Abstract
The Psychology of Negotiations in the twenty-first Century: New Challenges and New Solutions is a seminal edition relevant to today's disruptively changing work environment, more than ever. The new world of work is global, remote, fast-paced, flexible and boundary-less. Furthermore, the transition to post-COVID19 pandemic bears additional challenges throughout worldwide organizational space. To successfully overcome those challenges, we need to know how to sustain smarter workplace awareness by fostering an agile, supple, inclusive and resilient new work environment. In order to do so, we must view the process of negotiation as an ongoing open systems design thinking 1 /open innovation approach: in theory, practice, methodologies, strategies and interventions across diverse industry settings alike. In other words, we must examine how the knowledge production and dissemination of negotiation process are intertwined across cross-boundary inflows and outflows between individuals, teams, organizations, societies, countries and vice versa. This iterative framework is the one reinforced and extended by the authors across all 17 chapters followed.
Chapter 1 (pp. 3–13) (Section 1) introduces how fairness, emotions, social influence, organizational learning, information technology, team dynamics, ethicality and diversity may blend to assist individuals (employees), management and organizations to become more insightful and successful negotiators (p. 4). Following this rationale, negotiation is treated as an open systems design/open innovation network. What Chapter 1 particularly explores is how employees and management at all hierarchical levels within the organization need to adopt, adapt, facilitate and improve organizational justice and (or) fairness perceptions. This is deemed necessary in order to strategically achieve group/team and business performance during the negotiation challenges they face.
Chapters 2–5 (pp. 17–135) (Section 2) illustrate the significance of tactics that have been conceptually and empirically indicated to corroborate enhanced employee perceived justice and (or) fairness behaviour that relate to greater cooperation within organizational boundaries. What Chapter 2 specifically stresses is the challenge that negotiating agents face when they exercise these tactics, due to a limited sense of perceived control over their social media information exchanges (pp. 17–38). The strategic importance of tactics associated with fairness authenticity in cooperation-enhancing negotiation actions during interaction is noted in Chapter 3 (pp. 45–69). The remaining two Chapters 4 (pp. 75–110) and 5 (pp. 115–135) strengthen the suggestions and reflections of the previous chapters within the salary negotiation context. This is deemed necessary, as workplace cultural and technological forces of changes and actions for sustaining elevated subjective value of negotiation outcomes exist alongside economic ones.
Contrary to Section 2, the chapters in Section 3 (Chapters 6–8) (pp. 141–238) that follow, emphasize the role of affect, emotions and moods-related behavioural intentions as essentials in influencing negotiation dynamics (p. 9). In particular, Chapter 6 (pp. 141–174) focuses on reviewing in separate subsections theoretical and empirical evidence of (a) the active effect that both positive and negative moods and emotions (e.g., happiness, anger, fear, guilt, sadness, anxiety, envy, embarrassment) have over negotiation procedure outcomes as being “intelligible and important” (p. 150), (b) their association with power relationships between negotiating agents and (c) provision of avenues for future research. The ways that employees and negotiator partners often engage in revenge are widely uncovered in Chapter 7 (pp. 181–207). These manners are supplemented by an exploration of the means that virtual technology may intensify this revenge-seeking. This potentially may lead to underperformed negotiation deals and strategies that might actively support employees and managers to achieve more trustful, cooperative and less conflictual negotiation outcomes. Chapter 8 (pp. 211–238) elaborates on the insights of the previous chapter and further identifies the tactics negotiation agents regularly use to mislead their (negotiation) partners. In addition, it outlines (a) the strategies agents may employ to be protected from deception and (b) the associated implications of these methods that are important for effective negotiation deals in virtual environment.
Section 4 (Chapters 9–11) (pp. 245–318) reflects on the significance of social influence's 2 theoretical and practical implications in terms of instigated negotiation outcomes. More specifically, the first corresponding chapter illuminates the importance of the social network essentials (i.e., individuals, groups, organizations) in affecting negotiator agents’ degree of power and impact on interaction outcomes. This is important, given the disruptive organizational restructuring particularly evoked in relation to earlier decades, aided by directions for future challenges (Chapter 9) (pp. 245–264). The impact of stereotyping on enhancing understanding of the essentials involved in intercultural and cross-cultural negotiations, even virtual ones and their related consequences, are efficiently described in Chapter 10 (pp. 269–288). In the next chapter (Chapter 11) (pp. 293–318), the authors present and expand upon the role that cultural stereotypes pertain for male versus female labour force in the outcome of the negotiation process, and offer lines of relevant further research initiatives needed.
The final Section 5 of the book elaborates on (a) the vital importance of implementing organizational systems in order to increase the effectiveness of negotiation outcomes based on organizational learning resourcefulness, (b) the corresponding strategies used and (c) streams of future research proposed. These issues constitute the key messages of the first chapter (Chapter 12) (pp. 327–357). The ultimate goal of Chapter 13 (pp. 363–394) that follows, is (a) to discuss the five major deficits that contracts often possess after an agreement has been made, diminishing the quality of the negotiation deals achieved (i.e., distrust, extended codification, clarification, uncertainty, not including unforeseen events) (p. 393) and (b) to present potential lines of additional future research regarding each one of the above pitfalls 3 .
The last chapter of Section 5 (Chapter 14) (pp. 399–434) illustrates the recent developments that information and especially, virtual technology, have posed on negotiation before, during and after interaction, and their practical implications for employees and management. Furthermore, it reflects on insightful questions for future exploration. Last but not least, the final section of the book (Section 6) (Chapters 15–17) (pp. 443–497) serves as a visionary commentary on the views that future negotiation research needs to involve as an “open systems design thinking/open innovation approach” (p. 12), multidisciplinary in nature and in methodology employed, within diverse fields (e.g., social psychology, organizational behaviour, neuroscience, economics), over networks, over time and over space (p. 445). In particular, the authors emphasize the fundamental role of organizational leaders in strengthening favourable negotiation against conflict dynamics, through (a) facilitating organizational culture, trust, organizational justice, fairness strategies, organizational learning initiatives and (b) establishing appropriate human resource management systems (Chapter 15) (pp. 443–460). The integration of negotiation and team research streams is reflected in the next chapter (Chapter 16) (pp. 465–480). This chapter focuses on the theoretical and empirical application of fairness, social influence and organizational perspectives into negotiation procedures and outcomes.
In the last chapter of the book (Chapter 17) (pp. 485–497), the authors extend their perceptive reflection upon the role of fairness and ethicality, emotions and inclusive diversity in negotiation dynamics.
Collectively, this book thoroughly informs readers, researchers and managers and sets the audience of the Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation over the open systems design thinking/open innovation in science paradigm, for (a) understanding the challenges of the strategic negotiation management agenda that our era of disruptive milestone workplace trends inspires and (b) by taking into account that “learning never exhausts the mind” (Leonardo da Vinci), especially in a time where “there is nothing permanent except change” (Heraclitus).
