Negotiation Journal 

About: Negotiation Journal is an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Negotiation & Philosophy of law. It has an ISSN identifier of 0748-4526. Over the lifetime, 1109 publications have been published receiving 17128 citations.

Reframing Sacred Values

Abstract: Sacred values differ from material or instrumental values in that they incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for success. Across the world, people believe that devotion to essential or core values – such as the welfare of their family and country, or their commitment to religion, honor, and justice – are, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable. Counterintuitively, understanding an opponent's sacred values, we believe, offers surprising opportunities for breakthroughs to peace. Because of the emotional unwillingness of those in conflict situations to negotiate sacred values, conventional wisdom suggests that negotiators should either leave sacred values for last in political negotiations or try to bypass them with sufficient material incentives. Our empirical findings and historical analysis suggest that conventional wisdom is wrong. In fact, offering to provide material benefits in exchange for giving up a sacred value actually makes settlement more difficult because people see the offering as an insult rather than a compromise. But we also found that making symbolic concessions of no apparent material benefit might open the way to resolving seemingly irresolvable conflicts. We offer suggestions for how negotiators can reframe their position by demonstrating respect, and/or by apologizing for what they sincerely regret. We also offer suggestions for how to overcome sacred barriers by refining sacred values to exclude outmoded claims, exploiting the inevitable ambiguity of sacred values, shifting the context, provisionally prioritizing values, and reframing responsibility.

Ten Ways that Culture Affects Negotiating Style: Some Survey Results

Abstract: A survey of 310 persons of different nationalities and occupations asked respondents to rate their negotiating styles with respect to ten factors involved in the negotiation process. These factors included a preference for: a written contract in contrast to relationship-building as a negotiating goal; an integrative (win-win) as opposed to a distributive (win-lose) bargaining approach; and high rather than low tolerance for risk-taking. Reporting on the responses of persons from 12 countries and eight different occupations, this study finds that, in many instances, persons from the same cultures and occupations tended to respond to these negotiating ele ments in a similar fashion. Survey responses were also examined with respect to the respondents' gender. The study would appear to support the proposition that culture, occupational background, and gender can influence negotiating style.

Culture and Negotiation Strategy

Abstract: In this article the authors investigate the relationship between culture and joint gains by examining the role of information sharing and power strategies in intracultural negotiations. Previously, the authors found that the relationship between cultural values or norms and joint gains was uncertain in six cultures: France, Russia, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, and the United States. Of the five values and norms measured, only norms for information sharing in negotiation were directly related to joint gains. This article explores and extends prior findings by investigating the strategies used by negotiators in the same six cultures. Cultures that maximized joint gains used direct information-sharing strategies or a combination of indirect and direct strategies. Power strategies may help or hurt joint gains, depending on a culture's values and norms for power and whether or not power-based influence is used in conjunction with sufficient information exchange. The findings suggest that understanding the other party's cultural characteristics and strategies can help negotiators plan how to focus on information exchange and deal with unusual power strategies that they may encounter.