I have to admit to being delighted when I was asked to review the 2013 Handbook of Research on Negotiation, edited by Mara Olekalns and Wendi Adair. Indeed, this handbook is obligatory for negotiation researchers.
First, it is an excellent go-to resource for catching up on the latest research in the areas outside one’s discipline that we do not read often. Second, because it covers nearly the entire gamut of negotiation research topics, the handbook is an excellent resource for new research students who are still deciding what area they want to explore. It also gives novice researchers, and indeed established researchers, the opportunity to compare and contrast the writing styles of the chapter authors to figure out what makes some chapters compelling reading versus a more pedestrian writing style. Although my criticism of writing style is minor, I was surprised by the chapters that began with the (by now superfluous) announcement that negotiation is ubiquitous and important. The definition of negotiation also wore thin through repetition.
Students of those who teach negotiation will appreciate this text in their university library: the review of the literature contained in each chapter provides an excellent snapshot of the state-of-the-art in each field that studies negotiations. The reviews are comprehensive and provide students with a guide to the researchers at the cutting edge in each area whose work they can then begin to seek for reference.
I did not find the handbook directly useful to negotiation practitioners – unless they are inclined towards reading about the latest research findings in a particular area. This is not a flaw because practitioners are not the intended audience. This handbook is clearly by researchers for researchers. The editors, Mara Olekalns and Wendi Adair, have achieved their goal of assembling a set of chapters that review and reflect on what is known about the negotiation process and highlight questions within each area that warrant future attention.
Thirty-seven authors contributed to the 17 content chapters. The editors have also written an introductory chapter and a concluding chapter. Critiquing a handbook in which the chapters have been authored by leaders in their field is admittedly daunting. After all, it can be difficult to disagree with what these leaders think are the important questions in their area. Overall, I found the selection of topics and authors to be very judicious. The involvement of eight graduate students in the authorship is a welcome touch.
One way to evaluate a handbook is to think of a topic that you expect to see covered and then to check whether it is covered in the text. This handbook easily lived up to this criterion. I was surprised and delighted to see that chapter two was about individual differences – the one topic on which my undergraduate students always seem to want to write their essay.
Olekalns and Adair have divided the content of the handbook into four sections. The first section after the introduction (Part II), “The Individual Negotiator”, focuses on individual-level processes that affect negotiations. It includes the chapter mentioned above on disposition and motivation; two chapters on negotiator cognition; and the fourth chapter on emotion in negotiation. The six chapters in Part III, “Social-Psychological Processes”, will be well visited by my undergraduate students and covers the topics that have been central for many negotiation researchers in the past decade. This section focuses on the relationship between negotiators and includes chapters on power/status, trust, ethics, gender, national culture and multi-party negotiations. I found the final two sections of the handbook to be the most intriguing as potential research areas. Part IV: “Communication Processes” includes a chapter on e-negotiations which are becoming the norm for many of us in our jobs. Part V: “Complex Negotiations” takes the reader out of the laboratory and into the messy, nuanced and difficult-to-understand world of real negotiations on trade, peace-making, environmental conflicts and crisis negotiations around terrorism and suicide.
By its very nature, any handbook of research has a limited shelf-life. Given the growing number of researchers working and publishing on negotiation, it is likely that each chapter will warrant rewriting in about five years. However, for now, this handbook is an excellent resource for negotiation researchers – be they seasoned or new, for negotiation teachers and for students in a negotiation course.
