Perceptions of Time and Their Impact on Negotiations in the Arabic-Speaking Islamic World

This article examines how perceptions of time affect Arabic-speaking Islamic negotiators and how their attitudes about time, and their corresponding behaviors, may differ from those of their Western counterparts. We begin by identifying cultural differences in the conceptualization of time and then comment on the role of time in negotiations, discussing how time influences bargaining, trust, and negotiation tactics. In the section on tactics, we discuss stall-and-delay tactics, the use of the past as an objective standard, and limits on negotiating the future. Our purpose is to encourage negotiators from the West to be knowledgeable about the way they, as well as negotiators from Arabic-speaking Islamic cultures, conceive of and use time in negotiations. We believe that understanding that the very concept of time is often quite different in these two cultures is an important step in facilitating negotiations that cross these cultural boundaries.     

Buyer and Seller Differences in Business‐to‐Business Negotiations

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to examine the differences between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics in face‐to‐face business‐to‐business (B2B) negotiations and second, to explore how negotiators' professed negotiation styles influence buyers' and sellers' use of tactics. The methodology is a multiple case study analysis of eighteen negotiators representing twelve companies in six real‐life buyer–seller negotiations in B2B settings analyzed using qualitative research methods, including both comparative analysis and frequency analysis. We found some difference between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics, which suggests this question deserves further empirical study. Buyers' and sellers' use of specific tactics differs according to which overall strategy the negotiators chose, and sellers generally use a greater number of negotiation tactics than buyers. The findings challenge previous findings that suggest that B2B negotiations are collaborative and that negotiators communicate in a collaborative manner. The findings also increase our understanding of buyers' and sellers' variable use of tactics in the course of everyday practice as well as the interplay between negotiation tactics and strategies.     

Making the Most of the First‐Offer Advantage: Pre‐Offer Conversation and Negotiation Outcomes

Why do some negotiators benefit from making the first offer during negotiations while others do not? This study explores the contents of conversations that take place before negotiators make their first offers in order to learn more about the differences between ultimately successful first offers that benefit from anchoring effects and ultimately unsuccessful ones in which negotiators apparently derive no benefit from making the first offer. In‐depth qualitative analyses of the conversations that role players engaged in prior to their first offers were conducted in simulated negotiation exercises. Their analysis identified five different conversational tactics that negotiators employed in one‐on‐one negotiations to gain power in the negotiation, or what they call here “power conversation tactics.” Their findings suggest that the negotiation outcome (i.e., net value) was related to how the negotiators employed and combined these tactics during the pre‐offer conversation. Based on these findings, they conceptualized four types of power‐gaining/power‐losing pre‐offer conversation scenarios and explored the link between negotiation outcomes and each of these types of pre‐offer conversations. This study further develops the literature on power dynamics and conversations in negotiations as well as the literature on the anchoring effect of a first offer.     

Negotiating in a Complex World

Drawing on the literatures on negotiation and conflict resolution as well as research on international diplomacy, the author proposes a framework for understanding complexity in real-world negotiations. Rejecting models of the process that are simplistic, sterile, or static, he argues that complexity is inherent in negotiation. In ten propositions, he lays out key dimensions of complexity and ways that skilled negotiators can manage it. The propositions focus attention on the ways negotiators create and claim value, shape perceptions and learn, work within structure and shape the structure, negotiate and mediate, link and de-link negotiations, create momentum and engineer impasses, and work outside and inside. The author also highlights the importance of organizational learning in negotiation, noting that most negotiators manage multiple negotiations in parallel, and most organizations have many negotiators doing similar things.     

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.     

The Strategic Use of Interests,Rights, and Power to Resolve Disputes

To ensure success in resolving difficult disputes, negotiators mustmake strategic decisions about their negotiation approach. In this essay,we make practical recommendations for negotiation strategy based on Ury,Brett, and Goldberg's (1993) interests, rights, and power framework fordispute resolution and subsequent empirical research by Brett, Shapiro, andLytle (1998). We discuss how negotiations cycle through interests, rights,and power foci; the prevalence of reciprocity; and the one-sided,distributive outcomes that result from reciprocity of rights and powercommunications. We then turn to using interests, rights and powerstrategically in negotiations. We discuss choosing an opening stragegy,breaking conflict spirals of reciprocated rights and power communications,and when and how to use rights and power communications effectively innegotiations.     

Culture and Negotiation: The Pedagogical Dispute Regarding Cross-Cultural Simulations

This article examines one especially challenging aspect of active-learning international studies courses—the use of cross-cultural simulations. What is the significance of culture for negotiation? What difficulties might cross-cultural negotiations pose, and how might negotiators work with cultural differences to achieve successful outcomes? Is it possible to model the effects of cultures on negotiators in a classroom role-play? What are the advantages to using cross-cultural simulations, and what difficulties do they entail? How might an instructor make best use of materials that focus on cultural issues and their effect on negotiation? When teaching students of different cultures by active-learning methods, what ought an instructor to bear in mind? What cross-cultural simulations are available, and what readings might be assigned to accompany them?     

When Negotiations Become Routine: Not Reinventing the Wheel While Thinking Outside the Box

In this article, we seek to apply the insights of recent research on routine to the context of repeated negotiations. To demonstrate the link between both concepts, we introduce an analytical framework in which we identify different negotiation situations in which routine can develop. We distinguish two dimensions of the negotiation process: a problem-solving dimension and a communication dimension. Our framework for analyzing the role of routine in negotiation is built around these two dimensions. We define those skills that we argue in repeated negotiations can help negotiators manage particular kinds of negotiations depending on the level and type of routinization that type of negotiation involves. Moreover, we demonstrate that our framework is inherently dynamic, which we illustrate with simplified business examples.     

The Curse of the Smartphone: Electronic Multitasking in Negotiations

In this study, we have explored the use of mobile phones during negotiations. Specifically, we examined the effects that multitasking — reading messages on a mobile phone while negotiating face to face — had on the outcome achieved in a negotiation, as well as on perceptions of professionalism, trustworthiness, and satisfaction. Using an experimental design in a face‐to‐face dyadic negotiation, we found that multitasking negotiators achieved lower payoffs and were perceived as less professional and less trustworthy by their partners.     

The Limited Test–Ban Agreement: Emergence of New Knowledge Structures in International Negotiation

An analysis of cognitive maps constructed from exchanges between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev on the test–ban issue suggests cultural differences in the basic knowledge structures used to represent political reality. Soviet negotiators, including Premier Khrushchev, use"processual"representations, while U.S. negotiators, including President Kennedy, use"procedural"representations. A comparison of the negotiations over time reveals the emergence of new knowledge structures that were hypothesized to facilitate an agreement on nuclear testing. A related discovery, that Kennedy and Khrushchev"translate"each other from procedural to processual and vice versa, provides additional evidence for the shared reality–building process that may be a precondition for successful negotiation.     

Hypothetical Questions as Strategic Devices in Negotiation

In this article, we analyze the use of hypothetical questions in integrative negotiation. We argue that hypothetical questions are useful devices for advancing implicit proposals and can also provide strategic argumentative support for the acceptance of a particular solution. To explain why negotiators prefer to use hypothetical questions when putting forward implicit proposals and to demonstrate how these questions fulfill negotiators' argumentative purposes, our study uses the pragma‐dialectical concept of strategic maneuvering and applies it to the analysis of a number of real‐life negotiations. We conclude by demonstrating that hypothetical questions can be effective devices for strategic maneuvering and that negotiators can employ these kinds of questions to resolve some of the rhetorical predicaments imposed by the negotiator's dilemma as well as to gain a competitive edge over their counterparts.     

Can a Dominating Orientation Enhance the Integrativeness of Negotiated Agreements?

A dominating orientation is commonly viewed as an impediment to integrative negotiation. However, a study of Norwegian and American negotiators shows that a dominating orientation may, in fact, enhance the integrative nature of some negotiations under certain circumstances. Implications for managers and negotiation trainers are discussed.     

Dealmaking Disrupted: The Unexplored Power of Social Media in Negotiation

While social media has had profound effects in many realms, the theory and practice of negotiation have remained relatively untouched by this potent phenomenon. In this article, we survey existing research in this area and develop a broader framework for understanding the wider roles and effects of social media on negotiation. Through a series of detailed case studies, we explore how social media can drive important negotiations either off the rails or toward beneficial outcomes—and how savvy practitioners can harness this often‐neglected factor to their advantage, or else find themselves outmaneuvered by more digitally sophisticated parties. Applying the lens of the “3D negotiation” approach developed by Lax and Sebenius, we describe a number of potentially decisive roles that social media can play to enhance actions by negotiators “at the table,” with respect to deal design, and “away from the table.” In this 3D context, we show how social media can help negotiators learn about their counterparts (interests, perceptions, relationships, and networks), directly and indirectly influence the parties, mobilize supporters, and neutralize potential opponents. We show that being proactive—both in cultivating digital influence or allies and in building resilience to threats across online information ecosystems—can provide critical advantages for negotiators navigating a hyperconnected world. We develop a preliminary framework to help identify the full range of platforms, tools, and methodologies appropriate for the use of social media in negotiations, including network mapping software and open‐source intelligence techniques. Throughout our analysis, we stress the importance of ethical and privacy considerations.     

Public Opinion as a Domestic Constraint in International Negotiations: Two-Level Games in the Anglo-Irish Peace Process

This article aims to broaden the theoretical foundations of the two-level games approach to understanding international negotiations by considering the conditions under which public opinion can act as a domestic constraint on the ability of international negotiators to reach agreement. In determining the role that public opinion plays, three factors are of central importance: (1) the preferences of the public relative to those of decision makers and other domestic constituents; (2) the intensity of the issue under negotiation; and (3) the power of the public to ratify a potential agreement. Evidence from the last decade of Anglo-Irish negotiations over the future and status of Northern Ireland shows that public opinion acts as a constraint on negotiators when the public has the power to directly ratify an international agreement. When the public's power to ratify an agreement is indirect, the intensity of the issue under negotiation will play a critical role in determining whether public preferences serve as a constraint on decision makers.     

Building Momentum in Negotiations: Time-Related Costs and Action-Forcing Events

Using the negotiations over the future of Northern Ireland and other case examples, the author develops a conceptual framework for analyzing how negotiators seek to build momentum and overcome stalemate. The framework focuses on the choices negotiators face between taking action and waiting in the hope that counterparts will make concessions, exploring the importance of perceptions of time-related costs and action-forcing events in shaping decision making. The framework highlights the uneven, nonlinear nature of the flow of negotiation processes from initiation to agreement or breakdown, and focuses on the ways negotiators seek to influence the flow by shaping perceptions of time-related costs, structuring action-forcing events, and creating linkages among sets of negotiations.     

The Promise and Peril of Automated Negotiators

Innovations in artificial intelligence are enabling a new class of applications that can negotiate with people through chat or spoken language. Developed in close collaboration with behavioral science research, these algorithms can detect, mimic, and leverage human psychology, enabling them to undertake such functions as the detection of common mistakes made by novice negotiators. These algorithms can simulate the cognitive processes that shape human negotiations and make use of these models to influence negotiated outcomes. This article reviews some of the scientific advances enabling this technology and discusses how it is being used to advance negotiation research, teaching, and practice.     

The Effect of Advice on Negotiations: How Advisors Influence What Negotiators Do

Studies of negotiations often overlook, or at least do not fully account for, the important role played by people who advise negotiators. Often deliberately hidden from view, advisors have important but unrecognized influence on the negotiation dynamic. In this article, I explore the roles and methods of advisors in the negotiation process, drawing on role theory and survey research conducted in 2013 among approximately seventy advisors at the European Union Council of Ministers. I define advice as “a communication from one person (the advisor) to another (the client) for the purpose of helping that second person determine a course of action for solving a particular problem” and consider the nature of this advice and the range of relationships that may exist between advisors and their clients. Advising is much more than the mere transmittal of information from advisor to negotiator and that for advice to be effective a relationship must exist between the two parties. I then identify three models of the advisor–negotiator relationship. The first is the advisor as director, wherein the advisor tends to take control of the negotiating process, directing the negotiator toward actions that she or he should take to achieve success at the negotiation. The second is the advisor as servant, in which the advisor merely responds to the demands of the client for help and guidance in the negotiation. And the third is the advisor as partner, wherein advisor and negotiator jointly manage the process and solve the problem together. Finally, I explore the factors that lead advisors and negotiators to adopt each of these three models, the various advising styles that advisors use, and the differing effects on the negotiation process that these elements may have, drawing on historical examples as well as survey data from the EU Council of Ministers.     

Improvisation and Negotiation: Expecting the Unexpected

Negotiators must improvise. As the negotiations process unfolds, they work with new information, continually making decisions along the way to achieve favorable results. Skilled improvisational jazz musicians and actors perform in similar ways: they repeatedly practice song chord progressions and notes or scene guidelines before a performance; then, during the performance, they work with the information or the music they hear in order to react and respond, making decisions along the way to produce dazzling music or a compelling scene. In this article, two experts in negotiation, a jazz-improvisation scholar, a former member of an improvisational theater troupe, and a psychotherapist versed in therapeutic improvisational techniques explore the improvisational nature of negotiation.
Several aspects of negotiation are similar to improvisation. Both negotiators and improvisational performers need to have a similar mind-set to be successful, both need to recognize and/or change that mind-set at times, and both must craft creative solutions. But there are some significant differences between improvisational performance and negotiation practice, which this article also notes. For example, personal charisma ("star quality") is a common attribute of successful performers, but not something negotiators may always rely on. Similarly, improvisational artists usually work as a team, while a negotiator is often on his or her own. Nonetheless, the incorporation of improvisation techniques into the negotiation skills repertoire holds great promise for practicing negotiators and is a worthy topic of future negotiation research and teaching.     

Toward a Theory of Negotiation Precedent

It is remarkable that precedents and their use have not been well explored within the negotiation literature. In this article, I examine the sparse knowledge of precedents and offer a preliminary framework for understanding the role of precedents in negotiation, including how negotiators establish and apply them. Precedents can either evolve randomly or be created with strategic intent. Understanding precedents generally involves examining how negotiators build, adopt, avoid, and reject them. In this review of the existing literature, I identify twelve concepts and paradigms that are particularly relevant to our understanding of negotiation precedents. I also establish a research agenda and identify three methods for further developing our knowledge of precedents: applying path dependence theory from the field of international relations to a negotiation context; conducting experimental research in a laboratory setting involving subjects engaged in negotiation exercises that contain opportunities to apply precedents; and conducting field research with a focus on case methodology grounded in negotiation linkage theory and theories of negotiation dynamics. Finally, in this article, I formulate a two‐part framework on building and applying precedents, and offer managerial guidance for the negotiation practitioner. Precedents serve as a strategic technique and provide a source of power at that point in a negotiation when decisions are made.