Negotiation support systems and team negotiations: The coalition formation perspective

The use of software to support negotiations has captured the attention of academics and practitioners for some three decades and the research stream of negotiation support systems (NSS) has emerged. Over the years, many NSS have been developed and used in training and research but they have been rarely deployed in organizations. Our speculation is that much existing research is confined to dyadic (i.e., one-to-one) settings which may not adequately reflect the real-world situations in which teams, rather than individuals, often engage in negotiations. To address the gap, our current research aspires to conceptualize the NSS in supporting team negotiations and to theoretically examine their impact. Coalition formation has been a prevalent organizational phenomenon that constitutes important dynamics in any negotiating team; it will be conceptualized as the mechanism through which NSS impacts upon team negotiation outcomes in our paper. Globalization has rendered cross-cultural negotiations a commonplace; at the same time, culture serves as a most salient attribute in activating coalitions. In light of the above, cultural diversity is studied as the antecedent to coalition formation and moderates the influence of NSS on the extent of coalition formation. A set of research propositions, derived from a theoretical framework, are raised and their implications discussed.