Gender and Negotiation Takes Place

¶ … Gender and Negotiation

Negotiation takes place on a variety of subjects and at numerous levels in business, social, and personal interactions. Negotiation is a process of exchange between two or more parties, and is often times reduced to writing to reflect and protect the results of the agreed upon exchange. Negotiation is an art, and the quid pro quo of exchange often depends upon which party has the poker face or greater patience or stamina. In business it takes on perhaps its most serious form, since it usually involves large sums of money. It is perhaps no less significant on a personal level since it can be equally an emotional investment as it is a financial investment in business. Socially, people tend to negotiate everything from attention by the way they dress, move, or behave; to the way they interact with and converse with one another. Who, for instance, will dominate the conversation, put out the topic to be discussed and regulates the group's participation. Since negotiation is a process of exchange that takes place in nearly every aspect of people's daily lives, it gives rise to the question of whether or not negotiation takes on gender related tactics or identifiers that denote it as being the negotiating process distinct to one gender over the other. The proposal here is a study that will examine the art of negotiation by gender in order to distinguish any processes or unique identifiers that differentiate the process of negotiation by gender.

The research will contribute to the understanding of mass communications, business communications, social and personal communications because negotiation is a form of communicating, and to be able to identify distinguishing factors of negotiation as being gender specific will lend itself to improved communications in all of these life areas.

The benefits of negotiating are often times an improved position in whatever way or thing is being negotiated. The research being proposed here will look to understand if in fact one gender is better in this art, or game, of negotiation and if by virtue of that skill is able to negotiate for the gender a better or improved position. For instance, Sara Solnick (2004), points to research conducted by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (2003) wherein Babcock and Laschever determined that women actually sell themselves short in negotiations because women do not recognize the opportunity to negotiate (Solnick, S., 2004, p. 462).

If, as Solnick points out women short themselves by failing to recognize or seize the opportunity to negotiate, much more needs to be understood about women's overall response and reaction and interaction as regards negotiation. In what ways, then, do men benefit from being the experienced negotiators; if, according to the process of negotiation, their position is an improved one by virtue of their ability to negotiate, in what ways are women shorting themselves for failing to negotiate?

This is an important question that must be addressed, as well as an attempt to be made to understand what signals women are failing to pick up as regards negotiating, especially as might adversely impact their careers? The research being proposed here will examine these very important questions through the research.

Methodology

The methodology that will be employed for the research being proposed here is a desk survey of existing research, studies and information. Using that existing body of research, an attempt will be made to use the most current data, and to extrapolate from that data the pertinent information to compile into a more comprehensive form data that will then be objectively and subjectively useful for analysis as regards gender in negotiation.

For the objective perspective, data from the existing body of research will be assessed for appropriateness. Tables will be designed that will present the information in matter related formats - for instance, business negotiations might be assessed on the existing body of research by career category such as legal, financial, medical, and corporate negotiations. The goal here is to provide objective information that shows the patterns, the trends, and the gender whose condition or position is improved in these categories.

The design and inclusion of other pertinent information related tables can be included in this proposed research that will lend itself to an enlarged understanding of gender roles in negotiating in these various careers and daily living. For instance, a table that identifies the areas in one's social interactions where negotiations come into play would be useful. Just identifying those interactions would serve to create a heightened awareness of them, and perhaps serve to make the art of negotiating more appealing at that level.

Using the keywords "gender negotiations," 14,921 existing books, journal articles, magazine articles and newspaper articles are identified by the query as related to the subject matter.

This number would be reduced by those works that were produced prior to 1997. Every effort will be made to rely upon existing bodies of research and information that has been produced over the last ten years. While some of the works will be as old as ten years, that will provide the sample case for data that was taken at that time and moving forward through the ten-year period, to see the progress, if any, reflected in the data. This will be particularly significant if, as Solnick points out in the Babcock and Laschever study women were identified as lacking essential negotiating skills and techniques that would serve them well in their careers and in their daily lives.

There is at the end of this proposal a tentative list of references that were taken from the query on the subject matter. While this list is at this early stage subject to change, it is indicative of the quality of research and expertise that exists on the subject being proposed for study and research here. A comprehensive review of the list has not been done at this time. A literature review will follow approval of the proposed subject matter as a research project.

Conclusion

This is an exciting subject for research. The existing body of work, as evidenced by the Reference List is vast and authored by individuals and groups of individuals whose expertise in the areas of social sciences, communications, medicine and other fields is highly regarded. Each of the suggested titled focus on gender and negotiating as its general course of study, or on some more narrow, though no less important, aspect of the wider range of study on the topic.

The results of this proposed study will be an updated result comprised of the data presented in a selected group of existing studies. The results, as will be compiled from the existing data, do not at the present time exist in the format being proposed here. Therefore, this study is feasible and would serve an informative purpose to future researchers of gender and negotiation.