Research Digest Open Access

Professional codes and a sense of personal responsibility call for negotiators to be straightforward, honest, and sincere in their dealings, but it seems that people who are less honest and sincere in their negotiations often get better results. Most scholarly literature on this paradox has focused on deception and unethical behaviors. This recent study by Scott DeRue, Donald E. Conlon, Henry Moon, and Harold W. Willaby looks at the phenomenon from a different angle, examining the impact of a negotiator's straightforwardness. The study findings suggest that straightforwardness may have costs, especially in distributive negotiation between equal‐power bargainers but that it could prove valuable in cases in which there is a power imbalance between parties.

The researchers found that straightforwardness is an important approach or behavior that shapes the negotiation process and outcome. The desire to develop a sincere and honest relationship with the other party leads to greater concern for the other party and often results in greater concessions. But, given this link between straightforwardness and concern for others, it can also temper a power imbalance by facilitating greater cooperation among negotiators.

Source: DeRue, D. S., D. E. Conlon, H. Moon, and H. W. Willaby. 2009. When is straightforwardness a liability in negotiations? The role of integrative potential and structural power. Journal of Applied Psychology 94: 1032–1047.

We tend to think of people's ethical behavior (or lack thereof) as reflecting their basic character. Some recent experiments by Francesca Gino and Lamar Pierce, however, suggest that a person's inclination to cheat can be strongly influenced by the size of cash returns.

They set up three laboratory experiments using large quantities of cash to investigate how monetary‐based stimuli can influence over‐reporting of performance for monetary gains and found that just the simple proximity to a large amount of cash encouraged unethical behavior. For example, one study showed that a significantly higher number of participants in a room with more cash at stake acted unethically for personal gain than the participants in the room with less cash at stake.

In each study, there was at least one group stimulated by the proximity of wealth, leading to unethical behavior (overstatement of performance). Their results provide strong evidence supporting the hypothesis that wealth influences the magnitude of overstatement and may push people beyond an ethical threshold. It also suggests that abundant wealth induces inequity perceptions to those who operate in the wealthy environment, again leading to unethical behavior.

Source: Gino, F. and L. Pierce. 2009. The abundance effect: Unethical behavior in the presence of wealth. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 109: 142–155.

When we negotiate, many of us care that we receive a fair share of the benefit relative to our counterpart. A recent study by Lars‐Olof Johansson and Henrik Svedsäter suggests that in multiparty cases, we care that the distribution of benefit among others is fair as well.

The authors conducted three experiments to examine reactions to third‐party inequality. The results showed that a majority of the participants were in favor of equal monetary payoff distributions between themselves and two others, demonstrating that people are averse to inequalities between themselves and others and between others.

But when awards to third parties were determined randomly, such as through a coin flip, fairness became less important and increasing monetary gain more important. When decisions are out of the negotiator's control, it is easier to be more self‐serving and less altruistic.

Source: Johansson, L.‐O. and H. Svedsäter. 2009. Piece of cake? Allocating rewards to third parties when fairness is costly. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 109: 107–119.

Many negotiators want to do well for themselves but without unduly exploiting others. A recent set of experiments suggests, however, that people's sense of fairness is often strongly influenced by whether they are dealing directly with other parties or whether an intermediary agent is acting for them. We may thus duck our own moral responsibilities by using agents to do our dirty work.

This paper describes four studies that examine the moral psychology of indirect agency. The results suggest that even when the primary agent is in complete control of the offending action, just the mere existence of a secondary agent may be enough of a safeguard against blame and responsibility.

The same results were found in purchase decisions — participants were more willing to hire an underpaid worker indirectly through an agency than directly themselves. Thus, the mere presence or active intervention of third parties may give cover to those who attempt to exploit or harm others.

Source: Paharia, N., K. S. Kassam, J. D. Greene, and M. H. Bazerman. 2009. Dirty work, clean hands: The moral psychology of indirect agency. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 109: 134–141.

Allocation of responsibility in Superfund cases is often a complex and costly process. Not only are the environmental issues challenging, but the fact that multiple parties may be liable further complicates matters.

Mark Kilgour and Jason Levy have developed a formal model that suggests settlement may require threat of added costs. They applied their model to the clean–up of a Superfund site (the Middlefield–Elis–Whisman [MEW] bargaining case study) and predicted that without the threat of additional costs, allocation of clean–up costs will never happen.

Without incentives and threats provided by the EPA, the responsible parties at the MEW site will not come to a negotiated agreement on design, construction, and clean–up, the authors argue. They suggest that there are strategic reasons as to why these parties would not agree on clean–up costs. Thus, it is necessary for the Environmental Protection Agency to add to the pressure in the form of incentives and imposed costs.

Source: Kilgour, D. M. and J. K. Levy. 2009. A model of bargaining over hazardous waste cleanup. Group Decision and Negotiation 18: 335–347.

Conflicts over water rights threaten stability in many parts of the world. A recent issue of International Negotiation is devoted to studies of efforts to manage such disputes. It builds on the findings from the 2000 issue on negotiations in international watercourses and focuses on the advances in the field over the last nine years.

Articles in the 2000 issue documented paths to cooperation in negotiations through financial assistance and joint river commissions. The articles in the 2009 issue build on these successes and focus on five themes, including going beyond single case studies by comparing multiple cases across different basins and challenging concepts of power through an analysis of downstream–upstream relationships.

In their introduction to this issue, Neda Zawahri and Andrea Gerlak outline a future research agenda for river management based on the articles in this issue, including the role of climate change in future negotiations and the declining quality of fresh water resources.

This issue of International Negotiation also includes a memorial tribute to Harold Guetzkow by Daniel Druckman. The tribute emphasizes his many contributions to the methodology of simulation and to the study of international negotiation.

Source: Zawahri, N. A. and A. K. Gerlak. 2009. Negotiating international river disputes to avert conflict. International Negotiation 14: 211–227.

Source: Druckman, D. 2009. A tribute to Harold Guetzkow: The person and the social scientist. International Negotiation 14: 441–445.

In a recent article, Katja Favretto maintains that biased peacemakers may sometimes actually be more effective than others who are nonpartisan, particularly if they have the clout to secure agreement. She discusses the literature on the role of great power contribution to conflict management and presents a formal model that demonstrates how a neutral bias can contribute to a failed peace negotiation.

Her model, an intervention bargaining game, shows how third‐party bias might persuade an adversary that the intervener is motivated to enforce a settlement through coercion, if necessary. She then performs three case studies that look at different levels of third‐party bias and their conflict‐management outcomes. The analyses identify conditions in which great powers can use their biased military leverage to secure a settlement and those in which nonbiased mediation works best.

In another article, Isak Svensson reaches a similar conclusion in analyzing the impact of “biased mediators” in recent civil wars. Among other things, he notes that their involvement may lead to more elaborate institutional arrangements to secure peace.

His study examines the relationship between the types of mediators and the content of the peace agreements. He found that while neutral mediators play an important role in ending armed conflicts, these agreements may be of poorer quality than if a biased mediator was included in the process.

Source: Favretto, K. 2009. Should peacemakers take sides? Major power mediation, coercion, and bias. American Political Science Review 130: 248–263.

Source: Svensson, I. 2009. Who brings which peace? Neutral versus biased mediation and institutional peace arrangements in civil wars. Journal of Conflict Resolution 53: 446–469.