Negotiation Support and E-negotiation Systems: An Overview

With negotiation being an often difficult process involving complex problems, computer-based support has been employed in its various phases and tasks. This article provides a historical overview of software used to support negotiations, aid negotiators, and automate one or more negotiation activities. First, it presents several system classifications, including implemented models, system architectures, and configurations of various systems interacting with human negotiators. Then, it focuses on NSSs (negotiation support systems) and related systems introduced in the early 1980s and on ENSs (e-negotiation systems), which are deployed on the web. These broad categories are discussed from four perspectives: real-life applications, systems used in research and training, research results, and research frameworks.     

Use of a Parallel-Emic Research Model and Key-Word-In-Context Indexing Tool to Develop an Instructional Exercise to Promote Student Global Mindedness

ABSTRACT

Educators have long sought how to prepare students to develop a global mind set and to work under conditions of complexity and uncertainty common in many world markets. The purpose of this study was to support educators in this cause by providing them with a “hands-on” exercise readily adaptable across the business curriculum to identify how culture shapes business concepts/practices of interest. Details are presented in a step-by-step procedure based upon a recognized “parallel-emic” research model developed to study cross-cultural differences to ensure analytical rigor. A Key-Word-In-Context (KWIC) indexing tool was employed to add precision and efficiency to the search process to help students readily identify common (etic-derived) and unique factors (emic-specific) shaping business concepts/practices cross-culturally.     

Cross-Cultural Business Research: Introduction to the special issue

As markets become increasingly global, an understanding of the world's cultures is imperative. This special issue consists of nine articles devoted to increasing our understanding of culture. It follows the 11th Cross-Cultural Research Conference, which was held in Puerto Rico in December 2005. An open invitation to conference participants and other interested researchers resulted in 56 submissions for the special issue. Articles chosen were subjected to several rounds of double-blind reviews and revisions. They cover a variety of topics including vacationing, managerial competency appraisal, horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, consumer services, cultural conditioning, electronic word-of-mouth, the global hip-hop culture, ethical attitudes, and impulse buying behavior.     

International Business Research: Coauthorship Patterns and Quality

The authors investigate published international business research in four international business journals over a 10‐year period, 1995–2004: (a) patterns of coauthorship across regions, and (b) the relation between coauthorship patterns and the quality of international business (IB) articles. A cross‐region coauthorship enhances the quality of an article, suggesting that international collaboration creates synergy in IB research. The authors do not see any positive correlation between alphabetical ordering of coauthor names in multiauthored articles and article quality—a result that is contrary to some evidence in other disciplines. Finally, international management articles appear to be more frequently cited than articles in other IB research areas.     

Integrating Cross-Cultural Marketing Research Training in International Business Education Programs: It's Time,and Here's Why and How

International business necessitates that its international business educators prepare today's workforce with skills necessary to take on cross-cultural research tasks and challenges. Yet, global business finds these skills in short supply. Perhaps this is the case because empirical evidence shows U.S. academic coverage of cross-cultural research complexities are severely limited as measured by text coverage. Slightly lagging behind international business and marketing programs located outside the United States in recognizing and acting on this this need, many U.S. programs now seek to enhance cross-cultural coverage. However, empirical evidences show that U.S.-based programs and the textbooks they use are lagging behind in their treatment of cross-cultural marketing research. Coverage in these texts is typically limited to a single chapter that repeats basic research concepts usually covered in principles of marketing courses. This article discusses a customized international marketing research course integrated with training that includes cross-cultural research issues and complexities and provides a framework of criteria useful in selecting an appropriate text.     

Using Cross-Cultural Dimensions Exercises to Improve and Measure Learning Outcomes in International Business Courses

This article proposes an approach for using cross-cultural dimensions exercises to improve and measure learning outcomes in international business courses. The following key issues are highlighted: (a) what are the targeted learning outcomes to be assessed, (b) how to measure the accomplishment of these learning outcomes, (c) the input measures needed to determine what the students had learned, and (d) the measurement process. Also, this article offers educators strategies for merging assurance of learning approaches into business courses that are integrative in nature, and an example on how to use cross-cultural dimensions exercises as a pedagogical tool for enhancing and measuring learning.     

Mapping international business and international business policy research: Intellectual structure and research trends

This paper analyzes the core international business (IB) areas covered by ten IB-focused journals to date using 13,937 documents reflecting more than 300 years of combined publication history. Using bibliometric and citation analysis, it provides a systematic understanding of the current IB landscape, explicates the relevance of the future of IB research and depicts trends in this research field with emerging prevalent themes identified. The strongest themes across IB journals are performance, perspective and emerging economies/MNEs, shared strongly across UK/Europe, US and Asia-based journals. Our findings report on the prevalent research field, economy and geography, the latter analyzing the impact of author numbers and distribution, and thus, scale effects. Within this context, sole authorships are largely replaced by co-authorships, yet often on national level. We further limited the study to IB policy and found the focus centers on key themes of foreign business attraction, transnational governance and IB promotion.     

Reciprocal Cooperation and the Moderating Effect of Individualism: A Five-Country Negotiation Study

ABSTRACT

Researchers have conceptualized the problem-solving approach to include cooperation between negotiators in order to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. The observed cooperation between parties embodies the concept of positive reciprocity where negotiators match the cooperative bargaining strategy of their counterparts. Using this premise, the current study investigates reciprocity through the relationship between negotiators’ perceptions of their counterpart's cooperative behaviors and their own reported behaviors. The mitigating effect of individualism-collectivism on the above relationship is also explored. The findings provide empirical evidence that negotiators’ perceptions of their counterpart's cooperative behaviors are positively related to their own strategy. This relationship was consistently supported across five groups of business negotiators: Canadian Anglophone, Greek, Mexican, Filipino, and American. However, this positive reciprocal relationship is negated when the negotiator comes from an individualistic-type culture.     

Taking international business education programs and pedagogy to new heights: Fundamental questions for educators and students

As the dynamic global business environment continues to force organizations to be agile and adaptive, international business (IB) education pedagogy is transforming. Building on previous literature describing gaps in IB pedagogy, as well as unaddressed stakeholder needs, we first use our institution—the United States Air Force Academy—as an example of IB program development. In examining our program's evolution, we develop five questions that may provide insight regarding more generalizable IB pedagogy trends. To assess this possible generalizability, we explore questions related to the development of our program using self-reported, publically-available websites of the top full-time MBA programs throughout the United States. Our questions focus on the role of foreign languages, study abroad opportunities, integrative courses, capstone/thesis projects, and faculty development. Our exploration indicates that these five questions are important not only for educators developing future programs, but also for students examining potential IB programs. Additionally, our research examines a sixth question focused on the development of competitive positioning and program differentiation in IB programs. We hope to motivate future inquiry into IB pedagogy, which could inform more effective means of improving IB education.     

Agility and flexibility in international business research: A comprehensive review and future research directions

This study explores 134 articles on agility and flexibility research published in the top-nine international business (IB) journals. Accordingly, we critically analyze, map and structure flexibility and agility research in IB, and synthesize the findings into an integrative framework. The paper identifies a wide range of definitions of the concept and a lot of work on its conceptualization. However, studies at the individual and institutional levels of analyses are scarce, and the concept is under-theorized, as there is a dearth of real theoretical underpinnings in this research stream. Thus, in addressing this gap, more qualitative and interdisciplinary research is needed.     

Curriculum Internationalization at AACSB Schools: Immersive Experiences,Student Placement,and Assessment

This article presents results from a survey of AACSB-accredited business schools’ progress in internationalizing their curricula in view of a recent AACSB report. We present data on the use of immersive experiences, degree of success in student placement in internationally oriented careers, and assessment of internationalization efforts. The results indicate growth of internationalization activities at virtually all schools as expected, but these efforts may not always match AACSB recommendations. For instance, AACSB criticized business programs for not coordinating internationalization activities in a strategic manner to improve courses and develop skills needed by international managers. Our survey finds that many schools do not attempt to tie their international experiences to specific courses, but they report the experiences are used to build skills students need. Most institutions also do not examine job placement as a measure of curriculum internationalization success. We find that many schools do not assess the outcomes of their internationalization efforts in a way that can demonstrate whether or not recent AACSB suggestions are being met.     

Improving International Marketing Programs to Reflect Global Complexity and Risk: Curriculum Drivers and Constraints

This article looks at the curriculum redesign of a master's-level program in international marketing from a UK perspective. In order to ensure that the program would be more fit-for-purpose for future managers working under conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and within regimes often very different from the home market, the team began the curriculum redesign process with the view that international programs need to have a more broad and cross-disciplinary curriculum. Both drivers and constraints for the curriculum redesign are considered as well as the rationale for including a 30-week module on political and economic risk in the program.     

Assessing cross-cultural marketing theory and research: Reply to Craig and Douglas' commentary

This article responds to the major concerns Craig and Douglas (2011) raise in their commentary essay on the content analysis of cross-cultural marketing research from Engelen and Brettel (2011). Based upon theoretical arguments and empirical findings in the extant literature, this reply argues that national borders are an appropriate major level at which to study the culture construct. This reply also shows that empirical research on consumer acculturation supports the idea that “whiteness” is present in cross-cultural marketing research.     

Consumer ethics: moral ideologies and ethical beliefs of a micro-culture in the US

This study explores the ethical ideologies and ethical beliefs of African American consumers using the Forsyth ethical position questionnaire (EPQ) and the Muncy–Vitell consumer ethics questionnaire (MVQ). The two dimensions of the EPQ (i.e. idealism and relativism), and gender were the independent variables and the four dimensions of the MVQ (i.e. illegal, active, passive and no harm) were the dependent variables. A sample of 283 students from a historically black university was used to explore the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Findings suggested that consumers who scored higher on the idealism scale and lower on the relativism scale were more likely to reject questionable activities. On average, females expressed more willingness to reject questionable activities than males.     

Emotion as an Argumentation Engine: Modeling the Role of Emotion in Negotiation

The purpose of this paper is to present a model of emotion in negotiation, which reflects the active role emotions play in decision taking as modifiers of theory-of-mind models, goals and strategies. The model is based on empirical studies of human interaction in different activities such as plea bargains, simulated negotiations, doctor patient consultations, and virtual human–human interactions. We use empathy as an example of emotion, which has a natural and powerful function in the shaping and re-contextualization of decision processes. We study also the linguistic realization of emotions as forms of argumentation in authentic discourse.     

Relational Capital: Strategic Advantage for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises (SMEs) Through Negotiation and Collaboration

Collaborative entrepreneurship research suggests that organizations will soon pursue more collaborative relationships throughout a worldwide network of firms, driving a strategy of continuous innovation, specially small- and medium-size firms (SMEs). Tapping into a body of literature that focuses on the importance of human capital in driving long-term success, we merge ideas of collaborative research with a growing body of work on human capital or human resource management in SMEs. Our paper states that it is not the human, per se, that is the real asset but the relationships those humans have that are the most inimitable and important capital. We will discuss how companies use relational capital as the basis for collaborative entrepreneurship. Consistent with our hypotheses, our exploratory study suggests that smaller firms place more value on relational capital than do larger firms. We also have some indication that the key capital that differentiates low vs. high performance, regardless of firm size, is the relational capital aspect. To sum up, relational capital is a fundamental asset for firms, but especially for SMEs, and high performing companies are those that are able to negotiate with others and develop collaborative agreements, thus placing a high value in relational capital.     

Going Out by Going In: Business Model Innovation with Chinese Characteristics

A radical model of “going out by going in” is proposed. Conventionally, firms enter overseas markets by selling and ultimately investing—this is “going out.” Here, I argue that firms in emerging markets can draw revenues from overseas by penetrating previously inaccessible domestic markets and then renting their distribution and service channels to foreign competitors—this is “going out by going in.” Further, firms in emerging markets can combine knowledge platforms with distribution and service platforms to create markets for innovative products and, again, rent these platforms to overseas competitors. Two cases, both from the Haier Group, are on point: Haier's Integrated Channel Services business targeting rural markets, and the Haier “water box” project aimed at supplying potable water to households throughout China. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Born internationals: Market expansion and business operation mode strategies in the digital media field

This paper examines leading Swedish and Finnish Internet consultancies operating in the digital media service field. These are ‘born international’ firms that internationalise their business at an exceptionally rapid pace. The paper focuses on why and to what extent the market expansion and business operation mode strategies of these companies deviate from the traditional pattern depicted by the Scandinavian process school. The empirical data consisted of interviews with the founder and senior management and secondary data from company and public archives. The research findings show that in fact both the international new venture research and the Scandinavian internationalisation model appear to be valid. The former model was evidenced by the fact that the born internationals indeed deviated from the behaviour of the traditional firms. The latter was exemplified by the fact that the final internationalisation profile, after the withdrawals of firms from unsuccessful markets, was close to what the Scandinavian internationalisation model would call ‘rational’ expansion. Hence, if the investigation period is long enough to account for unsuccessful endeavours and withdrawals, we may then find empirical support for the traditional model as well. To be reliable, the investigation period should cover at least one economic slow down.     

Chinese values and negotiation behaviour: A bargaining experiment

The importance of Chinese culture in cross-national negotiation has become conventional wisdom in international business research and practice. However, empirical work has not sufficiently established whether, how and under what conditions specific cultural values of the Chinese affect their negotiation decisions. This paper reports an experiment with a purpose-designed game task in which Chinese subjects divide a fixed gain over escalating stages. We find that concerns for face and harmony promote cooperative negotiation decisions while desire to win and risk seeking accentuate competitive ones. Values only predict behaviour in the critical, final stage of the bargaining process supporting a dynamic view of the effect of culture in negotiation.     

Knowledge,attitudes and beliefs towards injury prevention: a population-based telephone survey

Public knowledge and beliefs about injury prevention are currently poorly understood. A total of 1030 residents in the State of Queensland, Australia, responded to questions about injury prevention in or around the home, on the roads, in or on the water, at work, deliberate injury and responsibility for preventing deliberate injury allowing for comparison with reported injury prevalence data. Overall, the youngest members of society were identified as being the most vulnerable to deliberate injury with young adults accounting for 59% of responses aligning with reported data. However, younger adults failed to indicate an awareness of their own vulnerability to deliberate injury in alcohol environments even though 61% of older respondents were aware of this trend. Older respondents were the least inclined to agree that they could make a difference to their own safety in or around the home but were more inclined to agree that they could make a difference to their own safety at work. The results are discussed with a view to using improved awareness of public beliefs about injury to identify barriers to the uptake of injury prevention strategies (e.g. low perceived injury risk) as well as areas where injury prevention strategies may receive public support.