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Purpose – We apply theories of physical distance to better understand behavior and judgment in intragroup and intergroup negotiations.

Approach – By applying theories of physical distance to the domain of intragroup and intergroup negotiations we develop predictions about how large magnitudes of physical distance from in-group and out-group members should affect individuals' trust, interpretation of behavior, and willingness to use negotiation to resolve conflict.

Findings – Based on the current application of physical distance theories, several predictions are made for how increased distance should differentially impact the negotiation process when negotiating with in-group versus out-group members. Notably, it is predicted that because of increased schema-reliance associated with increased physical distance, negotiations with out-groups should have increased challenges.

Implications – The current chapter yields several interesting avenues for future empirical research. Moreover, we propose specific strategies that may be of use in reducing the potential harmful impact of increased physical distance in intergroup negotiations.

Value of the paper – We integrate several theories of physical distance to generate novel predictions for group negotiation.

Purpose – To provide a framework for organizing research on group negotiation, including the contributions of the current volume.

Methodology – The organizing framework arranges past research on group negotiation and the contributions offered in this volume according to the core negotiation elements of people, processes, and places, and their impact on the integration of negotiators' preferences.

Findings – There is an extensive literature on negotiation, but historically group negotiation has represented only a small part of that dialogue. There are three general categories of group negotiation: multiparty negotiation, team negotiation, and multiteam negotiation. The core issue addressed in this chapter is how – viewed through the lens of the four identified core negotiation elements of preferences, people, processes, and places – the quantity and arrangement of negotiators involved in a negotiation qualitatively changes the negotiation experience, and specifically how (different types of) negotiating groups make more complex the challenge of identifying, agreeing to, and implementing integrative agreements.

Implications – More than dyadic negotiation, the difficulty of reaching agreements that satisfy all parties can lead to agreements that some negotiators are less than enthusiastic about implementing. It is the difficulty and importance of finding agreements that satisfy all parties in group negotiation that makes it so important to understand the influence of group negotiation by people, processes, and places.

Value of the Paper – This chapter organizes the landscape of group negotiation research by illuminating both what we know about the people, processes, and places that influence the negotiation of group members' preferences, as well as pointing the way – both theoretically and methodologically – for future researchers to fill in the blanks that remain.

Purpose – We consider the question of when teams are an asset at the negotiating table and when they are a liability.

Methodology – We center our review on three key “empirical truths” about teams. First, teams are better than individuals at solving problems. Second, teams are more self-interested than individuals. Third, teams are trusted less and are less trusting than individuals.

Findings – Teams have an advantage over solo negotiators when there is unshared information and multiple issues on the table. Teams have an advantage in these contexts because of their superior problem-solving abilities. However, teams are more likely than solos to suffer from costly and uncertain legal action due to failures in dispute resolution and earn lower profits than solos in negotiations with a prisoner's dilemma structure. Thus, because teams are more self-interested and less trusted than individuals, they can be a liability in negotiations in which the parties' interests are opposed.

Implications – To the leverage the positive effects of teams in negotiation, it is critical that negotiators determine whether the context is one that allows for coordination and integrative tradeoffs, such as multi-issue deal-making negotiations, versus one that is characterized by noncorrespondent outcomes and incompatible interests, such as disputes and prisoner's dilemma interactions.

Value of the paper – The term “negotiation” has been applied rather broadly to a complex assortment of mixed-motive tasks. Our review indicates that distinguishing among these tasks is paramount to meaningfully address questions of individual versus group performance in negotiation.

Purpose – Past research on emotions in negotiation has focused primarily on the impact of the emotional state of one negotiator in a negotiation. We focus instead on the group emotional tone of the negotiation, defined as the joint emotional experience of all negotiators in the negotiation. Past research also has focused only on one dimension of emotions in negotiation: valence. We focus instead on two additional dimensions of emotions: uncertainty and action tendencies. Examining emotions at the group level, and taking a multidimensional perspective on emotions in negotiation, provides a more nuanced examination of the effects of emotions in negotiation, and also highlights the possibility of emotional ambivalence (and its effects) both within and across negotiators within a negotiation.

Approach – We examine emotions at the group level, and take a multidimensional approach to understanding the impact of group-level emotions within the context of a negotiation.

Findings – We propose that groups characterized by certain versus uncertain emotional tone will have different perceptions of risk in the environment, which can prompt different behavioral outcomes that affect group negotiation processes and outcomes. Furthermore, we propose that groups characterized by different action tendencies will display differences in willingness to engage others during negotiation, which can significantly influence group negotiation processes and outcomes. Evaluating these additional dimensions should provide a more comprehensive perspective on the effects of group-level emotions on negotiation processes and outcomes.

Value – This review is intended to illuminate the powerful role that negotiation-level emotional tone might play in group negotiation behaviors and outcomes. Part of the importance of understanding the impact of group emotional tone is for group leaders to anticipate – and possibly proactively manage – its impact. This can provide managers a reference point to better understand – and effectively manage – negotiations among group members.

Purpose – Although extensive research shows that power affects negotiator performance, few efforts have been made to investigate how status conflict among negotiators affects negotiation. This chapter addresses this limitation and explores the question that when groups experience status conflict while simultaneously conducting negotiations, how this status conflict affects negotiator behavior and negotiation outcome.

Approach – We define three basic forms of status contest and develop 12 propositions about the impact of status conflict on between-group negotiator behavior and negotiation outcome.

Findings – We propose that when negotiating with an outgroup, negotiators who experience within-group status conflict will use the outgroup to increase their status within group by demonstrating their value to their own group. In the situation of wholly within-group status conflict and within-group negotiation, individual negotiators will use group concern to gain status. This group concern leads to more value-creating behaviors, but lessens the likelihood of reaching an agreement. When groups experience intergroup status conflict alongside intergroup negotiation, the likelihood of agreement, and the likelihood of integrative agreement, decreases and this is due to an increase in contentiousness.

Value – This chapter suggests that status conflict is an important, albeit neglected, aspect of negotiation and it can affect the outcome of the negotiation. Greater research attention toward status conflict in negotiation should help to improve negotiation effectiveness and the quality of agreements.

Purpose – Negotiations can be stressful, yet are unavoidable in many organizations. Members of organizational workgroups for instance need to negotiate about issues such as task division and different ideas on how to complete a project. Until recently little research effort has been directed to understanding negotiators' stress responses. Similarly, little is known about the consequences that these stress responses may have on negotiation outcomes. In this chapter we argue that group members' physiological stress responses are a key determinant of the outcomes of intragroup negotiations.

Design/Methodology/Approach – We focus on two distinct physiological responses (i.e., threat and challenge) and argue that relative to threat responses, challenge responses will be related to superior information sharing, information processing, and decision-making quality. Moving beyond a uniform relationship between physiological reactions and negotiators' behaviors and outcomes, we also focus on two moderating characteristics: the relative power of group members, and whether the negotiation is purely task related, or co-occurs with relationship issues. We discuss effects on both the individual and the group level, extend our ideas to other forms of negotiations, and end with practical and theoretical implications.

Originality/Value – A better understanding of psychophysiological processes during intragroup negotiations may help to explain when intragroup disagreements help or hinder group outcomes and, therefore, may help to solve the paradox of intragroup conflict.

Understanding how dyadic negotiations and group decision processes evolve over time requires specifying the basic elements of process, modeling the configuration of those elements over time, and providing a theoretical explanation for that configuration. We propose a bead metaphor for conceptualizing the basic elements of the group negotiation process and then “string” the beads of behavior in a helix framework to model the process by which group negotiations evolve. Our theorizing draws on the group decision development literature (e.g. Bales, 1953; Poole, 1981, 1983a, b; Poole & Roth, 1989a, b) as well as on the negotiation process literature (e.g. Gulliver, 1979; Morley & Stephenson, 1977). Our examples are from our Towers Market studies of negotiating groups.

This research proposes and evaluates hypotheses about patterns of communication in a multi‐party, multi‐issue negotiation. Data were from 36 four‐person groups. We found that the majority of groups initiated negotiations with a distributive phase and ended with an integrative phase—strong support for Morley and Stephenson's (1979) rational model of negotiation. We identified transitions between both strategic orientations (integration, distribution) and strategic functions (action, information), but found that the first transition was more likely to result in a change of orientation than of function and that negotiators were more likely to change either orientation or function (single transition) than to change both aspects of the negotiation simultaneously (double transition). Finally, we determined that negotiators used process and closure strategies to interrupt distributive phases and redirect negotiations to an integrative phase.

The purpose of the study is to empirically investigate the similarities and differences between dyads and four‐party groups in an integrative negotiation.

Data are collected in a between subjects experiment. A total of 182 participants completed a negotiation role play and questionnaire. Hypotheses are tested using t‐tests, MANOVAs and two multiple regression analyses.

Results demonstrate that dyads do outperform groups on both the economic and subjective measures of outcomes. Sharing of priority information and the fixed pie bias was higher in groups than in dyads. For dyads the procedure used (considering more than one issue at a time) led to higher economic outcomes, and both procedure and problem solving were important for subjective outcomes. For four‐party negotiations, problem solving was significantly related to higher outcomes, on both economic and subjective outcomes, and procedure was moderately related to economic outcomes. Problem solving was significantly more important for the groups than for dyads on economic outcomes.

The controlled experimental setting could limit the generalizabiltiy of the findings. Measures of the intermediate variables could be improved by including additional items and observations. Future research is required in field settings using multiple measures of the process.

In multiparty negotiation information sharing and the presence of cognitive biases may not be as important as focusing on a problem solving approach.

An empirical investigation that groups under‐perform dyads in an integrative negotiation has not been conducted before.

This experiment examined the effects of motivational orientation (prosocial versus egoistic) on interpersonal trust, negotiation behavior, amount of impasses, and joint outcomes in three‐person negotiations. Students participated in a joint venture negotiation, in which motivational orientation was manipulated by allocating individual incentives (egoistic motive) vs. team incentives (prosocial motive). Results indicated that prosocially motivated negotiators achieved more integrative agreements and fewer impasses, and reported higher trust, more problem solving, and less contending behavior than egoistically motivated negotiators. Hierarchical regression suggested that the finding that prosocial groups achieved higher joint outcomes can be explained by higher levels of trust, more problem solving behavior, and less contending behavior in prosocial groups.