Panacea or Snake Oil? Interest‐Based Bargaining in the U.S. Airline and Rail Industries

Abstract

This study of interest‐based bargaining (IBB) examined past usage, current preferences, and future intentions to use this approach in U.S. airline and railroad labor negotiations. Based on a survey of eighty‐four union and management chief negotiators, we found that the personal attributes of the chief negotiator (orientation toward relationships, personal conflict handling style, and competency in IBB approaches) were strong predictors of the past use of IBB. However, personal affinities and styles became irrelevant as experience with IBB accumulated. The negotiator's preferences for IBB in general were strongly correlated to his or her awareness of other carriers' and unions' experiences with IBB, as well as to his or her own direct experience. The negotiator's intention to use IBB in the future was also related to the quality of the contract personally obtained through IBB practices. The study also revealed the unpopularity of IBB among labor negotiators relative to their management counterparts.

Relationality in negotiations: a systematic review and propositions for future research

“…A similar pattern is observed among empirical papers on relationality, the majority of which have focused on buyer-seller (supplier) context (Ariño et al , 2014; Atkin and Rinehart, 2006; Greenhalgh and Chapman, 1998; Liu et al , 2012b; Tenbrunsel et al , 1999; Thomas et al , 2013; Wieseke et al , 2014). Other contexts include employment contract negotiation (Curhan et al , 2008; Lee, 2005), labor-management negotiation (Amanatullah et al , 2008; Miller et al , 2010) and negotiation between city council and company representatives (Peterson and Thompson, 1997).…”

“…This trend is also observed in relationality research. Among the 18 papers, 12 used simulation (Amanatullah et al , 2008; Kurtzberg et al , 2005; Lee, 2005; Thomas et al , 2013), three used surveys (Ariño et al , 2014; Miller et al , 2010; Wieseke et al , 2014), two were conceptual (Gelfand et al , 2006; Weiss, 1993) and one was second-hand data analysis (Lumineau and Henderson, 2012). Two papers used multiple methodological designs.…”

“…On the other hand, our discussion pinpoints those specific areas which remain ambiguous. For example, how pre-existing relationships influence pre-negotiation conditions (Sondak et al , 1999), and how relational propensity influences negotiation interaction (Miller et al , 2010) have received minimum empirical examination in the literature. Relational behavior is the most under-researched relational construct, discussed by only two articles (Gelfand et al , 2006; Wieseke et al , 2014).…”

Third-party facilitators in interest-based negotiation: An Australian Case Study

“…Empirical studies of IBN outside the US are relatively rare. Fells (1998) offered a case study of mixed bargaining in a single Australian local government council; one UK study explored integrated bargaining in the offshore oil industry (Martin et al., 2003), while another provided an account of problem-solving bargaining compared to traditional bargaining in two UK steelworks (Bacon and Blyton, 2006); a Canadian study traced the use of IBN in 19 paired cases (Pacquet et al., 2000); and a French study investigated IBN in two companies (Garaudel et al., 2008).…”

The effects of academic entitlement, stakes, and power distance on grade negotiation behaviour

“…I adapted the wording of the questions to reflect the conflict scenario that participants had just read. Based on the subscales that Miller, Farmer, Miller, and Peters (2010) adapted for their study, the phrase "in the discussion with my professor [TA]" was added to some sentences (e.g., I try to realize a middle of the road solution in the discussion with my professor [TA]). Further, the word "professor" or the word "teaching assistant" was used to replace any items that used the words "other party" (e.g., I give in to the wishes of the professor [TA].).…”