The ethical profile of global marketing negotiators

As international trade and business opportunities grow globally, insight into trading partners’ strategies is essential. One of the major strategies that impact trading partners’ relationships is negotiation strategy employed by each partner. These strategies assume even greater importance when these strategies have ethical content. This study examines the effects of marketing executives’ preferred ethical ideologies (relativism and idealism), opportunism and Machiavellianism on their perceived appropriateness of unethical negotiation tactics. Utilizing a sample of 995 marketing executives from six countries, cluster analysis and multivariate analysis of variance revealed two types of marketing negotiators: principled and corrupt negotiators. Corrupt negotiators tend to be more Machiavellian, more relativist, more opportunistic and less idealistic than their principled counterparts. Principled negotiators tend to perceive unethical negotiation tactics less favorably than their corrupt counterparts. Implications of these results for practitioners and directions for future research are discussed.     

On the Path to Trade Liberalisation: Political Regimes in Trade Negotiations

The number of free trade agreements (FTA) has increased substantially since 1990 despite efforts to promote multilateral trade liberalisation. While there is evidence on the determinants of FTA formation, still little is known on the processing of trade agreements, particularly regarding the pre‐implementation duration. This paper fills the research gap by using event data on the negotiation, the signing and the implementation of trade agreements. Duration analysis is employed to examine the connection between regime types and the lengths of the negotiation and the ratification stages. The results support the claim that higher levels of democratisation are associated with shorter negotiations, while political constraints lead to delays. Moreover, the depth of an agreement matters: a higher number of WTO‐X and WTO+ provisions do not only prolong the negotiation stage, but also the subsequent ratification. Against the background of potential anticipation effects of trade agreements, these results are of interest for exporting firms that assess the timing of implementation.     

Culture and International Marketing: A Sub-Saharan African Context

ABSTRACT

The authors review and extend the culture literature in international marketing by discussing some of the cultural underpinnings pertaining to the sub-Saharan African context. With the use of inductive reasoning, the authors offer several key normative suggestions for international marketing practices. Marketers should focus not only on the end user but also on those who significantly influence the final decision. Sub-Saharan African culture is characterized by long, drawn-out negotiation processes and by contracts and overall sales targets that likely will be dissimilar to those from countries with a linear view of time. Age is relevant when selecting people for negotiation assignments and hiring sales and managerial staff. Because of the importance of “respect,” messages should focus on an individual's need for belongingness rather than on the individual striving for achievement. The authors advocate that advertising appeals should focus on the society and on the individual as a member of the society and not on individual self-enhancement. Context and nonverbal communications are important in personal selling. It is better to establish social trust first in negotiations, personal selling, and buyer–seller interaction.     

Meta-level Coordination for Solving Distributed Negotiation Chains in Semi-cooperative Multi-agent Systems

A negotiation chain is formed when multiple related negotiations are spread over multiple agents. In order to appropriately order and structure the negotiations occurring in the chain so as to optimize the expected utility, we present an extension to a single-agent concurrent negotiation framework. This work is aimed at semi-cooperative multi-agent systems, where each agent has its own goals and works to maximize its local utility; however, the performance of each individual agent is tightly related to other agents’ cooperation and the system’s overall performance. We introduce a pre-negotiation phase that allows agents to transfer meta-level information. Using this information, the agent can improve the accuracy of its local model about how other agents would react to the negotiations. This more accurate model helps the agent in choosing a better negotiation solution for a distributed negotiation chain problem. The agent can also use this information to allocate appropriate time for each negotiation, hence to find a good ordering of all related negotiations. The experimental data show that these mechanisms improve the agents’ and the system’s overall performance significantly.     

Connectedness Problem Solving and Negotiation

Difficult polarizing problems/conflicts are pervasive in the United States and the world. Welcome to spiritual rationality/connectedness problem solving and negotiation involving spirituality and rationality, and emphasizing connectedness in problem solving. In particular, we develop CPSN-ESD—Connectedness Problem Solving and Negotiation (CPSN) through Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD)—discussing spiritual rationality/connectedness and highlighting connectedness with One and with each other as values, among others, in problem solving. In CPSN-ESD, CPSN is effected through ESD, a game-theory based, general formal systems- spirituality modeling/design framework for individual and multiagent (group) problem solving and negotiation implemented by computer technology. Problem solving is represented by an evolving problem system of purposes and their relations from the lowest-level action to the highest purpose, ultimate common ground—spirituality, connectedness with One (or a surrogate, as discussed). For an agent, an evolved problem system satisfying spiritual rationality identifies right action (a solution) producing spirituality, connectedness with One (or a surrogate). A negotiation agreement requires multiagent agreement on the action to be taken. Agents may be natural or artificial. The paper focuses mostly on human agents with ideas being applicable to other natural and artificial (computer) agents with lesser (or greater) capabilities than humans according to their built-in capabilities. Present-to-future CSPN-ESD work includes furthering support of human agents; designing spiritual agents; designing multiagent systems for connectedness capitalism; developing connectedness democracy; further research and applications on intercultural and international negotiation; work on the world connected.     

I Expected More from You: The Influence of Close Relationships and Perspective Taking on Negotiation Offers

Three experimental studies show that interpersonal relationships influence the expectations of negotiators at the negotiation table. That is, negotiators expect more generous negotiation offers from close others (Study 1), and when expectations are not met, negative emotions arise, resulting in negative economic and relational outcomes (Study 2). Finally, a boundary condition for the effect of interpersonal relationships on negotiation expectations is shown: perspective taking leads the parties to expect less from friends than from acquaintances (Study 3). The findings suggest that perspective taking helps negotiators reach agreement in relationships. The article concludes with implications for practice and future research directions.     

A Secure and Fair Protocol that Addresses Weaknesses of the Nash Bargaining Solution in Nonlinear Negotiation

Negotiation with multiple interdependent issues is an important problem since much of real-world negotiation falls into this category. This paper examines the problem that, in such domains, agent utility functions are nonlinear, and thereby can create nonconvex Pareto frontiers. This in turn implies that the Nash Bargaining Solution, which has been viewed as the gold standard for identifying a unique optimal negotiation outcome, does not serve that role in nonlinear domains. In nonlinear domains, unlike linear ones, there can be multiple Nash Bargaining Solutions, and all can be sub-optimal with respect to social welfare and fairness. In this paper, we propose a novel negotiation protocol called SFMP (the Secure and Fair Mediator Protocol) that addresses this challenge, enabling secure multilateral negotiations with fair and pareto-optimal outcomes in nonlinear domains. The protocol works by (1) using nonlinear optimization, combined with a Multi-Party protocol, to find the Pareto front without revealing agent’s private utility information, and (2) selecting the agreement from the Pareto set that maximizes a fair division criterion we call approximated fairness. We demonstrate that SFMP is able to find agreements that maximize fairness and social welfare in nonlinear domains, and out-performs (in terms of outcomes and scalability) previously developed nonlinear negotiation protocols.     

Language and Marketing in Japan

One of the great harriers to foreign marketing success in Japan has been the limited number of foreigners who can communicate in Japanese. Knowledge of the relationship between marketing and written Japanese, spoken Japanese, linguistic pluralism and unspoken communication in Japan will show foreign marketers how language influences Japanese marketing in at least nine significant areas—the sales relationship, negotiation, correspondence, promotional materials, packaging, print advertising, radio and television advertising, and the naming of products.     

Service Contract Negotiations in Marketing Channels:

This study investigates the factors that influence motor carriers perceptions of the success of negotiations with customers over contractual transportation service in marketing channels. The findings indicate that the motor carrier's perceived success of the negotiation is influenced directly by his/her trust of the customer, and indirectly by the customer's dependence on his/her organization. The results also suggest that though the nature of contract negotiation for motor carriage service has become more cooperative in the deregulated environment, a certain degree of opportunism still influences the negotiator's behaviors. From these findings, issues are presented which can aid the channel members in developing successful strategy for future negotiation with motor carriers.     

A Recursive Protocol for Negotiating Contracts Under Non-monotonic Preference Structures

Negotiating contracts with multiple interdependent issues may yield non-monotonic preference spaces for the participating agents. These negotiations are specially challenging because of the complexity and dimension of the search space. Automated negotiation mechanisms designed and proven useful for monotonic utility spaces may fail in these negotiation scenarios. This paper presents a novel solution to the problem of automated multi-issue negotiations in the context of complex utility spaces. We seek to address the challenge of intractably large contract spaces and utility functions with multiple local optima in automated negotiation scenarios. A protocol for automated bilateral multi-attribute negotiation processes is proposed, in which the individual agents??preferences can be non-monotonic and discontinuous. The protocol is based on a recursive non-mediated bargaining mechanism, which involves two agents who simultaneously exchange proposals defined as regions within the negotiation space. An agreement on a region implies a new bargaining which is restricted to that region. This recursive process is governed by a set of rules which modulate the joint exploration of the negotiation space until an agreement is found or a deadline expires. The protocol is experimentally evaluated under monotonic and non-monotonic preference scenarios, confirming that the protocol is able to produce outcomes close to the Pareto frontier in acceptable negotiation time, outperforming previous approaches.     

Business-to-Business Negotiations: The Role of Relativism,Deceit, and Opportunism

Purpose: Studies examining the impact of relativism and deceitful tendencies on unethical negotiation tactics have yielded inconsistent results; some studies report a positive relationship, some negative, while some others report a nonexistent relationship between these constructs. These inconsistencies suggest that there may be intervening variables mediating the effects of these factors on unethical negotiation tactics. We propose that opportunism plays an important role in determining the effects of these two antecedents on business managers' perceptions of unethical negotiation tactics.

Method: An Internet-based survey was administered to a sample of managers at U.S. firms engaged in business-to-business marketing. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to evaluate the mediating role of opportunism between deceitful tendencies and relativism on questionable negotiation tactics.

Findings: The analysis supports the hypothesized role of opportunism as a mediating variable. Opportunism was found to play a significant role in mediating the relationships of both relativism and deceitful tendencies on attitudes toward unethical negotiation tactics.

Contribution: In addition to the theoretical contributions suggested here, this article includes suggestions for minimizing the likelihood that a negotiation partner's relativism and deceitful tendencies will negatively impact business negotiation.     

The Influence of Past Negotiations on Negotiation Counterpart Preferences

Choosing the right counterpart can have a significant impact on negotiation success. Unfortunately, little research has studied such negotiation counterpart decisions. Three studies examined the influence of past negotiations on preferences to negotiate again with a counterpart. Study 1 found that the more favorable a past negotiated agreement the stronger the preference to negotiate with the counterpart in the future. Moreover, this relation was mediated through liking of the counterpart. Study 2 manipulated the difficulty of achieving a favorable agreement in the negotiation and found a significant effect of this situational factor such that subsequent counterpart preferences were less favorable when the negotiation was difficult. Similar to Study 1, this effect was mediated through liking of the counterpart. Study 3 examined the possibility of debiasing negotiator preferences from the biasing influence of situational characteristics by providing relevant information about the negotiation situation. Replicating the results of Study 2, negotiation difficulty affected counterpart preferences before additional information was given or when irrelevant information was given. However, once negotiators received relevant information on the negotiation situation, the effect of negotiation difficulty disappeared. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Iron Ore Talks, A Prolonged Race

At press time, Chinese steel makers and the World＇s biggest iron ore miners .still did not reach the finalagreement upon the iron ore price, hast the original deadline June 30.     

The Effect of Feedback on Process and Outcome of Loan Negotiations: Consequences on Risk Aversion and the Willingness to Compromise

We examined the influence of feedback regarding alternatives on risk aversion and willingness to compromise in student loan negotiations. In a simulated negotiation, participants in the roles of bank advisors and clients received feedback about alternative offers either only after an impasse of the negotiation, or regardless of outcome. When receiving feedback only after an impasse, participants tried to avoid the regret-eliciting feedback and therefore set less ambitious goals and showed higher willingness to compromise. In particular, they set a less ambitious reservation price and estimated a less beneficial ‘best alternative to negotiated agreement’. When analyzing the process of the negotiation, we found that they made less favorable offers more quickly and arrived at less favorable final offers. They sacrificed their previously set goals by violating their reservation prices and underbidding their estimated ‘best alternative to negotiated agreement’ more often. Therefore, they showed a higher potential for agreement with the other party, but at the cost of less favorable outcomes. Results indicate that anticipated regret could contribute to suboptimal negotiation outcomes in the context of student loans, which might lead to long term dissatisfaction.     

Rejection of Empathy in Negotiation

Trust is a crucial quality in the development of individuals and societies and empathy plays a key role in the formation of trust. Trust and empathy have growing importance in studies of negotiation. However, empathy can be rejected which complicates its role in negotiation. This paper presents a linguistic analysis of empathy by focusing on rejection of empathy in negotiation. Some of the rejections are due to failed recognition of the rejector’s needs and desires whereas others have mainly strategic functions gaining momentum in the negotiation. In both cases, rejection of empathy is a phase in the negotiation not a breakdown.     

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.     

TPP协定投资者-东道国争端解决机制评述

本文在回顾跨太平洋战略经济伙伴协定(TPP)的由来和演进的基础上,重点剖析了TPP拟定中的投资者-东道国争端解决的条款。本文在结合中国双边投资协定的实践基础上,指出了中国应该尽早参与TPP的谈判,反映中国的利益诉求,以便协调中美双边投资协定谈判中的立场。     

Boundaries in Bargaining: A Multidimensional View

Boundaries have positive and negative effects on international negotiation processes. This article states that the positive side of boundaries has often been neglected and that limitations are absolutely vital for effective international bargaining processes. Without restrictions, negotiation processes lose their significance as a tool in inter state and inter organisational policy making and conflict resolution. The article briefly analyses six boundaries that help international negotiation processes reach the stage of an internationally acceptable agreement: geography, systems, needs, resources, regulators, and time.     

Negotiation in engineering design

Concurrent design may shorten the duration of a design project, reduce cost, and improve quality of the final design. However, due to the diversified problem-solving knowledge and different goal setting between design agents, it may increase the number of conflicts and make the project more difficult to manage. In this article, a goal-directed negotiation model for resolving conflicts in a cooperative design environment is presented. The proposed model generates negotiation sets, analyzes utilities derived for each design agent, and evaluates them based on three decision rules: maximization of the joint utility, minimization of individual utility differences, and minimization of individual utility differences and maximization of joint utility. A compromise solution is reached iteratively. The approach proposed in this articles is concerned not just with satisfying design constraints, but attempts to maximize system objectives. An example of the poppet relief valve is used to demonstrate the negotiation concept.     

美国加入TPP的动因分析

"跨太平洋战略经济伙伴协定"(TPP)因美国宣布加入而引起世界的关注。它具有跨度大、网络化、质量高、开放性和时代性等一般自由贸易协定(FTA)所没有的特点。美国加入TPP有四个原因:一是塑造跨太平洋自由贸易区"新样板",为成立更大的"美式"亚太自由贸易区(FTAAP)打下基础;二是将TPP树为美国区域贸易协定的新模式,"拔高"标准,获得更大利益;三是抗衡东亚经济一体化进程,扭转美国被排除在外的不利局面;四是将TPP作为通往FTA-AP的桥梁,实现美国在亚太地区的战略布局。但TPP谈判举步维艰,面临多重挑战,它能否最终扩大FTAAP尚属疑问。