Negotiation Theory and Research

Leigh L. Thompson, Leigh L. Thompson

• Editorial: Psychology Press
• Año: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135423513
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psicologia
• Categoría: Storia e teoria della psicologia

Negotiation is the most important skill anyone in the business world can have today, because people must continually negotiate their jobs, responsibilities, and opportunities. Yet very few people know strategies for maximizing their outcomes in everyday and in more formal business situations.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of this emerging topic through original contributions from leaders in social psychology and negotiation research. All topics covered are core to the understanding of the negotiation process and include: decision-making and judgment, emotion and negotiation, motivation, and game theory.

1
Negotiation: Overview of Theory and Research

LEIGH L. THOMPSON

Unlike so many subfields within a larger discipline, negotiation research seems to defy the typical pattern often witnessed: A new research area is identified; a small group of scholars conducts research in that area and excludes others who have not been steeped in their very particular methodologies. Eventually, the area of research withers and dies. So many areas of research are "hot" or "trendy" for a few years (perhaps even a, decade) and then fade away. Negotiation research stands in sharp contrast to this pattern: By almost any count, negotiation research is even more popular today than it was in 1985.

Pfeffer (1993) argues that the success of a discipline can be measured by the degree of internal consistency and paradigm development. Negotiation as a subfield of organizational behavior nearly meets all of Pfeffer’s criteria. The suggested criteria by Pfeffer includes:

• The proportion of PhD graduates employed in university teaching
• The percentage of references in published works that were themselves published in the preceding five years
• The length of the longest chain of courses in a department, where a chain is defined as a course being a prerequisite to another course and that course being a prerequisite to another course and so on
• The preference for and use of graduate students and assistants in the research process

Unlike so many areas of research, negotiation has proliferated across a large body of social scientific inquiry. What is the key to the long-standing success of negotiation as a topic of scholarly inquiry? In this opening chapter, we identify five key reasons that sustain and grow negotiation as a field: adaptive supply and demand, clear and compelling dependent measures, underperformance by people who are highly motivated, pressing need for best practices, and the culture of the community of scholars.

Adaptive Supply and Demand

For more than three decades, negotiation has been the most popular course in several top business schools. Consequently, business schools have hired scholars to teach negotiation courses. Many of the people hired to teach the courses have heretofore never conducted negotiation research. These scholars responded to the challenge by developing research programs on negotiation. Because the scholars are trained in different disciplines and have often conducted dissertation research on topics other than negotiation, each scholar brings a unique perspective to the timeless topic of negotiation. In short, many scholars have taken up the challenge to “reinvent” themselves postdissertation as a negotiation scholar. By agreeing to teach courses in negotiation, these scholars have thought deeply about how their own area of expertise might inform negotiation research. The research produced by these scholars then creates more excitement and demand for the course, which in turn leads to more hiring in the field, and so on.

Clear and Compelling Dependent Measures

Negotiation research has its roots in economic theory (see Nash, 1950; von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1947). Consequently, elegant measures for performance exist that are measurable and clear. Negotiation scholars, can, for example, measure the incidence and degree of “win-win” outcomes. (It should be noted that researchers do not use the term win-win, but rather, “integrative” agreement to refer to the fact that mutually beneficial outcomes are ones that satisfy both parties’ interests.) Integrative outcomes are not compromises. Compromise agreements require both parties to abandon their most important interests and settle for something substantially less. The timeless example that scholars most often refer to is the case of the two sisters and the one orange (Follett, 1940). Both sisters demand a single orange for themselves. Finally, they agree to compromise and cut the orange in half. One sister uses the juice to make fresh-squeezed orange juice; the other uses the peel and discards the juice. In the heat of conflict, they overlooked the integrative solution of giving one sister all of the juice and the other all of the peel.

People Who Care Underperform

Another feature that is arguably even more important in terms of fueling research on negotiation is the fact that most people fail to reach integrative agreements (Thompson, 2005; Thompson & Hrebec, 1996). Hundreds of investigations have revealed that people leave hundreds of thousands of dollars “under the table” because they are unable to reach integrative agreements. The reason is not for lack of trying. The problem is fundamentally rooted in negotiators’ mental models of the situation. In short, most negotiators have a competitive, fixed-pie perception of negotiation (Bazerman & Chugh, chapter 2; Bazerman & Neale, 1983).

Need for Best Practices

We think that it is the cry for best practices and ways to improve performance that helps negotiation theory to be stronger. This logic would seem to defy the traditional notion of “basic research,” which is considered to be more pure and noble than applied research. Negotiation research is applied, but also the essence of basic research.

Community of Scholars

The negotiation community of scholars is an inclusive, rather than exclusive community. No negotiation researcher would ever suggest that unless one has dedicated several years of training in special laboratory methods, that they need not bother engaging in negotiation research. Quite the contrary. The negotiation community of scholars is welcoming to newcomers, who have interesting ideas that have not yet been applied to negotiation. For this reason, researchers with roots in social psychology, economics, sociology, and communication studies are part of the field. Moreover, the community comes together quite often in the form of classroom research projects (Loyd, Kern, & Thompson, 2005; Thompson, Kern, & Loyd, 2003). In short, communities of scholars across the globe collaborate on research projects that involve several laboratories. The community of scholars interacts regularly at national conference meetings and small, topical conferences (this book is a case in point).

The field of negotiation is noted for its bright superstars. These superstars graciously agreed to be a part of this book. And, in every case, they worked as a team. The cross-citation rate is very high, and the incidence of multiauthored papers is very high.

Contents of the Book

In chapter 2, Max Bazerman (PhD, 1979, Carnegie-Mellon University) and Dolly Chugh (PhD in progress, Harvard University) elaborate on what some might refer to as the first descriptive theory of negotiation—bounded rationality and faulty decision making. In their chapter, Bazerman and Chugh focus on failures (see the point about underperformance above) as a point of departure. They provide a top-down view of the classic decision-perspective of negotiation in which negotiators are viewed as falling prey to a number of biases, such as framing effects, overconfidence, and anchoring. According to Bazerman and Chugh, the “bounded awareness” and “focusing failure” perspective not only accounts for the performance problems of negotiators, but provides a new way of thinking about ethical shortcomings of negotiators.

In chapter 3, Margaret Neale (PhD, 1982, University of Texas, Austin) and Alison Fragale (PhD, 2004, Stanford University) follow closely on the heels of Bazerman and Chugh, but in their social cognitive view of negotiation, they take us out of the mind of the individual negotiator and into the social-interpersonal dynamics of two (or more negotiators). Their fundamental point of theorizing begins with the observation that negotiations are highly ambiguous and, consequently, negotiators must make assumptions and draw inferences about the other party, the situation, and themselves. Neale and Fragale deeply investigate the different types of uncertainty that negotiators experience and how each can then shape attitudes and behaviors at the negotiation table.

In chapter 4, Peter Carnevale (PhD, 1982, SUNY at Buffalo) and Carsten De Dreu (PhD, 1993, University of Groningen) heat up the study of negotiator judgment and decision making by considering the goals and motives that drive the negotiator. Carnevale and De Dreu distinguish key concepts of motivations, goals, aspirations, and tactics. They examine how goals and motives are expressed in strategies and tactics of negotiation. They present a taxonomy of motives and a framework for examining emotion, cognitive processes, and strategic choices in negotiation.

In chapter 5, Jeffrey Loewenstein (PhD, 2000, Northwestern University) and Leigh Thompson (PhD, 1988, Northwestern University) take up the question of just how and why negotiators might improve their performance. They provide stark evidence that negotiators—despite their position, intelligence, and motivation—routinely underperform, and they concomitantly make the point that most people should be experts at negotiation, at least judging by the frequency with which they negotiate. Loewenstein and Thompson review the major paradigms that have been used to study experience and expertise in negotiation and outline the key conditions that need to be in place for negotiators to learn. Loewenstein and Thompson specify what is meant by learning and distinguish superficial learning from deep learning.

In chapter 6, Bruce Barry (PhD, 1973, University of Wisconsin), Ingrid Fulmer (PhD, 2003, Vanderbilt University), and Nathan Goates (PhD in progress, Vanderbilt University) introduce the concept of emotion and mood to the study of negotiation. Barry, Fulmer, and Goates represent the new vanguard of scholars who realize that despite its somber economic roots, negotiation is anything but a coolheaded process. Barry et al. distinguish the constructs of mood, emotion, affect, and feeling and discuss the methods by which negotiation produces mood and the way in which affect influences the process and outcome of negotiation.

In chapter 7, Kathleen McGinn (PhD, 1992, Northwestern University) brings her social network training to the study of relationships in negotiations. McGinn heralds the new look of negotiation research that realizes that negotiation does not occur in a social vacuum. She methodically considers how past relationships affect negotiations and how choice of a negotiation partner influences the process and outcome of negotiations.

In chapter 8, Janice Nadler (PhD, 2000, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Donna Shestowsky (PhD, 2003, Stanford University) focus on how information technology (e.g., phone, e-mail, Internet) affect the process and outcome of negotiation. Nadler and Shestowsky commandingly bring together the stockpile of negotiation research that has focused on non—face-to-face interaction. They distinguish economic measures of process and performance from social indicators of performance.

In chapter 9, Jeanne Brett (PhD, 1972, University of Illinois) and Michele Gelfand (PhD, 1996, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) provide a state-of-the-art review of how negotiation process and outcomes are affected by cultural frameworks. They define culture and then identify five key cultural assumptions that pervade the common approach to negotiation. Many of their key assumptions cut to the very heart of the chapters in this book (e.g., the rationality assumption, assumptions about the appropriate display of emotions, etc.). Brett and Gelfand effectively take us behind the cultural curtain that so much negotiation research plays in front of to raise critical questions about the processes and outcomes of cross-cultural negotiations.

In chapter 10, Laura Kray (PhD, 1997, University of Washington, Seattle) and Linda Babcock (PhD, 1988, University of Wisconsin at Madison) take up the study of gender in negotiation. They do not rely on a narrow personality of sex differences approach. Rather, their point of departure is “motivated social cognition,” which brings the social-cognitive view and the study of motivation and goals to the forefront of gender in negotiation. They provide compelling evidence of women’s performance relative to that of men in negotiation and then analyze the underlying motivations.

Summary and Conclusion

The chapters in this book can be conceptualized as a 10-sided prism. It is possible for the simple act of negotiation (as it occurs every day in boardrooms, lunchrooms, and perhaps even bedrooms!) to be analyzed via behavioral decision theory, social-cognition, motivation, and so forth. However, rather than each approach being a competitor or threat to the other approaches (or lenses), each complements the other approaches. Thus, just as the different approaches complement one another, the scholars in this book complement each other. It is a testament to the scholars’ versatility that nearly every scholar was fully capable or writing almost every chapter in this book.

References

Bazerman, M. H., & Neale, M. A. (1983). Heuristics in negotiation: Limitations to dispute resolution effectiveness. In M. H. Bazerman & R. J. Lewicki (Eds.), Negotiating in organizations. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Follett, M. P. (1940). Constructive conflict. In H. C. Metcalf & L. Urwick (Eds.), Dynamic administration: The collected papers of Mary Parker Follett. New York: Harper.

Loyd, D. L., Kern, M. C., & Thompson, L. (2005). Classroom research: Bridging the ivory divide. Academy of Management Journal: Learning and Education, 4(1), 8–21.

Nash, J. (1950). The bargaining problem. Econometrica, 18, 155–162.

Neumann, J. von, & Morgenstern, O. (1947). Theory of games and economic behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Pfeffer, J. (1993). Barriers to the advance of organizational science: Paradigm development as a dependent variable. Academy of Management Review, 8(4), 599–620.

Thompson, L. (2005) The mind and heart of the negotiator (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Thompson, L. & Hrebec, D. (1996). Lose-lose agreements in interdependent decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 120(3), 396–409.

Thompson, L., Kern, M., & Loyd, D. L. (2003). Research methods of micro-organizational behavior....