Research Digest

Researchers and practitioners have begun to pay increasing attention to the power of timely and sincere apologies to reduce or even prevent disputes. Some hospitals are more forthcoming, for example, in admitting medical mistakes. Nonetheless, some well‐meant apologies fall on deaf ears. Why?

Recently, Ryan Fehr and Michele Gelfand addressed this question by creating two studies to examine how forgiveness can be enhanced when the offenders' apologies are consistent with the victims' self‐construals, which the authors define as the way in which individuals perceive their relationships with other people. The first study examined the relationship between self‐construal and apology perceptions by having participants assess what should be included in a good apology. The second study was a policy‐capturing experiment used to confirm and extend the findings from the first. In this study, researchers found that each self‐construal strengthened the effect of its congruent apology component on the victim's forgiveness.

Their work highlights the importance of a well‐thought‐out and tailored apology. By taking a little extra time to consider how the victim feels and the impact of one's actions on his world, an apology can inspire forgiveness and resolve conflict.

Source: Fehr, R. and M. Gelfand. 2010. When apologies work: How matching apology components to victims' self‐construals facilitates forgiveness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process 113 (1): 37–50.

Measuring success in negotiation is harder than one might think. We may be reasonably satisfied with the deals we make, but unsure if we could have created (and captured) more value. We also care about relative fairness and how we are treated, which is referred to as procedural justice.

Zhen Wang, John Lim, and Xiaojia Guo address these issues in a recent paper about negotiation satisfaction with computer‐aided transactions in particular. Little is known about the factors that shape negotiator satisfaction with Negotiation Support Systems (NSS). This study investigates these factors from the perspectives of both negotiators and end users of NSS.

The results indicate that the gap between one's expectation and the final outcome is a more significant predictor of satisfaction than the outcome itself. Also, negotiators' perceptions about the negotiation process and its fairness determine satisfaction more than their perceptions about the negotiation outcomes. People want to be treated fairly by a computer program as well as by their human counterpart. Comparisons between fairness perceptions of computer‐assisted and human‐assisted negotiations would be an interesting next step in this research.

Source: Wang, Z., J. Lim, and X. Guo. 2010. Negotiator satisfaction in NSS‐facilitated negotiation. Group Decision and Negotiation 19 (3): 279–300.

We face moral choices whenever we negotiate with others. What do we owe them, for instance, with regard to candor and fairness? Researchers are shedding light on the emotional basis of our moral judgments, and a new study has surfaced that measures how implicit associations — which are activated without conscious effort and allow for an automatic response — can affect day‐to‐day business decisions and shape moral behavior.

Researchers Scott Reynolds, Keith Leavitt, and Katherine DeCelles used an implicit association test (IAT) to measure an individual's implicit assumptions about the morality of a business. In one study, participants were asked to make a decision in an insurance claim scenario. Group One received a memo praising its corporate culture that emphasizes success and whatever it takes to win. Group Two's memo emphasized a culture of values and always doing what is right. Researchers first ascertained that a majority of both groups' members believed that business activities are inherently moral but found that Group One was more likely to submit a false claim, apparently because of the competitive cue. Their studies demonstrate how an employee's automatic decision‐making processes interact with businesses' corporate culture to shape moral behaviors.

Source: Reynolds, S., K. Leavitt, and K. DeCelles. 2010. Automatic ethics: The effects of implicit assumptions and contextual cues on moral behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology 95 (4): 752–760.

If negotiation is a search for agreement, how much time should we spend looking?

Recent studies by Simona Botti and Christopher Hsee suggest that we underestimate the cost of seeking more information and overestimate its value, leaving us dissatisfied when we are done. Their research found that having more choice freedom expends greater mental energy, involves more emotional cost, and can result in a lower quality outcome.

For example, in one study, participants were asked to choose a bank to invest money in a certificate of deposit account. One group chose from an unlimited number of banks, the other had a small number to choose from. Both groups predicted a better outcome and experience with the unlimited choices. But the results indicated that members of the group with morefreedom of choice performed worse and felt worse than the group that had less freedom.

Source: Botti, S. and C. Hsee. 2010. Dazed and confused by choice: How the temporal costs of choice freedom lead to undesirable outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process 112 (2): 161–171.

In a recent article in International Negotiation, Jeswald Salacuse, who has taught in a variety of settings including universities, executive training programs, international organizations, and private firms, reflects on the rewards and challenges of teaching international business negotiation. His approach has been to “teach the law in the shadow of negotiation,” according to the notion that negotiation strongly affects legal arrangements and their implementation.

He defines three pedagogical goals to make students better international business negotiators: better negotiation analysis, improved negotiation skills, and increased international business knowledge. In teaching the process of negotiation, Salacuse uses case studies and simulated negotiations to provide background and draws on his own international business experience to highlight the reality of the international negotiation processes.

Salacuse divides teaching methods and materials into two groups: didactic, including text and lectures, and experiential, encompassing simulations and role‐playing exercises. He provides an explanation of how he uses the material and methods in both groups, including using videos of negotiators discussing their work and his debriefing methods after a simulation.

Salacuse's article provides negotiation teachers with useful ideas and approaches for their own courses and teaching methods while recognizing, as he states, that they are a work in progress, even after thirty years.

Source: Salacuse, J. 2010. Teaching international business negotiation: Reflections on three decades of experience. International Negotiation 15 (2): 187–228.

Counterinsurgency efforts in war‐torn areas of the world present special challenges to soldiers and their commanding officers. On a daily basis they must deploy their military skills in harrowing situations while also seeking to support and build alliances with local populations and their stakeholders.

A recent article by Ulrich Mans, Gideon Shimshon, and Leonard Suransky describes innovative methods for training warrior diplomats. Their methods are part of a teaching project developed and executed for the Netherlands Defense Academy (NDA). For example, they discuss how communication software can help make a simulated exercise “real” by enhancing the level of hands‐on review by trainers and monitoring the evolution of decisions and relationships in real time. The software, referred to an InterAct and used in the NDA simulation, is based on an e‐mail exchange program and generates graphical overviews of all interaction patterns of the game. It also provides trainers with tools to add elements of frustration during the game, which is important in designing a simulation for military training because it makes the feeling of frustration, all too common in dealing with political impasse, a key part of the learning experience.

Source: Mans, U., G. Shimshon, and L. Suransky. 2010. Training the warrior diplomat: Enhancing negotiation and conflict management skills through experiential learning. International Negotiation 15 (2): 247–280.