Negotiation in the 21st Century Workplace: New Challenges and New Solutions

The 21st century workplace is a “new world” relative to the workplace that preceded it, and this new world (for reasons explained in this book) necessitates negotiating effectively in ways that have generally been understudied in prior negotiation or management studies. The “litigation explosion” (Groth, Goldman, Gilliland, & Bies, 2002; Olson, 1992) is among the ways distinguishing the 21st century workplace from work experiences in earlier days. The increasing cost and risk of lawsuits makes negotiationrather than litigation-an attractive alternative. Additional attributes that distinguish the 21st century workplace from work experiences in earlier days include organizations’: increasing willingness to restructure in ways that result in employee layoffs (unheard of in earlier times; cf. Levine, 2002); globalization of products and services (Friedman, 2005); greater employee diversity (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007); and greater reliance on technology-mediated communications among employees, including team members and suppliers (Bailey & Kurland, 2002; Valley, White, & Iacobucci, 1992) increasingly dispersed around the globe. Cumulatively, these changes in the nature of work necessitate negotiation skills for not only preventing or resolving disputes in ways less costly than litigation, but also conducting everyday as well as more complex business transactions. Not surprisingly, then, negotiation skills are increasingly viewed by organizations as strategically important for individual employees as well as managers and thus as a source of organizations’ sustainable competitive advantage (Barney, 1991; Thompson, 2009). The purpose of this book is to bridge the gap between management and negotiation research so that employees, managers, and their organizations can all become better negotiators and so that negotiators can be more effective within the organization. Collectively, the chapters in this book illuminate that 21st century employees (at all levels) canvia tactics that are informed by relevant negotiation or management research (often treated in isolation of each other)-become more effective (a) fairness managers, (b) emotion managers, (c) social or grouplevel managers, and (d) organizational managers. Each chapter specifies tactics likely to aid employees or managers in achieving their goal (such as effectively managing fairness, emotions, social influences, and organizational transaction costs), informed by relevant negotiation or management research. Each chapter concludes by noting the 21st century workplace challenges associated with using the advised tactics and thus the questions in need of future negotiation research. Taken together, the chapters in this book therefore promise to set the next generation’s research agenda in negotiation. The research agenda emerging from this book’s collection of chapters is likely to have strategic importance for both managers and negotiators since the future research needs named in each chapter’s conclusion are guided, at least in part, by the 21st century workplace management challenges illuminated in each chapter.