Introduction chapter: Negotiators
Women negotiators have been fighting a tough battle to hold their own in the professions which require bargaining skills. This dissertation offers both a literature review and an experimental section concerning the challenges to women negotiators in a male dominated profession. The literature review looks at the dynamics of gender on negotiating over the last two hundred thirty years. Research methods have been reviewed. It was found that measuring and analyzing data has improved in the past several decades as new methods for experiments have been developed. New insights into the perception of negotiating from the participants’ viewpoint and from the researchers’ viewpoint have been refined so that less bias enters experimental situations. New research is telling us that research techniques used in the past say more about the researchers than the participants.
The experimental portion includes interviews with professional women currently employed as negotiators. Women and men are both successful negotiators but the perceptions of power, gender bias, gender roles, and communication abilities needs to be adequately understood. This dissertation is an applied qualitative research project using Narrative Inquiry to focus on gender issues facing women in the male dominated profession of negotiation. The experimental portion of the research included interviews with female negotiators who were encouraged to share their personal narratives. Their narratives were recorded and transcripts were made. The author conducted the interviews; she is also a professional negotiator.
Each of the women interviewed are successful in communicating and interacting with co-workers. Gender issues were a central consideration for this study. It became evident from each of the participants’ narratives that women are actually more cooperative and relations-oriented than men. Women also take into considerations more points-of-view. These observations seem to be the general case in each of the participants’ narratives. Each woman aims for balance, co-opting and win- win situations in their negotiations. However, it was not evident that these attitude or stance lead to a disadvantageous outcomes in negotiations. The findings supported the overall academic studies outcomes which show that there is little or no evidence of statistically significant variations in the negotiating style of males and females.
