Negotiating Effectively: Justice in International Environmental Negotiations

Are negotiators who rely on justice principles in the process of bargaining and drafting agreements more—or rather less—effective than others? This article examines whether adherence to principles of procedural and distributive justice in negotiations contributes to more effective results, with a focus on international environmental negotiations. Effectiveness is defined in terms of the extent of agreement (among parties and on issues), time to reach agreement, and comprehensiveness of the agreement. A set of hypotheses is evaluated on a selection of bilateral and multilateral cases of environmental negotiations, using statistical methods. The analyses reveal that adherence to principles of procedural justice contributes to more effective results in multilateral environmental negotiations. These principles are found to hinder effectiveness in the bilateral cases. On the other hand, adherence to principles of distributive justice is only moderately related to effectiveness in both the bilateral and multilateral cases.     

The antecedents of renegotiations in practice—an exploratory analysis

In order to support business negotiations with electronic tools effectively, a deep understanding of real-life business negotiations is required. Comparing the settings usually applied in negotiation experiments with the every-day experiences of business negotiators, it can be stated that the work of business negotiators is much more iterative and embedded. Renegotiations appear on a regular basis. This observation stresses the importance of flawless communication in business negotiations and raises questions regarding the reasons for renegotiations and the role of information technology in this context. This paper investigates data gathered in a 2005 survey study in order to identify the context factors that drive B2B renegotiations using a preliminary regression model. The rules of interaction, task complexity, and business relationship are found to be significant predictors of the renegotiation likelihood while media richness does not impact the likelihood of renegotiations in practice.     

Hot Versus Cool Behavioural Styles in Electronic Negotiations: The Impact of Communication Mode

In this paper, we study the effects of synchronous and asynchronous communication mode on electronic negotiations. By applying content analysis, we compare the negotiation processes of two e-negotiation simulations conducted in a synchronous and an asynchronous setting. Our results show significant differences in communication behaviour of subjects. Synchronous negotiation mode leads to less friendly, more affective, and more competitive negotiation behaviour. In the asynchronous communication mode, negotiators exchange more private and task-oriented information and are friendlier. These results suggest that negotiators in the asynchronous mode, who have more time to reflect, cool down and control emotions better while negotiators, who communicate synchronously engage more in emotional and competitive “hot” debates. In addition, negotiators in the asynchronous mode are more satisfied with the process and outcome of the negotiation. We conclude that de-individuation and escalating effects might be caused by communication mode rather than by the ability of the media to transmit social cues.     

A method for examining learning in negotiation

The impact of feedback on interpersonal learning in negotiation was examined. An interactive computer program was developed to isolate the effect of individual judgment on performance. Subjects negotiated three times with a computerized opponent whom they were led to believe was another subject. Some subjects received a complete diagnosis of their opponents' interests following each negotiation (full feedback); others only learned about their opponents' payoffs (outcome feedback); some did not receive any information about the opponent (control). The prediction was that subjects who received a complete diagnosis would make more accurate judgments about their opponents' interests and reach more integrative agreements in subsequent negotiation situations. The results provided weak support for the model. Two indices of performance were studied: negotiators' ability to recognize compatible issues and logrolling, or the ability to make mutually beneficial tradeoffs among issues. The pattern of findings was dramatically different for the two performance measures: Whereas logrolling improved as negotiators gained experience, recognition of compatible issues worsened over trials. The degradation of performance for compatible issues was curbed for negotiators who were provided with full feedback. The feedback did not affect logrolling performance.The research reported in this article was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation #SES89211926.     

“I am Disgusted by Your Proposal”: The Effects of a Strategic Flinch in Negotiations

To flinch in negotiations refers to verbal or physical displays of shock, disgust, or disbelief made in response to an opening offer. We investigated the impact of advising negotiators to strategically flinch in distributive bargaining. In experiment 1, negotiators who flinched claimed significantly more value than negotiators who did not flinch. Targets of a flinch, however, viewed the negotiation relationship less positively than negotiators in a control condition. Yet, flinching appeared to have no effect on the target negotiators’ perceptions of how well they did. In experiment 2, the notion that a subtle flinch might still facilitate value claiming but without imperilling the bargaining relationship was supported. Implications for negotiation theory and practice, and directions for future research, are discussed.     

Getting the Floor: Motive-Consistent Strategy and Individual Outcomes in Multi-Party Negotiations

Social motives influence negotiators actions and reactions. In this study we proposed that social motives moderate the relationship between persistence in the use of integrative or distributive negotiation strategy and individual outcomes in 33 four-person mixed-motive negotiations. Cooperative negotiators who persisted in using integrative strategy achieved higher outcomes than those who did not persist. Persistence in the use of integrative strategy did not pay off for individualistic negotiators in this multi-party setting. We theorized that this pattern of results was due to cooperative and individualistic negotiators using strategy differently. We found that cooperative negotiators used more motive-consistent integrative strategy and less motive-inconsistent distributive strategy than individualistic negotiators, whose pattern of strategy use was consistent with their self-interested motives, providing evidence for our motive consistency theory.     

Formal Analysis of Multilateral Negotiations Over the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea

The Evolutionary Model for Multilateral Negotiations (EMMN) is utilized to identify the most likely outcome of the Caspian Sea negotiations. Since 1993, the five littoral states have been negotiating over the legal status of the Caspian Sea but have not reached any agreement, causing a Tragedy of the Commons to unfold. EMMN is a methodology that focuses on asymmetric multilateral negotiations, like those over the Caspian Sea, in which each negotiator seeks to reach the most preferable outcome for which he or she can gain enough support from other negotiators. An advantage of the EMMN approach is that it considers the power of the negotiators as a determining factor in the final resolution. The results of this analysis are compared with those of other studies on Caspian Sea conflict where the powers of decision makers are not taken into account.     

Negotiators' Communication, Perception of Their Counterparts, and Performance in Dyadic E-negotiations

The aim of this study was to improve our understanding of negotiation strategies, behaviors, and outcomes, and the relationships between these factors based on data collected from questionnaires, actual behavior during the negotiation process implemented using e-negotiation system, and the negotiation outcomes. This study clustered the negotiators based on either the negotiators' own strategies or their thoughts about those of their partners. This resulted in a division into cooperative and noncooperative clusters. We found that the negotiators whose own strategies are less cooperative tend to submit more offers but fewer messages. However, these people consIDer that they have less control over the negotiation process compared with those who adopt a more cooperative strategy, who make fewer offers but send more messages. Those in the cooperative cluster consistently feel friendlier about the negotiation and more satisfied with the outcome and their performance. Further, there is a correlation not only between self-strategies and the thoughts about partners' strategies, but also between strategies and final agreements. Finally, the proportion of negotiations reaching agreement is larger for the cooperative cluster than for the noncooperative cluster.     

Efficient Multi-Attribute Negotiation with Incomplete Information

Multi-attribute negotiation is an important mechanism for distributed decision makers to reach agreements in real-world situations. It allows the possibility of reaching “win-win” solutions for both parties, who trade off different attributes in a solution. Existing research on multi-attribute negotiations has mainly focused on the situations when negotiation parties have complete information about each other's preference. This paper presents a model with incomplete information, while considering Pareto-efficiency and computational efficiency. A non-biased mediator, who applies query learning to maintain near Pareto-efficiency without heavy computation, is adopted in the model. In addition, the mediating mechanism proposed in the model overcomes the difficulty of preference elicitation which usually arises in the preliminary step of a multi-attribute negotiation. Our model also reduces the negotiation complexity by decomposing the original n-dimensional negotiation space into a sequence of negotiation base lines. Agents can negotiate upon a base line with rather simple strategies. The experimental results show that near Pareto-efficient agreements can be reached effectively.     

Preferential trading arrangements as strategic positioning

We analyze a three-country model of trade negotiations in which countries can form bilateral free trade areas, bilateral customs unions or a trilateral preferential trading arrangement, and can continue negotiating after reaching an agreement. In contrast to the literature on multilateral bargaining, the set of agreements can form a (nonpartitional) network, while in contrast to the network literature, players can reach multilateral agreements. Patient enough countries only reach bilateral agreements if insiders gain more than outsiders, which allows them to manipulate the status quo in subsequent negotiations. However, a hub and spoke pattern may then emerge, and insiders then dissipate the advantages of strategic positioning. We also use variants on the model to explain why a US commitment not to bargain bilaterally sustained progress at GATT negotiations, and the rarity of open access preferential trading arrangements.     

Power imbalance and the pattern of exchange in dyadic negotiation

We investigate how a key structural aspect of negotiation—power—combines with aspiration level to affect the interaction pattern of negotiators. Conflicting research findings have revealed that in most cases negotiators with anequal balance of power reach agreements of higher joint gain than negotiators with an unequal power balance, but in some instances the opposite result has been found. We suggest that it is important to consider the interaction between the negotiators to explain these varying findings. We propose that when unequal power negotiators are able to reach agreements of high joint gain it is due to the efforts of the low power party. In addition, we argue that the low power player will be most likely to drive the search for a solution of high joint gain when he or she also has high aspirations. We tested these proposals in a market negotiation with integrative potential. To examine the pattern of negotiation, all offers and counter-offers were written. The results indicated that overall, equal power dyads achieved higher joint outcomes than unequal power dyads. Under unequal power, the hypothesis that higher joint outcomes would be obtained when the low power player had high aspirations received partial support. In addition, support was found for the hypothesis that in unequal power dyads low power players would be responsible for driving solutions of higher joint gain.     

Negotiators’ Effectiveness with Mixed Agendas: An Empirical Exploration of Tasks,Decisions and Performance Criteria

This article analyzes the performance of 1,060 individuals in dyadic, mixed-agenda negotiations in order to further understanding of individual negotiators’ effectiveness and test the applicability of common negotiation advice. To evaluate performance, both established and new measures were employed. In general, individuals were not effective, although there was wide variation that included highly effective negotiators. In striking contrast to previous research, high-performing individuals’ achievements were not significantly related to maximum joint value creation or to maximum logrolling. Most of the variation in benchmarked (best-practices) effectiveness and in partner-compared effectiveness was explained by individuals’ decisions on three types of agenda items: pure conflict, reverse priorities, and no-conflict. Each had a significant effect (with one exception), but decisions on pure conflict influenced individual effectiveness much more than decisions on either of the other two. Additional results include the extent to which negotiators tended to compromise, logroll, agree on common values, and modify their decisions across items within an item type. Among other implications, these findings argue for richer, more nuanced treatment of individual effectiveness and for advice that is attentive to the structural features of particular negotiations.     

Trade Negotiations in the Americas and What They Mean for You

The United States is engaged in two huge trade negotiations—the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership—that will have a profound impact on our economy and on the world trade system. These agreements can be an important template for new rules governing world trade, and they address some important new areas, such as regulatory issues. However, if they are to be a good template, U.S. negotiators have to alter some of their proposals, and these new agreements have to prohibit predatory trade practices, such as currency manipulation.     

Bargaining with the gringos: An exploratory study of negotiations between Mexican and U.S. firms

This study examines the nature of negotiations between Mexican and U.S. business people. It was learned that U.S. negotiators tend to be more structured, less flexible, more direct, more focused on the specific terms of the agreement, and possibly more assertive than their Mexican counterparts. Factor analysis revealed five factors related to the success of negotiations between Mexican and U.S. business people: attributes of communication, knowledge, good faith in arranging countertrades, delivery requirements, and personal relationships. Communication problems appear to have a more important impact on successful negotiations than do the technical or financial aspects of the negotiation. Contexting and reciprocity are related themes that need to be given more attention if negotiations between Mexican and US. business people are to improve. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Negotiation and design: Supporting resource allocation decisions through analytical mediation

The common element of all negotiations is change. Design is the key to directing and managing change, and resource allocation is the most critical component of design. Negotiations about change are, therefore, fundamentally, negotiations about design and resource allocation. Negotiations vary along a continuum, from those in which negotiators have consonant interests (share objectives) to discordant ones (disagree about appropriate objectives). The joint distribution of all possible payoffs defines thestructure of the negotiation problem—the opportunities the problem affords and constraints it imposes on negotiators. The analytical mediation approach supports the activities of an impartial, neutral third party who attempts to assist the disputants to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement. It makes use of different types of techniques to support negotiations, depending on their location along the negotiation continuum. Two case studies involving analytical mediation are reported. One case study involves a budgeting exercise, in which the negotiators' interests were essentially consonant. The second case study involves a labor-management contract problem, in which the negotiators' interests were highly discordant.     

Ethical reasoning in business‐to‐business negotiations: evidence from relationships in the chemical industry in Germany

This article explores managers’ ethical reasoning for behaviors in price negotiations using evidence from 15 in‐depth interviews conducted with sales and purchasing representatives in the chemical industry in Germany. Applying transaction cost economics, we find that negotiators in commoditized market‐like exchanges either refer to deontological norms such as not to lie, or they neglect a role for ethics, arguing that distributive negotiation is per se opportunistic. In contrast, exchanges of products with higher asset specificity lead to stronger informational integration which is supported with teleological justifications. Some negotiators use teleological justification to build business on trust rather than on economic safeguards as their firm norms would require. For negotiators, our results suggest considering institutional context and adjusting ethical reasoning to the negotiation situation. Firms need to recognize and find ways to address the potential conflicts of their internal norms with their frontline managers’ attempts to act in the firms’ best economic and ethical interests.     

Towards a Structured Design of Electronic Negotiations

Global communication networks and advances in information technology enable the design of information systems facilitating effective formulation and efficient resolution of negotiation problems. Increasingly, these systems guide negotiators in clarifying the relevant issues, provide media for offer formulation and exchange, and help in achieving an agreement. In practice, the task of analysing, modelling, designing and implementing electronic negotiation media demands a systematic, traceable and reproducible approach. An engineering approach to media specification and construction has these characteristics. In this paper, we provide a rationale for the engineering approach that allows pragmatic adoption of economic and social sciences perspectives on negotiated decisions for the purpose of supporting and undertaking electronic negotiations. Similarities and differences of different theories that underlie on-going studies of electronic negotiations are identified. This provides a basis for integration of different theories and approaches for the specific purpose of the design of effective electronic negotiations. Drawing on diverse streams of literature in different fields such as economics, management, computer, and behavioural sciences, we present an example of an integration of three significant streams of theoretical and applied research involving negotiations, traditional auctions and on-line auctions.