Research Handbook on Gender and Negotiation

Book excerpt: In this ground-breaking Research Handbook, leading international researchers analyse how negotiators' gender shapes their behaviour and outcomes at the bargaining table, in both work and non-work contexts. World-class experts from the field of negotiation present cutting-edge research on gender and negotiation, highlighting controversies and generating new questions for consideration. The Research Handbook offers helpful insights to negotiators and forges a path for future research. The first section highlights how gender shapes negotiation within close relationships and identifies informal social rules for how women and men are expected to negotiate, exploring the socialization patterns and historical contexts that produced these norms and the implications for women at the bargaining table. Chapters discuss how underlying negotiation processes such as trust, emotion, communication and non-verbal behaviour are shaped by gender, as well as considering a number of pragmatic solutions to the obstacles women face as self-advocates. Offering insights for both practitioners and researchers, this Research Handbook will be invaluable to teachers and, also, female professionals who want to understand how to get better outcomes from negotiation. It will also be required reading for HR professionals who wish to understand how and why organizational policies regarding negotiation can level the playing field.