Negotiation Simulation Research Articles

The GlobalEd Project: Gender differences in a problem-based learning environment of international negotiations

The GlobalEd Project employs a technology richenvironment for high school students who wishto participate in a simulation of internationalrelations and negotiation. A simulationconsists of negotiations on a variety ofinternational policy issues conducted bystudents from 10–15 schools through anInternet-based interface. This study reportsthe findings of 234 high school participants'changes in academic and technologyself-efficacy skills, as well as knowledge,attitudes and behaviors related to academicpreparation and performance, the use ofeducational technology, and associated outcomesfrom participating in a simulation ofinternational relations. The results arediscussed in terms of the current literature onself-efficacy and gender differences incognitive process.

NEGOTIATION ROLE‐PLAY EXERCISE: “WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE, BUT NOT A DROP TO DRINK:” THE RICHLAND‐RIVER CITY DISPUTE

A six‐day negotiation simulation was developed from newspaper articles and interviews with elected officials. In this integrative bargaining exercise, participants assume the role of either the Richland Town Board or the River City Mayor's Office and attempt to resolve a conflict between the two governments. Several homeowners in the unincorporated town of Richland have had their wells fail and have asked to annex into River City. Richland officials want to stop such annexations and instead purchase water from River City. River City officials want to annex as much of Richland as possible and prevent it from incorporating. Both sides are provided with common information as well as confidential information. Using their information, they must negotiate over several days, seeking an agreement that addresses each side's interests and concerns.

IT'S BETTER WITH A BATNA: THE FLOURTOWN FARMS EXERCISE

Flourtown Farms is a salary negotiation simulation developed to demonstrate the importance of obtaining a good ??TNA (Best Altentative to a Negotiated Agreement) prior to engaging in negotiation with one's counterpart. This exercise teaches quickly and effectively that well defined, reasonable, and in‐place BATNA s are both strategically and emotionally beneficial to the negotiator. Individuals attempting to negotiate without one will do so to their own disadvantage.

BUILDING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN NEGOTIATIONS

With the increased emphasis on emotions in negotiation, an exercise is presented which can be used with a simulated negotiation to develop emotional skills. Linking research on the role of emotions in negotiation to emotional intelligence, we propose a set of activities to develop greater awareness, understanding, and ability to manage emotions while negotiating. The teaching note explains how to use two worksheets, one before and one during the simulation. Headings on the worksheets correspond to levels of emotional intelligence. Suggestions for debriefing along with supporting literature are provided.

Spirals of Trust: Identifying the Factors that Shape and Sustain Trust in Negotiation

Two experiments tested the relationship between first impressions and trust in simulated negotiations. Experiment 1 tested the impact of Social Motive and Behavioral Consistency on trust and impressions in a 2-party negotiation. Negotiators established a positive cycle of trust in which initial impressions and trust predicted later impressions and trust. Initial trust was higher and impressions were more positive when negotiators had a cooperative, rather than an individualistic, social motive. They remained stable when the other party (a confederate) displayed behavioral consistency, but changed in response to behavioral inconsistency. Both worsened if the other party changed from cooperation to competition, but improved if the change was from competition to cooperation. Experiment 2 tested the relationship between trust, impressions and outcomes in a 3-party negotiation that manipulated negotiators' power. Analyses again demonstrated a positive cycle of trust, although the strength with which this cycle emerged varied with negotiators' power. Identification based trust predicted the high and low power parties' outcomes, whereas knowledge based trust predicted the medium power party's outcome. A more detailed analysis showed that a complex network of trust relationships determined outcome share, which was predicted not only by who was trusted but also by who was distrusted.

Thinking Deep and Feeling Good: Cognitive Motivation and Positive Affect in Negotiations

This paper examines how cognitive motivation and positive affect influence outcome in integrative dyadic negotiations. The cognitive motivation and positive affect of sixty-four participants were measured prior to a simulated negotiation. Results showed both cognitive motivation and positive affect to be positively related to outcome. The effects interacted with role (seller or buyer) and differed across levels of analysis. We discuss these results and their implications for further research on cognition and affect in negotiations.

The Dissatisfaction of Having Your First Offer Accepted: The Role of Counterfactual Thinking in Negotiations

In this article, the authors explore the role of individuals’ counterfactual thoughts in determining their satisfaction with negotiated outcomes. When negotiators’ first offers are immediately accepted, negotiators are more likely to generate counterfactual thoughts about how they could have done better and therefore are less likely to be satisfied with the agreement than are negotiators whose offers are not accepted immediately. This reduction in satisfaction emerged even when the objective outcomes of negotiators whose first offers were immediately accepted were equal to or better than the outcomes of negotiators whose first offers were not immediately accepted. Evidence for a disconnect between objective outcomes and evaluations emerged in two scenario experiments and a simulated negotiation. The final experiment explored the functional and dysfunctional consequences of counterfactual activation following the immediate acceptance of first offers. Upward counterfactual thoughts were positively related to the amount of preparation for a subsequent negotiation; on the other hand, upward counterfactual thoughts were negatively correlated with the likelihood of making future first offers.

Simulation in International Relations Education

For the past 50 years, scholars and practitioners of international relations have used simulations as experimental, predictive, and educational tools to model real-world environments. This article will focus on the educational applications of simulations in international relations (IR), first reviewing the development of IR simulations and then tracing this history by examining the International Communication and Negotiation Simulations (ICONS) Project at the University of Maryland as a representative example of this genre. It will examine in particular the use of information technologies in facilitating and delivering simulations, and conclude with a brief discussion of how computer-assisted simulations have, in some cases, anticipated trends in the real world of diplomacy, and in others, attempted to respond to new trends.

An Evaluation of Two Mediation Techniques, Negotiator Power, and Culture in Negotiation1

This study examines the effects of 4 factors in a mediated transfer‐pricing negotiation: (a) the mediator's suggestion that negotiators have concern for the other (opposing) negotiator; (b) the mediator's proposal of moderate goals; (c) negotiator power; and (d) culture. In the simulated negotiations that were mediated by a corporate official, participants were 374 subjects from Hong Kong and the United States. Negotiators obtained lower joint outcomes when urged by the mediator to show concern for the other than when not given this admonition. When the mediator proposed moderate (vs. high) goals, the negotiators received lower joint outcomes but had a higher opinion of the mediator. While we expected negotiator power (equal vs. unequal) to interact with suggested concern for the other, it did so only for the negotiators' individual outcomes. Finally, culture produced a main effect: Hong Kong negotiators obtained higher joint outcomes than did their U. S. counterparts.

Brit Trips—Midway Hotel: A Simulated Negotiation

Brit Trips—Midway Hotel: A Simulated Negotiation

Socofrance, S. A.: An American and French Negotiation Simulation

In this negotiation simulation, students assume roles on a French or an American management team or as observers/evaluators. The two management teams negotiate the introduction of a new product into the European market. This simulation reveals the cross-cultural issues in French-American negotiations and related international negotiations. It demonstrates such negotiation concepts as integrative versus distributive bargaining, relative power of the negotiating parties, cultural noise in negotiations, bargaining skills, and shortversus long-term relationships of the negotiating parties.

Questioning Behaviour in Monocultural and Intercultural Technical Business Negotiations: The Dutch—Spanish Connection

This article addresses the issue of asking questions as an important element of international business negotiation where there are differences in cultural background. A Dutch-Spanish difference in questioning was related to differences between the two parties in uncertainty reduction and negotiation goals. All 480 questions in 8 simulated Kelley game negotiations were reviewed: both monocultural (3 Dutch-Dutch in Dutch and 2 Spanish-Spanish in Spanish) and intercultural (3 Spanish-Dutch in English), i.e. 2 cultures and 3 languages (average duration of 30 min of recording per negotiation). This analysis may also allow an illustration of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Sapir, 1949 and Whorf, 1956) which holds, at least in its weak version, that culture frames language and language frames culture. It may also be possible to determine the extent to which intercultural differences between Dutch and Spanish questioning behaviours - assuming they can be ascertained in comparison with monocultural Dutch and Spanish behaviour - are language bound. In other words, do negotiators use a different typology of questions in their native language (L1: Dutch or Spanish) than in a neutral language (L2)? A comparison of the monocultural and intercultural data makes it possible to illustrate the above hypothesis, and to establish how far the L1-culture connection differs from that of the L2-culture. For another similar test on culture-language relations in South African mathematics texts and their readers, see Prins and Ulijn (1998). The uncertainty reduction theory (UR) of Berger (1979) and the negotiation models developed by Fisher and Ury (1981) and Mastenbroek (1989) are related to question behaviour, which is analysed with the Verbal Response Mode Taxonomy of Stiles (1981). Pre- and post-negotiation questionnaires (using Likert-scales) were developed and administered to relate the results of the linguistic analysis to the perceptions of the negotiators in order to test the ecological validity of UR. Asking questions appeared to be a critical success factor in both monocultural and intercultural business negotiation on the basis of their relation with UR variables and Kelley game profit levels, but in a different sense to Gudykunst et al. (see Gudykunst, 1985, 1988; Gudykunst and Nishida, 1984), who suggest that questions reduce uncertainty by increasing attributional confidence in a general way, seemingly irrespective of a national cultural background (see Van Dalen, 1995). In this study the Dutch, starting from a higher level of issue-related global confidence, used questions significantly less than the Spanish to attribute confidence to the person, indicating a cultural difference. Most questioning differences appeared to be language - as well as culture-bound. The Spanish asked significantly more for acknowledgement, and the Dutch asked more indirect questions with disclosure, but the two groups did not differ in global uncertainty and attributional confidence after their negotiations. They seemed to reduce uncertainty by adopting a passive, unobtrusive observation strategy. It may be that the type of information needed to become more confident depends on the communicator's personality rather than on his or her cultural background. Dutch and Spanish managers would therefore be advised to balance openness and vagueness to reach their negotiation goals in maximizing profits by using a combination of clear and ambiguous questions and answers and to be aware of the linguistic differences in questioning between Spanish and Dutch, which may even be carried over to English when it is used as a tool of communication.

The influence of individualism/collectivism on Mexican and US business negotiation

This paper provides empirical evidence that tests prevailing ideas about how Mexican and US negotiators are likely to behave according to the individualist/collectivist model of cultural variation. Content analysis (Walcott and Hoppman’s Bargaining Process Analysis) methodology was used to analyze transcripts of Mexican and US negotiation simulations and to examine which Bargaining Process Analysis dimensions characterize US and Mexican (in-group) business negotiation. This paper demonstrates that Mexican negotiators may choose different behavioral dimensions than US negotiators when negotiating.

Less pain, same gain: The effects of priming fairness in price negotiations

This research demonstrates that, by priming a consideration for fairness, a seller can increase a buyer's satisfaction without sacrificing profit. In simulated negotiations, participants primed to consider fairness demonstrated more cooperative behavior, making greater concessions that led to faster agreement. Fairness-primed buyers consequently had a more positive attitude toward the seller and expressed significantly greater positive subjective disconfirmation of their expectations. These results show how self-interest and social utility can work in concert once a concern for fairness is activated. The results support the Models of Social Utility and Group Identification and confirm the Expectancy Disconfirmation Model of Negotiations. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Look at Me When You Say That: An Electronic Negotiation Simulation

This article extends the growing body of research on computer-mediated communication to a negotiations setting. The author compares face-to-face negotiation outcomes with computermediated negotiation outcomes using an integrative (win-win) negotiation. There were two main results of interest. First, computer-mediated final agreements are somewhat more integrative than those negotiated face-to-face, suggesting there is no efficiency loss from negotiating long distance using information technology. Second, computer-mediated agreements tend to be significantly more equal than face-to-face agreements.

Negotiating in the United States and Hong Kong

We propose that cultural values (self-enhancement, self-transcendences, conservatism, and openness to change) provide a social environment where some negotiation strategies are selected to survive over others. These selected negotiation strategies become normative. Results from a negotiation simulation in the United States and Hong Kong indicate that U.S. negotiators are more likely to subscribe to self-interest and joint problems solving norms, and Hong Kong Chinese negotiators are more likely to subscribe to an equality norm. Further, U.S. negotiators report more satisfaction when they maximize joint gain and Hong Kong Chinese negotiators are happier when they achieve outcome parity. The reported norms and outcome evaluations are consistent with the value profiles of the two cultures. The implications of these cultural differences are discussed in terms of expanding U.S. based negotiation theory.

A Multi-Method Examination of Buyer-Seller Interactions among Japanese and American Businesspeople

Edward T. Hall (1976) and others have told us that status and role are more important considerations in Japan than in the United States. Specifically addressed in this study is the moderating effect of culture on the relationships between negotiators’ roles (buyer or seller) and their behaviors and outcomes. A laboratory negotiation simulation was conducted with more than 200 Japanese and American businesspeople as participants, and several of the simulated negotiations were videotaped for subsequent content and sociolinguistic analyses. The integration of findings supports Hall's notion that in Japan hierarchy is more important, and indeed, Japanese buyers receive greater deference from sellers.

Interest Alignment and Coalitions in Multiparty Negotiation

This study tested hypotheses developed from the distinct literatures on negotiations and coalitions and hypotheses integrating the two. In a complex, three-person negotiation simulation, subjects h...

INTEREST ALIGNMENT AND COALITIONS IN MULTIPARTY NEGOTIATION.

This study tested hypotheses developed from the distinct literatures on negotiations and coalitions and hypotheses integrating the two. In a complex, three-person negotiation simulation, subjects h...

Using Simulation as a Tool to Teach About International Negotiation

AbstractThis article focuses on the use of simulations as a tool to teach students about international negotiations. The basic premise is that simulations can be an effective teaching tool because they engage students and make them active participants in the learning process. The objective of these simulations is not to train students to be professional negotiators, but rather to provide a solid grounding which will enable them to better understand the process of international negotiation. Although there can be problems associated with using simulations, I argue that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. In this article, ICONS, a computer-assisted simulation of international negotiation, is compared with different approaches to teaching about international negotiations, including other simulations which do not involve the use of technology.