Section VIII: Difference—With and Without Codes
Cultural considerations now loom much larger in negotiation than was once true. Our section on Difference begins with one such set of considerations that should be obvious, at least to Americans: race, a salient factor in many disputes. Yet the next chapter, analyzing how Westerners tend to misread Chinese culture when negotiating there, meshes to a surprising degree with the chapter on “negotiating while black”, such that the two together can suggest cultural errors you may encounter (or make) in still other cultural encounters.
Gender, of course, is by now often considered under the same rubric as culture, and gender is the next subject addressed. The common observation that men and women appear to be following different codes, however, is just the beginning, and the ensuing chapter lays out how overlapping systems of cultural codes actually work. The final chapter in this section assesses the often sad experiences of Western/Northern negotiators and mediators when they have taken their (implicit, and often unrecognized) codes with them....to an extremely different culture.
41. Negotiating While Black
Michael Z. Green
With America’s increasingly multicultural population, the ability to recognize that race still matters is an important factor in negotiations. This chapter attempts to capture an important chunk of the literature that identifies the unique experience for black persons in negotiation, and makes some suggestions to address these challenges. Because of its focus on cultural impacts of negotiating while being black, this chapter can usefully be read in conjunction with Bee Chen Goh’s chapter on negotiating under Chinese culture, Gale Miller’s on Codes of Culture, and Kaufman and Blanchot on Theory Meets Reality.
42. Typical Errors in Chinese-Western Negotiation
Bee Chen Goh
It’s no longer rare for negotiators based in a Western culture and instinctively applying Western concepts to find themselves in dealings with people who start from a very different cultural frame of reference. Goh, a Chinese-Malaysian law professor working in Australia, deconstructs the typical errors that negotiators unfamiliar with Chinese culture can be expected to make. This chapter should be read in conjunction with Miller on Codes of Culture, Kaufman and Blanchot on Theory Meets Reality as well as Michael Green’s on Negotiating while Black; together, they can provide you with a fast tour that will provide some hints as to what you might encounter in still other cultures—and, perhaps, in less familiar parts of your own culture.
43. Gender Differences in Negotiation
Julia Bear and Linda Babcock
By now, it’s widely discussed that men and women tend to negotiate differently. But what does this mean in practice? Are women always disadvantaged? And what can be done to improve the gender gaps typically seen in negotiation outcomes? The authors review decades of experimental research and make a series of recommendations—both for individuals, and for organizations which increasingly see it as in their own interest to ensure fair handling of employee and other negotiations.
44. Codes of Culture in Negotiation
Gale Miller
Culture, Miller argues, has become a widely recognized element in negotiation at many levels. Yet he finds that this has failed to clarify how culture actually works, because culture means so many things to so many people that invoking the concept is as likely to confuse as to enlighten negotiators. The author argues for making a distinction between three different orientations to culture. They range from treating culture as widely shared values and practices of large groups and societies (which the author calls “encompassing codes”), to focusing on the distinctive social realities created in social interactions in small groups (“small group codes”). Between these extremes, he says, is the “multiple codes” orientation, which stresses the diversity of values and practices shared within cultural communities. Miller contends that understanding these three codes can help any negotiator decode what is really going on.
45. Theory Meets Reality: Negotiation and Mediation in Mali
Sanda Kaufman and Eric Blanchot
Do the theories and best practices now widely understood among negotiators actually hold up, when exposed to a culture and setting very different from those in which they originated? The authors track Blanchot’s experiences in a Francophone African country, and find evidence that when given such a cultural stress test, some of our field’s most cherished theories do not help. It is even possible that standard approaches and remedies, applied in the wrong place, may cause active harm.
Gender, of course, is by now often considered under the same rubric as culture, and gender is the next subject addressed. The common observation that men and women appear to be following different codes, however, is just the beginning, and the ensuing chapter lays out how overlapping systems of cultural codes actually work. The final chapter in this section assesses the often sad experiences of Western/Northern negotiators and mediators when they have taken their (implicit, and often unrecognized) codes with them....to an extremely different culture.
41. Negotiating While Black
Michael Z. Green
With America’s increasingly multicultural population, the ability to recognize that race still matters is an important factor in negotiations. This chapter attempts to capture an important chunk of the literature that identifies the unique experience for black persons in negotiation, and makes some suggestions to address these challenges. Because of its focus on cultural impacts of negotiating while being black, this chapter can usefully be read in conjunction with Bee Chen Goh’s chapter on negotiating under Chinese culture, Gale Miller’s on Codes of Culture, and Kaufman and Blanchot on Theory Meets Reality.
42. Typical Errors in Chinese-Western Negotiation
Bee Chen Goh
It’s no longer rare for negotiators based in a Western culture and instinctively applying Western concepts to find themselves in dealings with people who start from a very different cultural frame of reference. Goh, a Chinese-Malaysian law professor working in Australia, deconstructs the typical errors that negotiators unfamiliar with Chinese culture can be expected to make. This chapter should be read in conjunction with Miller on Codes of Culture, Kaufman and Blanchot on Theory Meets Reality as well as Michael Green’s on Negotiating while Black; together, they can provide you with a fast tour that will provide some hints as to what you might encounter in still other cultures—and, perhaps, in less familiar parts of your own culture.
43. Gender Differences in Negotiation
Julia Bear and Linda Babcock
By now, it’s widely discussed that men and women tend to negotiate differently. But what does this mean in practice? Are women always disadvantaged? And what can be done to improve the gender gaps typically seen in negotiation outcomes? The authors review decades of experimental research and make a series of recommendations—both for individuals, and for organizations which increasingly see it as in their own interest to ensure fair handling of employee and other negotiations.
44. Codes of Culture in Negotiation
Gale Miller
Culture, Miller argues, has become a widely recognized element in negotiation at many levels. Yet he finds that this has failed to clarify how culture actually works, because culture means so many things to so many people that invoking the concept is as likely to confuse as to enlighten negotiators. The author argues for making a distinction between three different orientations to culture. They range from treating culture as widely shared values and practices of large groups and societies (which the author calls “encompassing codes”), to focusing on the distinctive social realities created in social interactions in small groups (“small group codes”). Between these extremes, he says, is the “multiple codes” orientation, which stresses the diversity of values and practices shared within cultural communities. Miller contends that understanding these three codes can help any negotiator decode what is really going on.
45. Theory Meets Reality: Negotiation and Mediation in Mali
Sanda Kaufman and Eric Blanchot
Do the theories and best practices now widely understood among negotiators actually hold up, when exposed to a culture and setting very different from those in which they originated? The authors track Blanchot’s experiences in a Francophone African country, and find evidence that when given such a cultural stress test, some of our field’s most cherished theories do not help. It is even possible that standard approaches and remedies, applied in the wrong place, may cause active harm.
Section VIII authors:
Linda Babcock is the James Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the founder of the Program for Research and Outreach on Gender Equity in Society (PROGRESS) and the CMU Leadership and Negotiation Academy for Women. Babcock earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Julia B. Bear is Assistant Professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on gender and negotiation.
Eric Blanchot is Director of Operations at Promediation, a Paris-based mediation organization. His missions for Promediation focus on the crises in Mali and Libya. Since 2013, he has also served as a mediator in Chad, on behalf of the World Bank's Compliance Advisor Ombudsman. He has done mediation and training work for the United Nations (UNDP and UNITAR) and other international organizations (e.g., HD Centre, the Crisis Management Initiative, the WorldWide Immigration Consultancy Services), working with officials of many countries. He has also taught negotiation, business communication, conflict analysis and crisis management at the École Nationale d’Administration, the Sorbonne, and other institutions of higher learning.
A former Malaysian Rhodes Scholar, Bee Chen Goh is Professor of Law, Director of Research and Research Training, and Director of the Centre for Peace and Social Justice, School of Law and Justice, Southern Cross University, Australia. She is a Director and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society, and Fellow of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies in London. Her scholarly interests include Mediation and ADR, especially on Cross-Cultural Dispute Resolution. Her publications include Negotiating with the Chinese (Dartmouth 1996), and Law Without Lawyers, Justice Without Courts: On Traditional Chinese Mediation (Ashgate 2002).
Michael Z. Green is a tenured faculty member at Texas A&M University School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas. His scholarship focuses on workplace disputes and the intersection of race and alternatives to the court process. He began full-time law teaching after completing the prestigious Hastie Teaching Fellowship and obtaining his fifth degree, Master of Law (LL.M.), from the University of Wisconsin. A juris doctorate cum laude graduate with a Master’s Degree in human resources and industrial labor relations, both from Loyola Chicago University, he has authored numerous law articles and book chapters. Additional biographical information is available at http://law.tamu.edu/faculty-staff/findpeople/faculty-profiles/michael-z-green.
Sanda Kaufman is Professor of Planning, Public Policy and Administration at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. Her research spans negotiations and intervention in environmental and other public conflicts; social-environmental systems resilience; decision analysis; program evaluation; and negotiation pedagogy. Her articles have appeared in the Journal for Conflict Resolution, the Negotiation Journal, Conflict
Resolution Quarterly, International Journal for Conflict Management, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, Revue Négociations; and others. B. Arch. and M. S. in Planning, Technion; Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis, Carnegie Mellon University.
Gale Miller is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Marquette University. His research has focused on how human troubles are managed in human service institutions, particularly solution-focused brief therapy. His current research deals with families supporting loved ones imprisoned for sex offenses.
Linda Babcock is the James Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the founder of the Program for Research and Outreach on Gender Equity in Society (PROGRESS) and the CMU Leadership and Negotiation Academy for Women. Babcock earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Julia B. Bear is Assistant Professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on gender and negotiation.
Eric Blanchot is Director of Operations at Promediation, a Paris-based mediation organization. His missions for Promediation focus on the crises in Mali and Libya. Since 2013, he has also served as a mediator in Chad, on behalf of the World Bank's Compliance Advisor Ombudsman. He has done mediation and training work for the United Nations (UNDP and UNITAR) and other international organizations (e.g., HD Centre, the Crisis Management Initiative, the WorldWide Immigration Consultancy Services), working with officials of many countries. He has also taught negotiation, business communication, conflict analysis and crisis management at the École Nationale d’Administration, the Sorbonne, and other institutions of higher learning.
A former Malaysian Rhodes Scholar, Bee Chen Goh is Professor of Law, Director of Research and Research Training, and Director of the Centre for Peace and Social Justice, School of Law and Justice, Southern Cross University, Australia. She is a Director and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society, and Fellow of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies in London. Her scholarly interests include Mediation and ADR, especially on Cross-Cultural Dispute Resolution. Her publications include Negotiating with the Chinese (Dartmouth 1996), and Law Without Lawyers, Justice Without Courts: On Traditional Chinese Mediation (Ashgate 2002).
Michael Z. Green is a tenured faculty member at Texas A&M University School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas. His scholarship focuses on workplace disputes and the intersection of race and alternatives to the court process. He began full-time law teaching after completing the prestigious Hastie Teaching Fellowship and obtaining his fifth degree, Master of Law (LL.M.), from the University of Wisconsin. A juris doctorate cum laude graduate with a Master’s Degree in human resources and industrial labor relations, both from Loyola Chicago University, he has authored numerous law articles and book chapters. Additional biographical information is available at http://law.tamu.edu/faculty-staff/findpeople/faculty-profiles/michael-z-green.
Sanda Kaufman is Professor of Planning, Public Policy and Administration at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. Her research spans negotiations and intervention in environmental and other public conflicts; social-environmental systems resilience; decision analysis; program evaluation; and negotiation pedagogy. Her articles have appeared in the Journal for Conflict Resolution, the Negotiation Journal, Conflict
Resolution Quarterly, International Journal for Conflict Management, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, Revue Négociations; and others. B. Arch. and M. S. in Planning, Technion; Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis, Carnegie Mellon University.
Gale Miller is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Marquette University. His research has focused on how human troubles are managed in human service institutions, particularly solution-focused brief therapy. His current research deals with families supporting loved ones imprisoned for sex offenses.