Influencing, negotiating skills and conflict‐handling: some additional research and reflections

This paper examines the connection between influencing, negotiation and conflict‐handling. Using newly gathered data, it develops earlier articles on the relationships between negotiation and influencing by linking them to the associated area of conflict‐handling. The new data confirm the authors' view that negotiation is best seen as an aspect of influencing and that, although both are associated with conflict‐handling, they go beyond this. The new findings reinforce concerns about the role of negotiation and suggest some situations in which negotiation may be appropriate and some where it may not be suitable. As earlier, these findings have implications for the way training in these areas is carried out and how managers can make effective use of influencing, negotiation and conflict‐handling.