Negotiation Rules Research Articles

Globalization at bay? Multinational growth and technology spillover

PurposeFocuses on a specific aspect of globalization, namely the growing role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in the international organisation of production and innovation.Design/methodology/approachArgues that the nature and characteristics of international production are changing and new opportunities for technological spillover to host economies are associated to this change. However the available evidence on the actual economic impact of multinational expansion is shaky and contradictory. This seems to have led to a sort of deadlock in the current debate, which is much too often blocked in a sterile juxtaposition between pro‐global and anti‐global views based on rather weak empirical grounds.FindingsThe fact that there is limited uncontroversial evidence of positive effects of international production may have to do with the lack of institutional tools available to govern the globalization process. In other words, what is missing is a set of negotiated rules and institutions enabling the economies involved in international production activities to capture and share the potential benefits associated to it.Originality/valueSingles out the areas wherein new institutions are needed, and provides a few insights on some of the issues these institutions should address.

Contrasting effects of reduced incubation cost on clutch attendance by male and female European starlings

AbstractIn biparental birds, the relative contribution of the sexes to parental care can be viewed as a co-operative equilibrium that reflects the relative costs and benefits to each parent. If there are asymmetries in these costs or benefits, then any changes to the cost of care could result in a corresponding adjustment to their relative contribution. Incubation is a parental activity, shared in many species, which is costly both in terms of energy expenditure and time. In this study we manipulated the cost of incubation for pairs of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) by experimentally warming selected clutches to examine how this affected attendance by each parent. We found that total nest attendance did not differ between heated and control nests, although there was some evidence among heated nests that attendance declined with increasing effectiveness of the heater. Furthermore, relative male contribution was greater at heated than control nests resulting from the net effect of females tending to reduce, and males increase, attendance. We suggest that this shift in relative attendance may have been observed because females have a more developed brood patch and are more sensitive and responsive to clutch temperature than males. Consequently, females tended to reduce attendance at heated nests while males, with less reliable information on the clutch's thermal status, increased attendance to compensate for the reduction by the female. We also found that females at heated nests were lighter than at control nests, possibly because they were able to shed the additional fat reserves, a characteristic of incubating birds, earlier than females at control nests. We suggest that adjustment of clutch temperature in biparental species provides a valuable approach to investigating factors, including functional differences, asymmetries in brood value, and parental negotiation rules, that shape the roles of the sexes in incubation.

Formal Rules and Complex Negotiations: A New Theoretical Insight With a Psychoanalytical Lense

In organizational theories as well as in negotiation theories, formal rules and the frame they form have not been studied in depth, even regarding complex negotiations which often remain intractable. In this paper, we begin by looking at the literature in both fields regarding formal rules and frames. The quasi-absence of research appears to come from the definition of rationality used by researchers: Simon's bounded rationality. We propose another definition of rationality which takes into account unconscious phenomena, inspired by psychoanalysis. We also conceptualize the negotiation frame and rules through this psychoanalytic lens. Here, formal rules and frames play a founding role in the negotiations helping the parties to accept their ambivalence and destructiveness. Contained by the negotiation's rules and a facilitator, the parties reduce their resistance stances, projections and repetitions; these phenomena impeding creativity in negotiations and the reaching of an agreement. Afterwards, we illustrate our theoretical proposal analyzing the movie Thirteen Days, on the Cuba Missile Crisis. We chose several key extracts to give meaning to the parties' interactions. We can see that, paradoxically, when the parties accept their unrational behaviors, it allows them to increase their rational ones.

Communication and Renegotiation

In a bilateral monopoly, we are looking at the seller's incentives to propose an improved widget design under two different negotiation rules. With Renegotiation, the players negotiate a price after a design has been agreed upon, and with Commitment, they negotiate the price beforehand. The comparison depends on two effects. (1) Bargaining power: Since communication reveals information about his preferences, a seller with little bargaining power may prefer to remain quiet in anticipation of ex post negotiation. (2) Incentive transfer: If the gains from adjustment are large, ex post negotiation gives the seller a chance to share the gains. On balance, Renegotiation is better when adjustments are rare but large, while Commitment is better when adjustments are frequent but small. The comparison might help explain why some contracts have more features left incomplete and throw some light on the nature of the employment relationship.

“Parity of Esteem”: A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Peace Processes, with a South African Case Study

In the first part of this article a conceptual framework for assessing the durability of negotiated peace settlements is developed. The framework elaborates on approaches that hold that dealing with issues of relative group status is central to the effectiveness of negotiated settlements. The dynamics of post-settlement competition, the negotiated rules that shape such competition, and the impact of competitive outcomes on inter-group status, whether adverse or positive, is explored. It is argued that peace settlements with rules that shape competition in such a way that both parity of outcomes and parity of esteem can be achieved will be more durable. Parity of esteem is achieved to the extent that competitive rules inhibit stakeholders from drawing invidious comparisons from competitive outcomes. The second part of the article comprises a case study of South Africa. A descriptive analysis is made of a particular set of rules that emanate from the 1993/96 negotiated settlement. The competitive arena is the employment market and the rules of affirmative action. The case study centers on a ruling in a case brought to the South African Labor Court by the Solidarity Trade Union. The case illustrates the emergence of invidious comparisons, the dynamics of in-group and out-group interaction, the construction and reconstruction of identities, and the shifting equilibrium of relative group status. In conclusion, it is found that the current rules shaping this competitive situation inhibit the emergence of parity of esteem.

Principled negotiation: a new tool for case advocacy.

Many methods of social work practice, including brokering, case advocacy, and cause advocacy, require the social worker to engage in negotiations to resolve disputes. This article demonstrates how principled negotiation, a form of negotiating developed out of the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard University and used widely in the business and legal world, can be an effective tool in social work practice. Principled negotiation is especially consonant with the value base of social work because it strives for the just and mutually beneficial resolution of conflicts while acknowledging the value and importance of ongoing relationships. A case example applying the rules of principled negotiation is described in the context of case advocacy. Its application to other social work practice methods is also examined.

Multilateral trade negotiations, bilateral opportunism and the rules of GATT/WTO

Trade negotiations occur through time and between the governments of many countries. An important issue is thus whether the value of concessions that a government wins in a current negotiation may be eroded in a future bilateral negotiation to which it is not party. We identify rules of negotiation that serve to protect the welfare of governments that are not participating in the bilateral negotiation. Our main finding is that the two central principles of GATT/WTO—nondiscrimination (MFN) and reciprocity—preserve the welfare of nonparticipating governments and therefore offer a “first-line of defense” against bilateral opportunism.

Negotiation Support Agent Based on Fuzzy Decision Making by Genetic Programming with the Coupled Chaos System

This paper describes a negotiation agent system based on the fuzzy decision making. The method of seeking appropriate membership functions and a reasonable agreement point was examined by means of the genetic programming technique with the coupled chaos system, which is an intelligent principle. The negotiation rule is based on the negotiation model expressed by the utility theory in the process of decision making. And the concession process was modified with the opponent’s movement and the persistence of each negotiator. In order to search for a membership function more efficiently, the dynamic state of symbiosis between individuals, which was caused by the coupled chaos system, was taken advantage of. Then the effectiveness of the technique was examined by applying it to a practical negotiation case which needs cooperative decision making. As a result, the following findings were obtained. This technique helps discover practicable membership functions in a vast search area, and achieve the solution search with high efficiency. This technique is also considered to be applied to the negotiation support easily.

Rules for participation and negotiation and their possible influence on the content of a National Forest Programme

The participation of stakeholders in National Forest Programmes (NFPs) was internationally recommended by the IPF and IFF Proposals for Action. However, where rules for participation and negotiation are absent, unclear or unsuitable, substantive stakeholder involvement may be impeded. Starting from a survey of some relevant elements of rational choice, game, and negotiation theory, the paper outlines some of the problems associated with the concept of participation. Specifically, it discusses how NFP results may be influenced by the selection of participants, their self-organisation, their possible involvement in hierarchies, by co-ordination and decision rules within NFP discussion groups, and by the interrelation of these issues with participants’ bargaining power. The paper discusses how negotiations can be organised in order to surmount the obstacles to achieving a substantive participatory NFP.

Responsive bureaus, equity, and regulatory negotiation: an empirical view

AbstractRulemaking agencies commonly delegate the implementation and enforcement of rules to affected parties, but they rarely delegate rulemaking authority. Regulatory negotiation is an example of this uncommon behavior. Compared to conventional rulemaking, regulatory negotiation is thought to be an attempt to make bureaucracy more responsive to affected stakeholders, especially when the rulemaking concerns politically complicated and technical issues. However, negotiation, while it may make bureaucrats more responsive, may also be less fair in that it is likely to result in relatively more responsiveness to interests supported by those with greater resources. This study presents empirical evidence that compares negotiated to conventional rulemaking processes at the Environmental Protection Agency in respect to both responsiveness and equality. The results uphold the expectation that negotiating rules appears more responsive than the conventional rule‐writing process. Furthermore, the results show inequality in both processes; outcomes of negotiated rules may be more unequal than outcomes of conventionally written rules. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Shifting Comparative Advantage and Accession in the WTO

Motivated by the structure of WTO negotiations, we analyze a bargaining environment in which negotiations proceed bilaterally and sequentially under the most-favored-nation (MFN) principle. We identify backward-stealing and forward-manipulation problems that arise when governments bargain under the MFN principle in a sequential fashion. We show that these problems impede governments from achieving the multilateral efficiency frontier unless further rules of negotiation are imposed. We identify the WTO reciprocity norm and renegotiation provisions as rules that are capable of providing solutions to these problems. In this way, we suggest that WTO rules can facilitate the negotiation of efficient multilateral trade agreements in a world in which the addition of new and economically significant countries to the world trading system is an ongoing process.

Pretrial negotiation, litigation, and procedural rules

Pretrial negotiation, litigation, and procedural rules

Informed Consent: A Negotiated Formula for Trade in Risky Organisms and Chemicals

AbstractInformed consent is at the center of the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent and the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety. Consistent with the idea of a negotiation ``formula,'' it encapsulates the principles underlying parties' demands by balancing the efficiency of unconstrained trade with ethically charged support for autonomy and self-determination. As a negotiated rule, informed consent translates the formula into specific procedural requirements based on risk assessment. Parties' fundamental interest to enhance food security via the two treaties is used to illustrate both the principle and rule aspects of informed consent. In addition, the value of formula analysis in negotiation theory is investigated. The article supports increased attention to informed consent in international relations, to the merits of formula analysis, and to the possibility of better understanding a fundamental objective such as food security through a formula-guided analysis of these and related negotiated outcomes.

Beteiligung, Partizipation, Mitbestimmung - das Statut der Europäischen Aktiengesellschaft und der babylonische Turm europäischer Arbeitsbeziehungen

Zusammenfassung Bei den Mitte 1997 vorgestellten Vorschlägen der Expertengruppe unter Vorsitz von Etienne Davignon für ein “Statut der Europäischen Aktiengesellschaft” geht es um die Präsenz und die Rechte von Arbeitnehmervertretern in den Leitungsorganen der zukünftigen Europäischen Aktiengesellschaften. Obwohl die Davignon-Gruppe beim Lösungskonzept (Verhandlung plus Auffangregelung) sehr klug handelte, sind die vorgeschlagenen Begriffbestimmungen von “Beteiligung”, “Partizipation” und “Mitbestimmung” unhaltbar, da die qualitativen Unterschiede (Intensität) in der Partizipationsskala verloren gehen. Als wenig überzeugend und schließlich kontraproduktiv erweist sich auch der Diskurs, den die Davignon-Gruppe für nötig hielt, um dem Lösungskonzept zum Erfolg zu verhelfen. Der Autor plädiert für eine saubere Begrifflichkeil und einen darauf aufbauenden offenen Diskurs über die Mitbestimmung. Ein solcher Diskurs, nicht zuletzt auf der Gewerkschaftsseite, könnte der einzige Weg sein, um mit dem “Phantom des deutschen Modells” umzugehen.

Incorporating rules for responding into evolutionary games.

Evolutionary game theory is concerned with the evolutionarily stable outcomes of the process of natural selection. The theory is especially relevant when the fitness of an organism depends on the behaviour of other members of its population. Here we focus on the interaction between two organisms that have a conflict of interest. The standard approach to such two-player games is to assume that each player chooses a single action and that the evolutionarily stable action of each player is the best given the action of its opponent. We argue that, instead, most two-player games should be modelled as involving a series of interactions in which opponents negotiate the final outcome. Thus we should be concerned with evolutionarily stable negotiation rules rather than evolutionarily stable actions. The evolutionarily stable negotiation rule of each player is the best rule given the rule of its opponent. As we show, the action chosen as a result of the negotiation is not the best action given the action of the opponent. This conclusion necessitates a fundamental change in the way that evolutionary games are modelled.

Conflict assessment and the cape cod national seashore

AbstractOver the past several decades, the Cape Cod National Seashore has experienced a clash between interests regarding off‐road vehicle use and the protectioòn of piping plover habitat. This conflict came to a head in September 1995 when parties interested in resolving the dispute committed to a negotiated rule‐making process. Prior to the inception of the process, professional mediators conducted two conflict assessments with potential stakeholders in the rule‐making process, one in 1993 and a second in 1995. Because conflict assessment is not always attempted by mediators prior to negotiated rule making or mediation in general (Susskind, 1998), this article attempts to acknowledge the value of such an engagement to stakeholders. Here, interviews serve as the primary method by which information was collected from some of the organizations involved in the rule making. Overall research results indicate stakeholder support for the use of conflict assessment in effectively preparing them for the negotiated rule‐making process.

Ethical and Unethical Bargaining Tactics: An Empirical Study

Competitive negotiators frequently use tactics which others view as "unethical", in that these tactics either violate standards of truth telling or violate the perceived rules of negotiation. This paper sought to determine how business students viewed a number of marginally ethical negotiating tactics, and to determine the underlying factor structure of these tactics. The factor analysis of these tactics revealed five clear factors which were highly similar across the two samples, and which parallel (to a moderate degree) categories of tactics proposed by earlier theory. Data from one sample also permitted comparisons of the appropriateness of certain tactics across gender, nationality, ethnic origin and perception of one's negotiating style.

Regulatory Negotiations and Other Rulemaking Processes: Strengths and Weaknesses from an Industry Viewpoint

I participated in the Duke Law Journal's March 7, 1997 Administrative Law Conference on regulatory negotiations to provide the perspective of a negotiator who represented a trade organization in a regulatory negotiation (reg neg). The reg neg in which I participated was convened by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). I represented the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade organization that has been involved in a variety of processes (including reg negs) through which EPA has developed, or is developing, regulations. In this Article, I will describe some of API's experiences in recent EPA rulemaking processes, principally rulemakings conducted pursuant to the Clean Air Act.' Then I will present my personal views on the advantages and disadvantages of reg negs compared with other rulemaking processes from the viewpoint of an industry trade association. I represented API in a reg neg addressing the control of emission of hazardous air pollutants from equipment leaks at synthetic organic chemical plants.2 API was invited to participate in this negotiation because control of equipment leaks at refineries is in many respects similar to control of equipment leaks at chemical plants, and API was advised that the negotiated rule for chemical plants (assuming the negotiations were successful) would

A cross‐cultural study of Korean and American students’ schemata and cultural rules for negotiations

Asian students comprise one of the largest groups of international students to complete their higher education in the US. In adapting to increasingly diverse classes, teachers need to be aware of how different cultural norms can affect the learning process. One important factor to be influenced by different cultural rules is that of negotiation in the classroom.

The union goes to university: A training program to balance the employer's dominance in the planni of new technology and organizational development

There are several union schools in Sweden with training programs and courses for local union officers and safety representatives on negotiation techniques, agreements, rules and legislation, basic ...