Negotiating as a Group Representative: Constraints and Opportunities

In: International negotiation: a journal of theory and practice, Band 20, Heft 1, S. 25-40

Abstract

Research on negotiating representatives has been a popular topic since the 1960s. The early experimental studies revealed a variety of situational influences on the decisions made by representatives. Construed as constraints, these variables are shown to move negotiating processes in the direction of agreement or impasse. More recent research extends the portfolio of influences by examining the roles of trust, immoral behavior, group status, and divided constituencies. Of particular interest is the finding that hawkish constituents have more influence on representatives than dovish constituents. The effect is, however, weaker when the hawks have low group status. It is also weakened when representatives are primed to have a pro-social orientation. Another recent line of research focuses on collective representation and shows how several features of constituencies influence those decisions. The article concludes with a summary of key findings and a suggestion for bridging the behavioral and interpretative traditions of scholarship on representation.