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Previous research on negotiation skills has focused mostly on the negotiation itself and tactics used when bargaining, while little research has examined the process by which people become effective negotiators. The purpose of this paper is to develop an initial model from an intra-organizational perspective to outline the factors that contribute to the development of negotiation skills and behaviors by employees.

This conceptual paper relies on prior research and existing theory to focus on the types of developmental and learning experiences and processes that lead to the acquisition of three specific types of key negotiation skills and behaviors.

Distributive, integrative, and adaptable negotiation skills are developed most effectively via different learning and development activities, respectively. Additionally, unique individual difference and situational variables could contribute to particular negotiation behaviors, either directly or via an interaction with developmental experiences.

The paper proposes a model for future testing in which results can provide support for tailored/customized training and development of employee negotiation skills. Providing the correct people with the correct tools in the correct manner is always desirable by practitioners.

This proposed holistic model provides new insights, structure, and suggestions for more research on factors that lead to negotiation skill development and exhibition of effective negotiation behaviors. This paper goes beyond description of negotiation tactics and addresses the various negotiation contexts and the unique skills needed for each. Most importantly, the paper addresses how those skills are uniquely and most effectively developed.

Face threat sensitivity (FTS) has been found to influence objective negotiated outcomes when the threat to face is activated. The purpose of this study is to extend that research by testing whether FTS – which is defined as a propensity to act – is associated with the outcomes of negotiators when the threat has not been specifically activated. Face theory specifies that face threats can cause individuals to take proactive steps to avoid threats before they might occur.

Drawing on face theory and social role theory, the authors conduct a negotiation experiment and use hierarchical regression to test hypotheses concerning the relationship between FTS for sellers and buyers on negotiated outcomes in both distributive and integrative negotiations. The authors also use moderated regression to test if gender moderates the relationship between buyer and seller FTS and negotiation outcomes.

Results show that, when the threat is not activated, high FTS buyers pay more than low FTS buyers. Consistent with face theory and social role theory, this effect is moderated by gender, with the association being stronger for women buyers than for men buyers.

This paper exhibits that FTS can influence negotiator behavior even when FTS is not activated. This is valuable to negotiation scholars and practitioners who are interested in the role that individual characteristics play in negotiation behavior.

Implicitly, the negotiation literature has generally assumed that, if economic gains are sufficient, individuals will negotiate. However, recent research has begun to consider the social costs incurred by negotiating. This paper aims to develop a conceptual model of the role of one of those social costs – threat to face – in the decision of whether to negotiate or not to negotiate.

The approach was to combine relevant literature from face theory and from negotiation to develop and support a model of the role of face in the decision to negotiate or not to negotiate.

A model was developed which proposed that, if people believe that negotiating will result in a loss of face, they are less likely to negotiate in situations that they recognize are potentially negotiable. Six variables are proposed to be antecedents to the belief that negotiating could result in loss of face. These six are divided into categories of social context (social roles and status), individual differences (face threat sensitivity and negotiation self‐efficacy), and knowledge (knowledge of negotiation scripts and knowledge of negotiation content).

The question of why some people do not negotiate when the potential for economic gains would suggest that they should negotiate has received very little attention in the negotiation literature. This model provides one theoretical approach for exploring this phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to present how previous research has shown that, in negotiations that have integrative potential, men negotiate greater outcomes than do women. The primary purpose of this set of studies was to determine whether gender difference could be attributed to more effective performance in dividing value, more effective performance in creating value, or both.

In study 1, participants negotiated a case situation that had integrative potential. Participants were randomly assigned to a side of the case and to a negotiation counterpart. This provided a comparison of all possible dyad gender combinations – female‐female, female‐male, and male‐male. Statistical tests included actor‐partner interdependence model (APIM) analysis, ANOVA, χ², and t‐tests. Study 2 replicated a sub‐set of the study 1 tests using a different sample and a different negotiation case situation.

Male‐male dyads created more value than female‐female dyads in both study 1 and study 2. No differences were found in the proportion of the negotiation “pie” claimed by men versus women. These combined results indicate that, in mixed‐motive negotiations, gender differences in individual‐level outcomes are a function of the amount of value created by the dyad, not in differences in the division of value.

The paper extends research regarding gender and negotiation performance by pinpointing that, while men obtain greater outcomes than women in negotiations that have integrative potential, the difference in outcomes emanates from differences in creating value, not from differences in dividing value.

The current studies examine the relationship between negotiation performance and negotiation self‐efficacy of both the focal negotiator and the negotiating counterpart. This paper seeks to further examine the possibility that these relationships are moderated by contextual ambiguity. It proposes that contextual ambiguity is asymmetrical with regard to gender: that a given situation is less ambiguous to the stereotype‐consistent gender and more ambiguous to the other gender.

Two negotiation cases are constructed. One was a feminine‐stereotyped situation and the other was a masculine‐stereotyped situation. Study participants negotiated one of the two cases. The primary statistical analysis was moderated regression analysis.

Results show that both focal negotiator self‐efficacy and counterpart self‐efficacy are significant predictors of focal negotiator performance. However, for both men and women, counterpart self‐efficacy had a stronger association with performance in negotiation situations of higher contextual ambiguity (stereotyped to the other gender) than in negotiation situations of lower contextual ambiguity.

In these studies, the paper responds to recent calls to include negotiation counterpart variables in negotiation research. Further, this study extends research regarding gender and negotiation performance by examining two previously unexplored topics: gender‐based asymmetrical contextual ambiguity and the moderation by gender of the relationship between negotiation self‐efficacy and negotiation performance.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

THE centenary of the birth of Edward Edwards is an event of great interest to all persons interested in the public library movement. Elsewhere in our columns we print a brief sketch of the life and work of “the chief pioneer of municipal public libraries.” The date generally accepted as that of his birth, December 14th, is regarded by some as doubtful, but is probably near enough for practical purposes. His retiring disposition resulted in the record of his life being doubtful or broken in places. The late Thomas Greenwood—another great library pioneer who has gone—collected all that could be collected in his valuable biography of Edward Edwards. It was his main regret that he could not obtain an authentic portrait of Edwards, and this regret we must all share, for a portrait brings reality to a verbal description. By the time these words appear in print, the Manchester Libraries Committee and the Library Assistants' Association will each have paid public tribute to the memory of Edward Edwards, and their example will have been followed in private by all other library workers having any regard for the history of their calling.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Roots of global Terrorism are in ‘failed’ states carved out of multiracial empires after World Wars I and II in name of ‘national self‐determination’. Both sides in the Cold War competed to exploit the process of disintegration with armed and covert interventions. In effect, they were colluding at the expense of the ‘liberated’ peoples. The ‘Vietnam Trauma’ prevented effective action against the resulting terrorist buildup and blowback until 9/11. As those vultures come home to roost, the war broadens to en vision overdue but coercive reforms to the postwar system of nation states, first in the Middle East. Mirages of Vietnam blur the vision; can the sole Superpower finish the job before fiscal and/or imperial overstretch implode it?