Communication

-       Communication about experience forms experience itself

-       Peoples meanings change depending on setting/time/group

-       Communication as primary social process that explains culture/sociology/economy (not other way around)

-       Implications:

o   Communication as driving force

o   Organizations are created/shaped through ongoing communication -> not just containers

§  Stopping communication = organizations grind to complete halt

-       Communication flow Downward/upward (between superior – subordinates) / lateral(same hierarchy)

o   Ornanigram = diagram of organizational hierarchy + formal lines of communication

o   Grapevine (can be depicted sociogram)= informal communicaton network

o   Encourages unity and commitment

o   Rumors = Info presented as fact that might not be true (lack of information about important topic -> false rumor

o   Factors that form Grapevine

§  Frienships

§  Usage (formal lines -> more likely informal line)

§  Grapevine is more efficient than formal lines  

·       Information

·       Influence

·       Emotion release

·       Intellectual stimulation

·       Interpersonal intimacy

·       Enforcing group values/norms

·       Gossip granularity (how detailed is the research material) :

o   (core= function of gossip)

o   events (sentences),

o   episode,

o   conversation

·       Gossip layers (values and norms of the context groups)

o   Conversational

o   Individual

o   Interpersonal dyadic

o   Interpersonal group

o   Organizational

-       More conversation (esp.latera and supervisor skillsl)  positive performance

-       More upward communication  highedefinir satisfaction of low level employees

-       More downward communication  higher satisfaction and commitment

-       Communicaton among employees  may cause snowball effect/quitting in clusters

-       Up and downward communication  important for managing organizational change

o   Communication about conflict of interest

o   Outcomes of the parties are interdependent

o   Decision making under uncertainty

o   Distributive: One party‘s gain is the other party‘s loss

§  Often involves one issue only, e.g. salary

§  Compromise =best solution

§  Structure: First offer → counter-offer →concession strategy

o   Integrative: Parties may possess partly compatible interests

§  Multiple issues involved

§   Often easier to find an agreement

§  Structure: Differentiation before integration

§  Challenges

·       Log rolling: make a concession on low value issue to gain concession on high value issue

·       Integrative potential: possibility to integrate different interests of the parties

o   Negotiators dilemma:  

§  mixed motive situation  torn between competing for favourable outcome vs cooperation for agreement

o   Exchange guided by norms/rules

o   Reciprocity norm  give and take leads to trust in relationship

o   Social motivation: pro – self vs pro social negotiator

o   Epistemic motivation = will to put effort in solution

§  Pro social and epistemic motivation  most likely integrative outcome

§  planning bargaining, implementation

·       planning is longer/more important than bargaining

§  Results of bargaining can differ from implementation

§  BATNA = best alternative to negotiated agreement (less dependency and walking away from negotiation)  higher negotiation power  higher negotiation power

§  First offer:

·       Achoring function: strategically framed ambitious offer can increase outcome (economic and socio emotional)  (if too ambitious =counterproductive)

·       If no high amount of subject knowledge  making second offer advantageous

·       Stronger influence on success than concession strat

·       Hardline vs Softline (hardline  short term success but impairs relationship)

·       Tit for tat (first concession then mirror other party)  transparent and effective

·       Mismatching (not matching concessions)  bigger concessions on deadline  

§  socioemotional outcomes often more important than economic outcomes

·       Distributive:

o   Softline, emotional intelligence and focus on relationhip  high socio emotional but lower economic

·       Integrative

o   Open exchange  integrative agreement (if high level of trust)

o   If lower trust  inferring others interests from offers and reactions (heuristic trial and error

o   Multiple equivalent simultaneous offers  increased economic and socialemotional outcome

o   Being aware that interests may be compatible  

§  But be aware of conflicts of interests before concessions

o   Offering insights into prioritys through multi-issue offers

o   Women = less successful (gendernorm = preventing neg social consequences

o   Position in social network: central position gives acces to more information /influence

o   Level of initial trust

o   Individualistic(focus personal outcome) vs collectivistic culture (focus maintaining relationship)

o   Cultural power distance (acceptance of unequal power distributions)

o   Categorizes Negotiation behavior into full scope of  fine grained communication patterns (initially hard to do in reaserarch)  

o   First finding: multi issue activitys  active listening