Negotiation Is Changing
46 Pages Posted: 11 Feb 2017 Last revised: 9 Aug 2017
Date Written: 2017
Abstract
This paper discusses the ways in which people have changed over the past few decades, largely owing to the influences of being increasingly immersed in a technological world. Our daily patterns, as well as the way we go about tasks at home and on the job have significantly changed. The literature on neuroscience and physiology suggest that our very brains are physically changing, resulting in changes in the way we act, process information and relate to one another.
How might all this affect negotiation? Surveying the literature on negotiation, one finds few suggestions that significant change has occurred in the technological era. Change is recognized only regarding negotiators’ instrumental use of technology. We negotiate over new platforms, and must tweak our actions to cope with the effects of each medium. Negotiation itself, though, is not considered to be in flux, and neither are negotiators.
This paper suggests that negotiators have changed, and that as a result, perhaps negotiation itself is in the midst of a change-process. The paper suggests a new research agenda for the negotiation field, re-exploring frameworks, assumptions and practices long held as near-axiomatic.
Keywords: negotiation, technology, change, flux, brain, neuroscience, society, conflict, attention
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