienced Teachers (ET) are more confidence than Novice Teachers (NT). Further, both ET and NT need peer observation to negotiate issues and solve problems. Finally, peer observation enabled the participants to reflect on themselves and their respective weaknesses in teaching English for professional development as both novice and experienced teachers.

Issue-Based Complexity: Digitally Supported Negotiation in Geodesign Linking Planning and Implementation

Research regarding the complex issues in planning negotiation is sparse. This article aims to shed light on the characteristics of “the negotiation issue” in planning and how to deal with negotiation-related complexity towards planning implementation. It conceptualizes processes of negotiation that are represented/implemented via graphic and geographic elements, where the topology is a crucial factor. Our case study of the CAMKOX corridor at UCL’s geodesign workshop provides new insights into the potential of digital negotiations for assessing the characteristics of planning negotiation issues and their associated complexity drivers to enhance the quality of spatiality. The findings provide a detailed description of issue-based planning complexity. A shift of focus away from the products of planning to the negotiation process—as the most important consideration in planning—opens the possibility of implementing “shared” interventions on which there is consensus.

Do Cross-Default and Cross-Collateral Clause Fulfill the Principles of Justice and Equality in Loan Agreement? (The Case of Indonesia)

Purpose: This research seeks to examine the cross-default and cross-collateral clauses in loan agreement that meet the principles of justice and the principle of balance, especially in developing countries such as Indonesia.
 Design/methodology/approach: A legal normative review method is used in this study. The cross-default clause and cross-collateral clauses are discussed in relation to existing legal practices in this paper, and a new framework is proposed. The topic in the research centers on the principles of justice and equality for creditors and borrowers.
 Findings: It concludes that the cross-default and cross-collateral clauses do not fulfill the principles of justice and balance. Cross-default clause shows injustice when associated with subsidiaries’ performance. Cross-collateral clause does not fulfill the principle of equality because it has a higher collateral execution position than other non-bank creditors or non-cash management services bank. This study suggests that debtors reconsider the provision of cross-default and cross-collateral clauses. Cross-default can be limited to a minimum default value. Cross-collateral must be abolished to deliver justice to all creditors.
 Research limitations/implications: The pre-lamination of this research is that it does not address the issue of negotiations between creditors and debtors. Finally, existing creditors are unlikely to change the rights they have already obtained. Further research can be developed by researching the types of businesses that provide a fixed asset guarantee value.
 Originality/value: This study provides a novelty by rethinking principle of fairness and equality in cross-collateral and cross-default clauses in loan agreement, under insolvency.

Refugees re-making community: on the performativity of participatory video.

This paper illustrates the performative nature of participatory video (PV), drawing on JL Austin’s well-known work on speech acts, utterances, and performative sentences, as well as Butler’s reworking and application of the notion of performativity. During recent research I used PV as a method. Sub-Saharan African refugee research participants who had not known each other before the PV project negotiated issues to be filmed and made a short film together, creating a small community where none existed before, who are taking steps to organize collective action. The emergence of this new community in and through the making of the film during the fieldwork illustrates the performativity of PV, what is accomplished in and through its making. This performativity works not only through people who take part in creating a video, distributing the video, and watching the video, but also may have effects on people who have never seen the given video, as they are in a landscape and embedded in social relations affected by people who took part in it or saw it. PV is thus both a way of gathering data to learn about the world, and it also is involved in changing it, bringing forth new relationships and new ways of being.

Multiple parties behind and across the table: A role-play simulation of parallel, competitive order negotiations for training B2B sales professionals

For a couple of years, customer firms have been inviting shortlisted suppliers to so-called ‘supplier days’, where they negotiate potential deal proposals in parallel with the competing suppliers. We describe these parallel, competitive order negotiations (PCONs) and thereby introduce them to the academic B2B community. Supplier salespeople are regularly overwhelmed by these practices and require more and more specific training. We review the literature on effective salespersons' skills training with a focus on sales negotiation and then present a role-play simulation of PCONs for training purposes, called “Lithium Ion Battery”, developed in close cooperation between the academic and practitioner authors. We discuss learning objectives of the simulation, closely linked to the characteristics of PCONs, and then present the simulation set-up including the cover story, negotiable issues, involved parties, and simulation procedures. We disclose our simulation development, testing, and application, and discuss challenges encountered on the way. Running the simulation in corporate and Executive MBA trainings shows a high degree of external validity and participant buy-in. Preliminary evidence of training evaluation is also positive. We conclude that the presented simulation is a valuable and suitable training device.

Promoting organic food production through flagship regions

AbstractMitigating the environmental impact of agriculture is a major issue in negotiations on the future of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. Organic farming is commonly put forward in these discussions as a promising way to reduce the negative environmental impact of agriculture. Consequently, different promotional strategies aiming at the adoption of organic farming practices have been developed. In 2013, the German federal state of Bavaria initiated an innovative programme that resulted in ‘organic flagship regions’ being appointed in the years that followed. These regions are allocated support with the main goal of motivating farmers to switch to organic production. By applying a difference-in-differences estimator, we evaluate whether the programme has achieved its aims, i.e. whether more farmers have adopted organic farming practices within the flagship regions as compared to farmers outside such regions. The Theory of Planned Behaviour provides the conceptual framework to identify the main factors influencing a farmer's decision to go organic. Our results suggest that the programme fails to motivate farmers to switch to organic production and that there is a need to more effectively target decision-influencing factors.

Best Practices for Managing Dispersed Teams

Virtual teams have become increasingly common, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Various industries and organizations have transitioned to working remotely, and project management is no exception. Incorporating a dispersed team into the context of international projects further affects the project implementation, creating both benefits and challenges. This study examines the topic of international project management within dispersed teams and focuses on five core challenges, including: 1) language and communication issues, 2) time zone differences, 3) sociocultural differences, 4) motivation and negotiation issues, and 5) political issues. Using the five challenges as a foundation, study authors conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with project managers of diverse backgrounds to shed light on their experiences. Key findings from the interviews and scholarly research were utilized to generate best practices for project managers of dispersed teams spearheading global projects.

The use of Game Theory to solve conflicts in the project management and construction industry

A typical construction project involves a wide range of disparate professionals, in many cases geographically distributed, working together for a relatively short period of time on the design and construction of a facility. Since organizations are becoming flatter, culturally rich, geographically diverse and intensely competitive, the possibilities for conflict in such environments are greater. Negotiation is an important aspect of a project and plays an important role in resolving claims, preventing disputes, and keeping a harmonious relationship between project participants. Part of any project manager’s role as a leader is to recognize conflict, understand the sources of conflict and manage it, and to do this a project manager must be able to understand the basics of negotiation theory and have sufficient competencies to lead in such situations. To address the complex technical and human issues in negotiation, different negotiation theories and models are available which mainly include game theory, economic theory, and behavior theory. Since Game Theory provides, by its very nature, the appropriate tools for the analysis and eventual solution of conflicts of any kind, this paper uses a model based on Game Theory in order to identify the activities that are responsible for the delays in a project and divide the costs among them.

A Survey on Blockchain Acquainted Software Requirements Engineering: Model, Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Directions

Requirements are the basis of software development practices. Ambiguities in requirements lead a project to a point of failure or penalize it with a high budget and time for defect traceability. The ever-growing demand for advanced computing systems has increased the complexity of Software Requirements Engineering (SRE) practices. Blockchain systems require specialized SRE practices as the issues of Requirement Traceability (RT), developer/client confidentiality, and Requirement Negotiation (RN) typically exist in conventional approaches, which require more improvement. Moreover, blockchain technology incorporates the capacity to function as an infrastructure for the SRE framework providing transparency, security, and reliability. Even though the significance of studying blockchain in the context of SRE is evident, it is still in its infancy. None of the previous studies surveyed this domain to the best of our knowledge. We aim to summarize the scholarly contributions of blockchain acquainted SRE from 2015 to 2021 and to provide academia and practitioners with in-depth knowledge about this domain. In this article, we have provided a novel comprehensive review of the aspects of blockchain-acquainted SRE practices. We have presented SRE-based quality improvement factors and outlined the need for blockchain technology in this domain. Furthermore, we have classified SRE practices based on blockchain engineering. In addition, we have proposed a generic SRE model built on blockchain infrastructure along with its workflows. Similarly, we have provided implementation guidelines for the future development guidance of SRE applications built on blockchain technology. Finally, we have presented the current research challenges and provided future directions based on blockchain acquainted SRE.

Russian-German Relations and the Resignation of Otto von Bismarck

The resignation of the first chancellor of the German Empire, Prince Otto von Bismarck, has been studied by German historians for a long time and from various points of view, but at the same time, due to the diversity of causes and controversial consequences, it is still a debatable problem. The relevance of the history of bilateral Russian-German relations remains unchanged, and even becomes significant at the present stage of European history. No one has specifically dealt with the issue of Russian-German relations and negotiations, as well as the identification of particularly acute issues that occupied both sides in the midst of the chancellor crisis in the winter-spring of 1890, and this article is intended to fill this gap. The main sources of the work were the reports, letters and telegrams of the Russian ambassador Count P. A. Shuvalov to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire N. K. Girs, stored in a special folder in the Secret Archive of the Minister of the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI). An analysis of these documents, some of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, shows: Russia's main task was to achieve an extension of the Reinsurance Treaty, which would expired in the summer of 1890. The treaty ensured the stability of bilateral relations, which was one of the cornerstones of the security system in Central Europe and the Balkans. The more specific issue of the “Bulgarian loan” and the provocative activity of Austria-Hungary in Bulgaria, which Russia was extremely concerned about, was also connected with the Balkan region. The non-renewal of the Reinsurance Treaty, which was a result of Bismarck's resignation, marked the beginning of the rapprochement between Russia and France and, consequently, the folding of the Entente, which meant that the main Bismarck's fear — the “nightmare of coalitions” — came true and the further narrowing of mutually beneficial contacts between Russia and Germany, which single-handedly were the guarantee of peace in Europe.

How cognitive issue bracketing affects interdependent decision-making in negotiations

In this article, we extend theorizing on how actors in individual decision-making situations deal with multiple choices (choice bracketing) in an important joint, interdependent decision-making context—that is, negotiations. Based on the insights on choice bracketing, we posit that parties handle the complexity of multi-issue decision-making by cognitively grouping issues into separate subsets (issue bracketing). To systematically investigate this issue-bracketing process and elucidate its effects on interdependent parties' perceptions, behavior, and the quality of their agreements, we made competing propositions as to how parties would deal with varying numbers of negotiation issues: When facing a higher number of issues, parties may (1) bracket few(er) issues into more subsets, thereby resulting in (a) inadvertent scattering of integrative issues across issue subsets, (b) impaired exploration of integrative potential, and (c) a lower quality of joint decision outcomes. In stark contrast, parties could (2) bracket more issues into few(er) subsets, thereby resulting in (a) pooling of integrative issues within issue subsets, (b) facilitated exploration of integrative potential, and (c) higher-quality outcomes. We tested these predictions in one non-interactive and three interactive experiments (Ntotal = 815) using statistical and experimental mediation analyses. Results consistently revealed that negotiators facing more issues bracketed few issues into more subsets rather than more issues into fewer subsets. In turn, this narrow issue bracketing resulted in a scattering effect of the integrative issues and ultimately a lower integrative quality of decision outcomes. Findings are corroborated via an internal meta-analysis, and their theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

Behavioral Analysis in International Business Negotiations Based on the Bargaining Model of Game Theory

In the process of global digital trade rules negotiation, game and cooperation coexist, and all parties are actively seeking cooperative relationship while negotiating game. Against this background, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the negotiation process of global digital trade rules and analyzes the core issues of the negotiations and their implied political game. This paper firstly compares the core issues of global digital trade rules negotiations at multilateral and regional levels and quantitatively reflects the weighting relationship between core issues and keywords by means of a dynamic thematic model. In order to judge the potential partnership of each country, this paper constructs a theoretical model of partner selection for global digital trade rules negotiation from the perspective of political game and uses the data of 62 major digital trade countries for empirical testing. Compared with traditional trade agreements, the consensus reached in digital trade negotiations is less influenced by traditional economic geography factors and more influenced by the level of digital trade restrictions and political distance. When signing digital trade terms, a country tends to choose countries with similar levels of digital trade restrictions and high political similarity as partners. Financial restrictions and trade restrictions are the most important digital trade restriction factors that countries pay attention to when negotiating, and political stability is the most important political factor that countries pay attention to when negotiating. Compared with developed countries, developing countries pay more attention to market size, cultural differences, and digital infrastructure when negotiating. The formulation of global digital trade rules may follow a reconstructive path from bilateral to regional to multilateral, promoting regional digital trade rule systems at this stage and gradually expanding the scope of negotiations to the multilateral level.

The limits of information revelation in multilateral negotiations: A theory of treatymaking

States negotiate over the specific terms of multilateral treaties because those terms determine states’ willingness to ratify the treaty. In some cases, a state might decline to ratify a treaty it otherwise supports because specific terms are too far from those it prefers. States and inter-governmental organizations negotiating treaties would like to uncover the minimal terms needed to secure the ratification of key states, but under what circumstances will those states candidly reveal those terms? Using a spatial representation of the issues in a treaty negotiation, we use mechanism design to determine what information states will reveal in a treaty negotiation. We find that states are willing to reveal how they would like tradeoffs between different issues to be resolved but not the minimal terms they require for ratification. Further, negotiations cannot always separate types that need concessions to ratify from other types that would like concessions but would ratify the treaty even if they do not receive them. These findings provide insight into how treaty negotiations can succeed or fail, and they lay the theoretical groundwork for a new line of empirical research on how multilateral treaties are negotiated.

Future Issues of International Negotiation

Future Issues of International Negotiation

Optimally manage the energy between electric vehicle charging stations and electricity distribution system: A hybrid technique

AbstractIn this manuscript, the energy trading model is proposed for investigating the cooperative benefits between several electric vehicle charging stations (EVCSs) and integrated energy systems (IES) based on hybrid system. The proposed hybrid system is combination of Radial‐Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) and artificial transgender longicorn algorithm (ATLA), hence it is called RBFNN‐ATLA technique. Initially, the RBFNN approach manages the energy between IES and EVCSs. After that, the original issue breaks down into the main energy trade and payment negotiation issue. The energy trading issue and payment negotiation problem can be solved using ATLA approach. This proposed structure may not only diminish the IES cost, however also enlarge the EVCS profit. The uncertainties in electricity and renewable energy prices are modeled using a robust optimization technique. Additionally, the integrated demand response is modeled for maximizing operational performance. The distributed algorithm depends on the proposed technique is evolved for solving the issue of energy trading, ensuring the privacy of players. The proposed algorithm may obtain the global optimal solutions devoid of adjusting the parameter compared with existing algorithm. The proposed system is performed by the matrix laboratory (MATLAB)/Simulink and the performance is evaluated with other existing methods. The RBFNN‐ATLA method reduces the cost up to 3.76%, 7.793%, 8.210% and 9.01% for independent and cooperative mode. The experimental outcomes demonstrate that the proposed system can accurately detect that optimal global solution.

New Perspectives on Issue Analysis—One‐Sided Preferences as a Strategic Source in Multi‐Issue Negotiations

Researchers have shown that structuring issues and organizing an agenda before a negotiation lead to improved negotiation performance. By using issue analysis, negotiators become aware of their own and their opponents’ preferences on negotiation issues and are able to use this knowledge to optimize their degree of success. Following research on asymmetrical preferences in negotiations, we introduce a new approach for issue analysis that considers the identification of one‐sided preferences, specifically a 0‐preference for issues from one party. We conducted an experimental study to test if this type of preference for an issue (chance issue) yields strategic potential for a negotiator. We also examined whether the identification of these chance issues could be particularly relevant for a low‐power party in negotiations with a power imbalance, to overcome the lower scope of action due to the weaker negotiating position. The results indicate initial verification that no preference at all for one issue could lead to higher individual performance and noneconomic outcomes. Joint performance was positively affected by 0‐preference, even in unbalanced power situations.

Distribution slack allocation algorithm for energy aware task scheduling in cloud datacenters

Regarding the ever-increasing development of data and computational centers due to the contribution of high-performance computing systems in such sectors, energy consumption has always been of great importance due to CO2 emissions that can result in adverse effects on the environment. In recent years, the notions such as “energy” and also “Green Computing” have played crucial roles when scheduling parallel tasks in datacenters. The duplication and clustering strategies, as well as Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) techniques, have focused on the reduction of the energy consumption and the optimization of the performance parameters. Concerning scheduling Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of a datacenter processors equipped with the technique of DVFS, this paper proposes an energy- and time-aware algorithm based on dual-phase scheduling, called EATSDCDD, to apply the combination of the strategies for duplication and clustering along with the distribution of slack-time among the tasks of a cluster. DVFS and control procedures in the proposed green system are mapped into Petri net-based models, which contribute to designing a multiple decision process. In the first phase, we use an intelligent combined approach of the duplication and clustering strategies to run the immediate tasks of DAG along with monitoring the throughput by concentrating on the reduction of makespan and the energy consumed in the processors. The main idea of the proposed algorithm involves the achievement of a maximum reduction in energy consumption in the second phase. To this end, the slack time was distributed among non-critical dependent tasks. Additionally, we cover the issues of negotiation between consumers and service providers at the rate of μ based on Green Service Level Agreement (GSLA) to achieve a higher saving of the energy. Eventually, a set of data established for conducting the examinations and also different parameters of the constructed random DAG are assessed to examine the efficiency of our proposed algorithm. The obtained results confirms that our algorithm outperforms compared the other algorithms considered in this study.

The intractability of loss and damage issues in climate negotiations

The impacts of human-induced climate change are manifested through losses and damages incurred due to the increasing frequency and intensity of climatic disasters all over the world. Low-income countries who have contributed the least in causing climate change, and have low financial capability, are the worst victims of this. However, since the inception of the international climate regime under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), loss and damage has been a politically charged issue. It took about two decades of pushing by the vulnerable developing countries for the agenda to formally anchor in the climate negotiations text. This was further solidified through establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) and inclusion of stand-alone Article 8 on loss and damage in the Paris Agreement. Its institutionalisation has only done the groundwork of addressing loss and damage however - the key issue of finance for loss and damage and other matters has remained largely unresolved to date – particularly since Article 8 does not have any provision for finance. This has been due to the climate change-causing wealthy developed nations' utter disregard for their formal obligations in the climate regime as well as their moral obligation. In this article, we tease out the central controversies that underpin the intractability of this agenda at the negotiations of the UNFCCC. We begin by giving a walk-through of the concept and history of loss and damage in the climate regime. Then we present a brief account of losses and damages occurring in the face of rising temperature, and highlight the key issues of contention, focusing on the more recent developments. Finally, we conclude by suggesting some way forward for the twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP26) taking place in Glasgow, UK in November 2021.

Fuzzy Representation of Principal's Preferences in Inspire Negotiation Support System.

We consider the negotiation problem, in which an agent negotiates on behalf of a principal. Our considerations are focused on the Inspire negotiation support system in which the principal’s preferences are visualised by circles. In this way, the principal describes the importance of each negotiation issue and the relative utility of each considered option. The paper proposes how this preference information may be implemented by the agent for determining a scoring function used to support decisions throughout the negotiation process. The starting point of our considerations is a discussion regarding the visualisation of the principal’s preferences. We assume here that the importance of each issue and the utility of each option increases with the size of the circle representing them. The imprecise meaning of the notion of “circle size” implies that in a considered case, the utility of an option should be evaluated by a fuzzy number. The proposed utility fuzzification is justified by a simple analysis of results obtained from the empirical prenegotiation experiment. A novel method is proposed to determine trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, which evaluates an option’s utility using a series of answers given by the participants of the experiment. The utilities obtained this way are applied to determine the fuzzy scoring function for an agent. By determining such a common generalised fuzzy scoring system, our approach helps agents handle the differences in human cognitive processes associated with understanding the principal’s preferences. This work is the first approach to fuzzification of the preferences in the Inspire negotiation support system.

The Art and Science of Negotiation – An Analysis

While the issue of negotiation has long been considered important in a variety of individual, group, societal and cross-country settings, this issue has acquired greater significance of late. This paper examines differing schools of thought and brings into focus the kind of cross-cutting strategic research done in this area. It highlights the basic principles of negotiation techniques and identifies strategies and sequential stages for effective negotiation. An attempt is also made to look at common mistakes in negotiation and place matters in perspective.