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Negotiation via Videoconferencing
Noam Ebner
Editors’ Note: Here, Ebner addresses a tool which has crept up on negotiators. Videoconferencing for negotiation was first hailed long ago with certain expectations: high quality video at high cost, to be used for negotiation between business teams in expensively equipped conference rooms. But now, these conditions are largely supplanted by widespread use of lower-resolution videoconferencing tools such as Skype and other low-to-no-cost programs, of varying quality and reliability. As one result, people now find themselves, routinely, in face-to-face negotiations with people whose faces cannot be seen very clearly. The social effects go far beyond this, too—concerns about who might be listening out of camera view, and other privacy and confidentiality issues, combine with widely varying levels of comfort with this technology to create a significant likelihood of a mismatch between parties who do not trust, or cannot manage, the technology or the setting equally. Ebner provides a matrix of considerations that apply to nonverbal communication in video conferencing, and another to help a negotiator understand features and risks of using video.
Introduction
In the 1989 movie Back to the Future II, Marty McFly’s character received a video call on a widescreen in his den. A colleague persuades McFly to join an illegal business operation, against his better judgment. A moment later, another call comes in, from his employer. Having monitored the previous conversation, McFly’s boss fires him on the spot. His remonstrations are to no avail, and his boss reiterates that he is terminated; the words “You’re fired” flash in bold letters on the screen, as three other machines in McFly’s house spit out faxes bearing the same message.
In the movie’s timeline, this scene takes place in late 2015—or, loosely, today—projecting that today, interactions via videoconferencing would be the norm: people would engage in it naturally, all houses would be equipped for such interactions, and significant conversations—including negotiations—would occur through this medium.
While this projection is not as far off the mark as other projections made in that film, communication through videoconferencing is only just beginning to approach the ubiquity anticipated in the movie, whilst people’s comfort level with the medium—particularly for significant negotiation interactions—has yet to match the movie’s projection. Also interesting is that this communication channel—portrayed as futuristic, next-millennia technology—already existed, and indeed, was already old, when the film was made.
In order to understand the capacity of videoconferencing for supporting negotiation interactions, this chapter will briefly describe the developmental history of this medium. It will couch interactions via video in two models of communication theory, explaining implications of this media for human interactions. Zooming in on negotiation interactions, specifically, the chapter will detail areas in which negotiation via videoconferencing poses negotiators challenges and opportunities. Throughout, the chapter will explore the research pertaining to utilizing videoconferencing for negotiation, and provide negotiators with practical advice.
To note, communication over video has many names: Videophone, videotelephony, videochat, videoconferencing, and more. Distinctions have been suggested, but there is no commonly-accepted terminology. With both the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries now recognizing “Skype” as a verb, we can expect terminology to become even more confusing. The term videoconferencing will serve for the interactions described in this chapter. As a working definition using that term, in the context of negotiation: Negotiation via videoconferencing is negotiation between two or more people, who are not in the same place, communicating with each other through a medium in which they see real-time motion images of each other whilst concurrently hearing each other in real-time audio. This captures familiar interactions such as Skype or FaceTime conversations, as well as more immersive interactions such as multi-screen telepresence, screenless holographic co-presence, and others.
History of Videoconferencing: It’s Longer than You Thought
The 21st century is clearly characterized by lighting-paced adoption of technology and innovation. The smartphone, for example, has already....
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