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This first edition of Communication and Negotiation, edited by Linda L. Putnam and Michael E. Roloff, provides a much needed discussion of the links between communication and negotiation … In fact, this text would be an excellent resource guide for psychologists, social psychologists, psychotherapists, and marriage counselors, as well as all other parties interested in managing conflict through negotiation.” –Contemporary Psychology “References to contributors … for whom applied issues in industrial relations have been to the fore–are fairly frequent. This is testimony to the sheer thoroughness of the organization of the book, and to the conscientious approach of the authors commissioned to write the relevant separate chapters…. This book is a useful pointer to the knowledge we have to hand.” –The Occupational Psychologist “This publication is a profound review of the state of the art of that speciality of communication research which deals with human negotiation or bargaining activities…. [The book] provides an interesting and well-structured entry to the understanding of the variety of factors involved in the communication processes that constitute a two-party negotiation. To LIS researchers, in particular in the fields of information management and information (seeking) behavior, this publication may offer important insights and methodologies as well as novel ideas with respect to investigating particular phenomena occurring prior to, during, or preceding the use of information (retrieval) systems…. Communication and Negotiation is a useful companion to researchers who wish to dig deeper into empirical and theoretical investigations of the aspects of the negotiation processes…. Communication and Negotiation brings forth many ideas relevant to LIS research, and within its firm communication approach the publication serves well as a profound review of research in a historical context of the negotiation and bargaining phenomena.” –The Library Quarterly “Communication and Negotiation is volume 20 in Sage's Annual Reviews of Communication Research series, and offers the professional presentation and excellent quality one would expect from a work that is part of such a long tradition…. This volume offers quite a valuable summary of the state of the art in communication theory as it applies to negotiation. Researchers in other primary disciplines need to be aware of this work as it overlaps heavily with other disciplinary viewpoints….” –The Alternative Newsletter In recent years, a number of universities have established formal centers for studying conflict and dispute resolution. Scholars, too, have created new journals to focus exclusively on the study of conflict processes. Communication and Negotiation provides a synthesis of the research in this area by consolidating alternative perspectives on communication and negotiation, reviewing the work of noted communication scholars, and suggesting directions for future research. Contributors explore three major aspects of negotiation communication: a) strategies, tactics, and negotiation processes; b) interpretive processes and language analysis; and c) negotiation situation and context. In addition, these studies examine bargaining planning, frames and reframing, and relational communication with opponents, constituents, and audiences. A showcase for communication scholars as well as an extremely useful reference book for negotiation theorists, Communication and Negotiation is one of those rare books with wide interdisciplinary appeal. Scholars and students in political science, psychology, economics, management and organizational behavior, sociology, law, and industrial relations as well as the communications fields will especially profit from this remarkable new collection.

Framing, Reframing, and Issue Development

Framing, Reframing, and Issue Development

Framing, reframing, and issue development
LindaL.Putnam and MajiaHolmer

A MAJOR CONCERN in negotiation is how to reach a settlement in which both parties share joint gains. Both popular and academic texts spend considerable effort prescribing effective ways to reach joint agreements (Fisher & Ury, 1981; Jandt, 1985; Lewicki & Litterer, 1985). These recommendations include concentrating on interests rather than positions (Fisher & Ury, 1981), engaging in problem solving (Lewicki & Litterer, 1985), avoiding conflict escalation (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986), and building trust and motivation to work together (Lewicki & Litterer, 1985). One of the first advocates of joint agreements. Mary Parker Follett (1942), claims that integration brings differences into the open and leads to a process of revaluation in which both parties reframe their stances on an issue. For Follett, integration is a circular process in which differences are juxtaposed in a spontaneous flowing together of interests and desires. Unity surfaces not from giving in [compromise] but from “getting the desires of each side into one field of vision” (Follett, 1942, p. 39).

The “field of vision” that Follett describes resembles what has become an important concept in the negotiation literature, bargaining frame. Each bargainer enters the negotiation with fields of vision or frames of reference that help him or her construct meaning or make sense of the situation. Revaluation parallels reframing by altering fields of vision to reveal a different vantage point (Bolman & Deal, 1991). Although scholars differ in their exact definitions of frame and of reframing, both concepts refer to the way negotiators come to understand their situation.

Framing and reframing are important concepts in the study of negotiation. First, framing is a key to deciphering how bargainers conceive of ongoing sets of events in light of past experiences (Bartlett, 1932). In negotiation, bargainers must react to momentary changes in behaviors, not as blank receptacles, but as individuals who interpret and make sense of their world (Tannen, 1979). Frames, then, are linked to such concepts as cooperative-competitive orientations (Rubin & Brown, 1975), expectations for a settlement (Gulliver, 1979), biases of bargainers (Neale & Bazerman, 1985), choice of dispute resolution modes (Merry & Silbey, 1984), approaches to third-party intervention in formal and informal disputes (Donohue, 1991; Sheppard, Blumenfeld-Jones, & Roth, 1989), and interpretive schemes (Gray & Donnellon, 1989). Frames and reframing are also related to the way bargainers conceive of the scope, definition, and relationship among issues in the negotiation (Bacharach & Lawler, 1981; Putnam, 1990; Putnam, Wilson, Waltman, & Turner, 1986). Even though researchers typically treat frames as cognitive devices such as schema, scripts, prototypes, and categories, framing and reframing are tied to the ongoing activity of bargaining, the escalation and de-escalation of conflict, and negotiated outcomes (Bazerman, 1983; Neale & Bazerman, 1985, 1991).

Framing and reframing are also salient concepts for communication research, even though only a few negotiation scholars incorporate communication variables into their studies (Carroll & Payne, 1991; De Dreu, Emans, & Van de Vliert, 1991; Gray & Donnellon, 1989; Thompson & Hastie, 1990). Information seeking and interactions between bargainers play a key role in the process of framing. Moreover, framing entails the construction of shared meanings that typify social and cultural contexts (McLeod, Pan, & Rucinski, 1989). In effect, framing and reframing are vital to the negotiation process and are tied to information processing, messages patterns, linguistic cues, and socially constructed meanings.

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