2013 Awards for Excellence

Citation

(2014), "2013 Awards for Excellence", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 25 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCMA-02-2014-001

2013 Awards for Excellence

Article Type: 2013 Awards for Excellence From: International Journal of Conflict Management, Volume 25, Issue 1

The following article was selected for this year's Outstanding Paper Award for International Journal of Conflict Management

"Bridging social distance in inter-cultural negotiations: ‘you’ and the bi-cultural negotiator"

Mary C. Kern
Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, New York, New York, USA

Sujin Lee
Department of Management Science, KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea

Zeynep G. Aytug
Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, New York, New York, USA

Jeanne M. Brett
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA

Purpose - In this study of Korean and US negotiators, the authors aim to demonstrate limits on the presumption that inter-cultural negotiations are doomed to generate low joint gains.
Design/methodology/approach - In a laboratory study with 45 bi-cultural Korean students and 47 mono-cultural American students, the authors created a total of 16 US-US, 15 Korean-Korean, and 15 US-Korean dyads. The authors audio-recorded their negotiation conversations and analyzed the content of the negotiation transcripts. The authors focused on the use of pronouns and coded how they were used and the impact this use had on the outcomes of the intra- and inter-cultural negotiations.
Findings - Results show that inter-cultural dyads generate higher joint gains than Korean or US intra-cultural dyads. The explanation based on social awareness and social distance theorizing shows that inter-cultural negotiators, one of whom is bi-cultural, who use language, especially the pronoun "you" to close social distance, achieve higher joint gains than intra-cultural negotiators who do not.
Research implications - The authors conclude that the language people use in social interaction, especially pronouns, is an indicator of social awareness and signals attempts to close social distance.
Originality/value - This research demonstrates that the way negotiators use language predicts their economic outcomes.
Keywords - Bi-cultural, Culture (sociology), Culture and negotiation, Language, Negotiating, Pronouns, Social distance

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/10444061211218294

This article originally appeared in Volume 23 Number 2, 2012, International Journal of Conflict Management

The following articles were selected for this year's Highly Commended Award

"Conflict and trust: the mediating effects of emotional arousal and self-conscious emotions"

Mingkai J. Chen
Oluremi B. Ayoko

This article originally appeared in Volume 23 Number 1, 2012, International Journal of Conflict Management

"Meta-analysis of the impact of the research setting on conflict studies"

Jean Poitras

This article originally appeared in Volume 23 Number 2, 2012, International Journal of Conflict Management

"Understanding propensity to initiate negotiations: an examination of the effects of culture and personality"

Roger J. Volkema
Denise Fleck

This article originally appeared in Volume 23 Number 3, 2012, International Journal of Conflict Management

Outstanding Reviewers

Professor Oluremi B. Ayoko
Professor Stephen M. Croucher