From Letter to Twitter: A Systematic Review of Communication Media in Negotiation
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Geiger, Ingmar Article — Published Version From Letter to Twitter: A Systematic Review of Communication Media in Negotiation Group Decision and Negotiation Provided in Cooperation with: Springer Nature Suggested Citation: Geiger, Ingmar (2020) : From Letter to Twitter: A Systematic Review of Communication Media in Negotiation, Group Decision and Negotiation, ISSN 1572-9907, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, Vol. 29, Iss. 2, pp. 207-250, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-020-09662-6 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/288395 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Vol.:(0123456789) Group Decision and Negotiation (2020) 29:207–250 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-020-09662-6 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication Media inNegotiation IngmarGeiger1 Published online: 26 February 2020 © The Author(s) 2020, corrected publication 2021 Abstract With the advent of modern communication media over the last decades, such as email, video conferencing, or instant messaging, a plethora of research has emerged that analyzes the association between communication media and negotiation processes and outcomes. In this paper, the author systematically reviews theoretical vantage points on communication media and negotiation and summarizes empirical findings from the last six decades. Specifically, the author focuses on three different strategic communication theories and four social psychological theoretical perspectives that found traction in negotiation research. Subsequently, empirical evidence on communication media and negotiation is presented, derived from an extensive literature search of relevant peer-reviewed articles. The author analyzes effects of communication media on the negotiation process (descriptive process parameters, economic reference points, negotiation behavior/tactics, individual perceptual and affective process variables) as well as economic (agreement, individual profit, joint profit, dispersion of profits) and socio-emotional (satisfaction, trust, socio-emotional evaluation of the self and the opponent) outcomes. The discussion takes stock of the current state of research and persisting research gaps, before focusing on some recent developments, and proposing future research avenues. Keywords Communication media· Negotiation process· Negotiation outcome· Media effects 1 Introduction When US president Donald Trump left the 2019 G20 summit in Japan for a bilateral visit to South Korea, he tweeted on June 29: “After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees * Ingmar Geiger ingmar[email protected] 1 School ofManagement, Aalen University, Beethovenstr. 1, 73430Aalen, Germany
208 I.Geiger 1 3 this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!” Indeed, North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong Un replied favorably to this message, and eventually Trump became the first US president to set foot on North Korean soil on June 30th 2019. While this visit to North Korea may have been little less than a much commented event on TV around the globe that day without much further movement towards some sort of agreement between the US and North Korea, the US president’s choice and use of a certain communication medium, Twitter, in a negotiation situation may be remembered as a hallmark in the way negotiators use media in present days. Starting in the late 1960s, negotiation researchers have begun to analyze potential influences of the communication medium in negotiation (Morley and Stephenson 1969; Smith 1969), but they certainly could not have imagined medium use as deployed by US president Trump in 2019. In fact, probably few other boundary conditions of negotiations have changed and evolved as much as the communication medium over the last six decades, mirrored in respective research activities (e.g., Croson 1999; Geiger and Parlamis 2014; Loewenstein etal. 2005; Purdy etal. 2000; Sheffield 1995; Short 1974). Starting with traditional face-to-face (FTF) and written communication (letters), telegraph, telephone, and telefax were added in the nineteenth century as available communication media, video conferencing following as early as the late 1920s (Angiolillo etal. 1993). With the advent of the publicly available internet in the 1990s, and one decade later with mobile internet, email, chats, instant messaging and social media like Twitter and Facebook seem to have largely changed the way people communicate and use communication media in their negotiations today. With artificial intelligence growing out of infancy, a potential new aspect to communication media and their use in negotiation is set to arrive. The goal of the present article is hence to take stock of the current knowledge on the impact of communication media in negotiation in a systematic review and to derive new research needs from this status quo. To this end, after exposing the literature search and inclusion methodology, the author first presents and discusses three strategic communication theoretical perspectives on the usefulness of different communication media in negotiation as well as four social psychological perspectives that have been evoked in connection with communication media in negotiation. Second, the author reviews and synthesizes empirical evidence about the influence of communication media on negotiation processes and outcomes. In the discussion section, the author summarizes the current state of research as well as persisting research gaps, exposes recent developments, and suggests avenues for future research. 2 Methodology To locate research dealing with the communication medium in negotiation, an extensive literature search was performed, ending in mid-2019. Search terms such as “communication medium” AND negotiation OR bargaining, e-negotiation, “face-to-face” served as identifiers for potentially relevant work. The search included the following databases: Business Source Premier (through EBSCO), Google Scholar, Jstor,
209 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… PsychArticles (through EBSCO), ScienceDirect and SpringerLink. Additionally, reference lists of four meta-analyses dealing with various, specific aspects of communication media in negotiation and related fields (Baltes etal. 2002; Stuhlmacher and Citera 2005; Stuhlmacher etal. 2007; Swaab etal. 2012) provided additionally relevant articles. Prior research was included in the review of empirical studies when it fulfilled the following criteria: First, it had to be an article from a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Dissertation monographs or conference proceedings were excluded, because their accessibility and availability varies widely, leading to potential bias. Also, their content (data and theory) often features in more thoroughly worked out journal papers later, too. Second, the research reported in an article had to refer to negotiation. Such a focus excluded mediation, online dispute resolution, group decision making tasks, or interdependent bargaining games. While all aforementioned topics are in one way or another related to negotiation, drawing a line was necessary to get to grips with the sheer number of located articles. Moreover, meta-analytical reviews already exist at least on communication media in group decision making (e.g. Baltes etal. 1992; Swaab etal. 2012) and bargaining games (e.g. Balliet 2009). Third, the research either had to compare negotiation in two or more different communication media or focus on certain specificities within one communication medium, e.g. within text-based electronic communication such as email. The reported theoretical perspectives were included according to their development and use in empirical studies. Hence, purely theoretical perspectives with no empirical test do not feature in this review. 3 Theoretical Perspectives onCommunication Media inNegotiation Over the last decades, a number of theories have evolved in different academic disciplines that try to explain which communication medium is best suited for different communication needs and situations. This article considers three strategic communication theories that probably had the most profound impact on negotiation research: media richness theory and the task/media fit hypothesis (Daft and Lengel 1986; McGrath and Hollingshead 1993), grounding in communication (Clark and Brennan 1991), and media synchronicity theory (Dennis etal. 2008). While the strategic communication theories focus on characteristics of media and tasks, the subsequent social-psycholog- ical perspectives put the communicator–medium interaction center stage. Under these viewpoints, a medium may help or hinder certain social processes important to the communicators. Most widely cited are the barrier effect (Lewis and Fry 1977; Carnevale etal. 1981), social presence theory (Short etal. 1976), social information processing theory (Walther 1992, 1994), and the communication orientation model for negotiation and group decision making (Swaab etal. 2012).
210 I.Geiger 1 3 3.1 Strategic Communication Theories 3.1.1 Media Richness Theory andtheTask/Media Fit Hypothesis Media richness theory was developed by Daft and Lengel (1984, 1986) based on the premise that information can be characterized as possessing different degrees of richness. The authors define richness as the potential information carrying-capacity of data (Daft and Lengel 1984) that enables a change in understanding in a given time interval (Daft and Lengel 1986). In turn, communication media determine the richness of information processed. The authors’ focus lies on communication and information processing within organizations, so that they restrict their theory development to the most common communication media available for organizational communication at the time: face-to-face (FTF), telephone, letters, written documents, and numeric documents. Those differ in their degree of (1) feedback capability, (2) communication channels utilized, (3) source, and (4) language. Figure1 exhibits the different communication media, their characteristics, and their richness. In developing their framework further, Daft and Lengel (1986) focus on media richness as a criterion to handle uncertainty and equivocality of decision situations. They understand uncertainty as the absence of information and conceptualize equivocality as ambiguity, the existence of multiple and conflicting interpretations of a situation, confusion, and a general lack of understanding. In sum, they propose that for situations with high uncertainty and low equivocality, communication media and procedures with low degrees of information richness are suitable, whereas for resolving high equivocality, rich media, such as FTF conversations or group meetings, are needed. While Daft and Lengel (1984, 1986) in their theoretical writings focus more on organizational design when discussing information richness and media richness, McGrath and Hollingshead (1993) put group decision making center stage. They delineate different tasks that work groups typically fulfill: Generating plans and ideas (generate), intellective and decision making tasks (choose), cognitive conflicts and mixed-motive tasks (negotiate), and performance/psycho-motor and contest/ competitive tasks (execute). The authors speculate that the different types of tasks Medium Feedback Channel Source Language Face-to-face Immediate Visual, audio Personal Body, natural Telephone Fast Audio Personal Natural Numeric, formal Very slow Limited visual Impersonal Natural Written, formal Very slow Limited visual Impersonal Natural Written, personal Slow Limited visual Personal Natural Information & mediarichness Fig. 1 Media richness and media characteristics (Daft and Lengel 1984)
211 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… require different levels of information richness to be successfully and efficiently fulfilled. Subsequently, they match information richness of different media—FTF, video systems, audio systems, computer systems, in descending order of information richness—to required information richness of the tasks to arrive at the task/media fit hypothesis: Negotiating conflicts of interest requires the highest amount of information richness and is hence served best by FTF communication, whereas generating plans and ideas could be best served by computer systems, the least rich medium in their considerations. As Fig.2 shows, the task/media fit hypothesis presumes that information richness requirements of typical tasks in group decision making should best be matched with a communication medium of a corresponding level of information richness. According to this reasoning, negotiation is best served by FTF communication. Media richness theory and the task/media fit hypothesis have been used as the theoretical basis for a number of empirical papers analyzing the influence of communication media on the negotiation process and negotiation outcomes (e.g., Mennecke etal. 2000; Purdy etal. 2000; Sheffield 1995; Suh 1999). Their specific findings are discussed in Sect.4; however, overall support for this theoretical vantage point has been mixed. 3.1.2 Grounding inCommunication A rather different theoretical approach to the impact of communication media on negotiation has been laid out in Clark and Brennan’s (1991) foundational paper on grounding in communication. The two psycholinguists focus on conditions that allow grounding, a process that leads communicators to share a common ground so that they can be sure that what has been said has been understood. Evidence in grounding can come in the form of negative evidence—the receiver in Medium Negotiating conflicts of interest Choosing preferred answer: judgment tasks Choosing correct answer: intellective tasks Generating ideas and plans Face-to-face Good fit Marginal fit: info toorich Poor fit: info toorich Poor fit: info toorich Video systems Marginal fit: medium too constrained Good fit Good fit Poor fit: info too rich Computer systems Good fit Audio systems Poor fit: medium tooconstrained Good fit Good fit Marginal fit: info toorich Media richness Task type Poor fit: medium tooconstrained Poor fit: medium tooconstrained Marginal fit: medium too constrained Information richness required for task success Fig. 2 The task/media fit hypothesis (McGrath and Hollingshead 1993)
212 I.Geiger 1 3 communication shows s/he has not understood what was meant and the sender has to repeat his/her message—or in the shape of positive evidence: verbal acknowledgements (often in utterances such as mm, uuh, umh, …), relevant next turns (a message building upon what has been correctly understood), or in the form of continued attention. Clark and Brennan (1991) also argue that communicators act according to the principle of least collaborative effort: “The participants try to minimize their collaborative effort—the work that both do from the initiation of each contribution to its mutual acceptance.” (p. 136). The authors especially focus on two conditions for grounding: purpose, i.e. what the communicators try to achieve in their communication, and the communication medium, including the techniques available in the medium to achieve the purpose, as well as its associated costs. With regard to the general purpose of communication, the techniques used for achieving grounding should change, e.g. whether the purpose of the conversation is to plan a party or to arrive at a negotiated agreement. The authors exemplify different techniques for the purpose to reach grounding on a reference object: Among others, the sender could use alternative descriptions of the object, indicative gestures (e.g., pointing at the object of interest), or referential installments, i.e. naming the object before starting to characterize it. The most important factor determining available techniques for grounding and their associated cost is the communication medium. In combination with the principle of least collaborative effort to reach grounding, Clark and Brennan (1991) propose that communicators choose a medium or media that offer the most suitable and most cost-efficient techniques to reach grounding for a given communication purpose. Table1 exhibits different media characteristics of four important media in negotiation that determine the success and cost of grounding for different communication purposes. The different media and their characteristics are associated with different types of costs to reach grounding. In a given communication instance, communicators need to trade off these different costs. Some costs accrue to the sender, some to the receiver, and some to both. In negotiation research, Clark and Brennan’s work on grounding and the different media characteristics spelt out in their article have been mainly used to differentiate email and other asynchronous communication media from synchronous media, mainly FTF interaction. Friedman and Currall (2003) built their theoretical disputeexacerbating model of e-mail around those characteristics. Their model has been taken up in turn by Pesendorfer and Koeszegi (2006) to delineate different behavioral styles in synchronous and asynchronous electronic negotiations. Other empirical research based on grounding in communication includes Cooper and Johnson (2014), Damian etal. (2008), Geiger (2014), Johnson and Cooper (2009a, 2009b), Parlamis and Geiger (2015), or Yuan etal. (2003). 3.1.3 Media Synchronicity Theory The last communication theoretical vantage point on communication media in negotiation in this review is media synchronicity theory, formulated by Dennis et al. (2008). Their prime assumption is that in order to allow mutual understanding in
213 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… Table 1 Media characteristics according to grounding in communication (Clark and Brennan 1991) Media characteristics Face-to-Face Video conference Telephone Email Co-presence: A and B are located in the same physical environment Yes No No No Visibility: A and B can see each other Yes Yes No No Audibility: A and B can talk to each other Yes Yes Yes No Co-temporality: B receives something at the same time that it is sent by A Yes Yes Yes No Simultaneity: A and B can send and receive at the same time Yes Yes Yes No Sequentiality: The communication by A and B cannot be interrupted by third parties Yes Yes Yes No Reviewability: B can review the messages sent by A No No No Yes Revisability: A can revise their messages to B No No No Yes
214 I.Geiger 1 3 communication, two prototypical communication subprocesses are needed, conveyance of information and convergence on meaning. Conveyance processes entail the transmission of a diversity of new and relevant information so that the receiver is able to build or revise a mental model of the situation. In convergence processes, the discussion and interpretation of the communicators’ pre-processed information takes center stage. The goal then is to reach mutual understanding and to agree that mutual understanding has been reached. Every instance of communication requires a certain amount of both subprocesses, conveyance and convergence. In order for those subprocesses to be successful, one interpersonal and one intrapersonal process need to be accomplished: Information transmission requires preparing, sending, and receiving the information, while information processing is about understanding the meaning of information and integrating it into a mental model. Media synchronicity theory then proposes that the communication subprocesses’ need for information transmission and information processing should be matched to information transmission and information processing capabilities of the communication media. Dennis etal. (2008) define media synchronicity as “the extent to which the capabilities of a communication medium enable individuals to achieve synchronicity” (p. 581). They further propose that synchronicity “exists among individuals when they exhibit a shared pattern of coordinated synchronous behavior with a common focus” (p. 581). Convergence processes benefit from synchronicity, the theory’s central construct, while conveyance processes don’t. In essence, the theory proposes that convergence processes have a greater need for rapid information transmission than for information processing. In order to reach mutual understanding, high synchronicity allows more, shorter, and simpler messages, quick back-and-forth exchanges to verify that what has been said has been understood. These exchanges are best supported by communication media with a high level of synchronicity. The opposite is true for conveyance processes: The level of interaction between the communicators is lower and there is generally more time between messages. For conveyance to happen, the sender of a message may think hard about how to craft a message and the receiver can take time to decode and make sense of the new information conveyed. Allowing the receiver time to deliberate on the meaning of the new information should be more beneficial than potentially feeling pressure to respond quickly. Therefore, media synchronicity theory proposes that conveyance processes are best accomplished with lower synchronicity media. In order to characterize media into different degrees of synchronicity, Dennis etal. (2008) propose to regard five characteristics, that have been partly considered in media richness theory and grounding in communication, too. Symbol sets expresses the amount of different ways a message can be encoded, encompassing channel and language from media richness theory as well as co-presence, audibility, and visibility from grounding in communication. Transmission velocity describes the speed at which the message can be sent from sender to receiver, touching on the aspect of feedback in media richness theory and co-temporality of grounding. A great symbol set as well as high transmission velocity lead to a high level of media synchronicity. Rehearseability characterizes the extent to which
221 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… Table 3 (continued) Theory Goal Means Premises Critique Social presence theory Explain detrimental effects of lacking social presence in a variety of interpersonal situations Social presence or bandwidth of media, amount of social cues that can be transmitted Social psychological functions of media are important for interpersonal communication outcomes. More social cues lead to better mutual understanding Combined with media richness theory under a psychological viewpoint Explicitly deals with socioemotional aspects of communication Mixed empirical evidence in negotiation Social information processing theory Explain how humans build meaningful social relations through communication and the available communication means Cues (verbal-textual, nonverbal) available in a medium to transmit an impression of oneself and to form an impression of the other Humans need to affiliate when they communicate, i.e. build meaningful and positive social relationships Sets negotiation within a social relationship Able to explain some prior findings that run counter media richness theory or social presence theory Communication orientation model Explain interaction success (negotiation, group decision making) based on negotiator orientation and channel attributes Negotiator orientation (cooperative, non-cooperative, neutral) Channel attributes: visual (y/n), vocal (y/n), synchronicity (y/n) Information sharing and integration is critical for effective social interaction, e.g. comprehension, problem solving, finding common ground Negotiators have a certain basic orientation: cooperative, noncooperative, neutral Considers one important boundary condition in negotiation, negotiator orientation Integrates contradicting predictions from social presence theory and the barrier effect Does not consider use of various media Only one meta-analytical (successful) test
222 I.Geiger 1 3 within each actor. The reviewed theoretical perspectives do this either with a wide focus of application (social presence theory, social information processing theory) or with a narrow one on negotiation (barrier effect, communication orientation model). The younger theories (social information processing theory, communication orientation model) also seek to integrate contradictory past findings by introducing meaningful boundary conditions, i.e. time available to communicators (social information processing theory) and negotiator orientation, reconciling the predictions of the barrier effect and social presence theory. In summary, the assessment of the different theoretical perspectives shows a development over the last decades. This includes the formulation of boundary conditions, which are in some instances able to reconcile formerly seemingly disparate findings. The social-psychological theoretical perspectives highlight the need to assess not only instrumental, cognitive processes, but also social psychological and socio-emotional ones, a benefit over the communication strategic theories. So far, however, they make no explicit predictions on communication media combinations, i.e. a number of media used consecutively or in parallel. That aspect features prominently in media synchronicity theory, as does a specification of what “task” in communication can be thought of, namely the sub-processes of conveyance on convergence. Looking ahead, further theoretical development needs to take into account and integrate at least the following four theoretical building blocks: social psychological aspects, meaningful boundary conditions, correspondence between general communication outcomes and specific negotiation processes and outcomes, and communication media combinations instead of single media only. Social psychological aspects include, e.g., the development of trust and rapport, affective processes of the negotiators (Moore et al. 1999), and the development of social relationships (Walther 1992). Meaningful boundary conditions could encompass communicator-medium attitudes (Geiger and Parlamis 2014), negotiator incentive structures (Barkhi etal. 1999, 2004), or negotiation difficulty (e.g. Huang etal. 2008; Wang and Doong 2014). A closer elaboration of the correspondence between general communication outcomes such as mutual understanding, synchronicity, or grounding with negotiation processes, e.g. behavior, offer patterns, and outcomes, e.g. joint profit, also seems warranted. For instance, if negotiators reach mutual understanding on positions, but not on interests, they may very well reach a communicative consensus, but a suboptimal negotiation outcome. Elaboration of how the two communicative sub-processes of conveyance and convergence relate to specific negotiation sub-processes may be but one possible way forward (e.g. Geiger and Laubert 2018). Finally, future theoretical development should take into account the possibility to use various media in sequence and/or in parallel (e.g. Damian 2002). 4 Empirical Evidence onCommunication Media Effects onNegotiation Process andOutcomes Table4 exhibits all 98 empirical studies included in the present review. As the media column shows, they cover a wide variety of communication media. Studies mostly refer to integrative negotiation and to a lesser degree to distributive negotiation as
223 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… well as to group (multi-party) negotiation. Also included are relevant field studies, studies including non-scored negotiation exercises and meta-analyses. The dependent variables column shows the types of dependent variables that the studies report: process measures (e.g. time, behaviors, offer patterns), economic negotiation outcomes (e.g. agreement, individual and joint profit), and socio-emotional outcomes (e.g. satisfaction, trust). Finally, the theories column summarizes which of the above-discussed media-related theories have been used in the articles. Figures3, 4 and 5 illustrate the evolution of research interest on communication media in negotiation across the decades. Overall, 25 empirical studies, detected for this review, have been published in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, or 90s. In the subsequent decade, from 2000 to 2009, this number nearly doubled with 49 empirical papers, with 24 following in the 2010s. Regarding the communication media included in the studies (see Fig.3), FTF seemed to be the standard against which the other media were pitted until the millennium—21 out 25 studies contained a FTF condition. In the 2000s, only 26 out of 49 still contained FTF, while the same amount of studies looked at synchronous CMC, with asynchronous CMC following suit (21 studies). In the 2010s, the latter category drew the most research interest (15 out 24), probably because of a specific concern about email negotiation. Video and audio, in contrast, somehow seemed to have been of less concern to researchers, despite their importance in practice. Figures 4 and 5, displaying dependent variable categories and dependent variables analyzed in the reviewed studies, show a similar development of changing research interest. In the earlier time interval (1960s to 1990s), a clear emphasis was on economic outcome variables, notably joint profit or a similar dyadic outcome. In the second time interval, negotiation behavior in various conceptualizations became the most often cited dependent variable, possibly because of the greater ease to capture it in written communication, which featured a lot more in the 2000s than before. Figures4 and 5 also show the lowest interest in socio-emotional outcome variables compared to other outcome variables across all time periods, although relatively speaking analysis of socio-emotional outcomes has increased. This may be due to more recent insights on the importance of socio-emotional outcomes for future relationships between negotiators (e.g. Curhan etal. 2009). 4.1 Negotiation Process 4.1.1 Negotiation Time andAmount ofCommunication Various important process characteristics potentially differ between the communication media. To start with, descriptive process characteristics, such as negotiation time and amount of communication, may differ between communication modes. Overall, synchronous media with an audio channel, such as FTF, video, and telephone were found to need less time for finalizing a negotiation than text-based communication such as email or instant messaging (IM) in the majority of studies reporting negotiation time (Galin etal. 2007; Geiger 2014; Mennecke etal. 2000; Purdy etal. 2000; Scheck etal. 2008; Suh 1999; Wang and Doong 2014; Yang 2012). In
224 I.Geiger 1 3 Table 4 Empirical studies on communication medium effects in negotiation Article MediaaSettingbDependent variablescTheoriesd Ang etal. (2013) VID/AVA INT ECON, S-E MRT, SPT Arthi (2009)VID + S-CMC/VID NS ECON MRT, GRC, MST Arunachalam and Dilla (1992) FTF/S-CMC GROUP ECON SPT, BAR Arunachalam and Dilla (1995) FTF/S-CMC GROUP PROC, ECON SPT, BAR Barkhi etal. (1999)FTF + NSS/S-CMC + NSS GROUP PROC, ECON, S-E MRT, SPT Barkhi etal. (2004)FTF + NSS/S-CMC + NSS GROUP PROC, ECON MRT, SPT Calefato etal. (2012) FTF/S-CMC NS ECON, S-E MRT, TMFH, GRC, MST, SPT Carnevale and Isen (1986) FTF/NO VIS INT PROC, ECON BAR Carnevale etal. (1981) FTF/NO VIS INT PROC, ECON, S-E BAR Chen and Tseng (2016) FTF/IM NS S-E LIT Citera etal. (2005) FTF/S-CMC INT PROC, ECON, S-E MRT, SPT Cooper and Johnson (2014) AUD/IM DIST ECON GRC Croson (1999) FTF/email INT ECON LIT Damian (2002)FTF/VID + S-CMC + DOC INT PROC MRT Damian etal. (2000)FTF/VID + S-CMC + DOC INT ECON MRT, SPT Damian etal. (2003)FTF/VID + S-CMC + DOC INT ECON MRT, SPT Damian etal. (2008)VID + A-CMC/VID NS PROC, ECON MRT, GRC, MST, SPT Delaney etal. (1997)FTF/FTF + NSS/S-CMC + NSS INT PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Diermeier etal. (2008) FTF/S-CMC GROUP ECON MRT, SPT Dorado etal. (2002) S-CMC INT PROC MRT, SPT Duthler (2006) VOIC/email NS PROC SPT, SIPT Fry (1985) FTF/NO VIS INT PROC, ECON BAR Galin etal. (2007) FTF/S-CMC INT PROC, ECON LIT Gattiker etal. (2007) FTF/email/ORA DIST S-E MRT Geiger (2014) FTF/A-CMC INT PROC, ECON, S-E GRC, MST Geiger and Parlamis (2014) email INT ECON, S-E MST
225 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… Table 4 (continued) Article MediaaSettingbDependent variablescTheoriesd Giordano etal. (2007) FTF/IM INT PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Graf etal. (2010)A-CMC/A-CMC + NSS INT PROC LIT Griessmair and Koeszegi (2009) A-CMC INT ECON MRT, SPT, SIPT Griffith and Northcraft (1994) A-CMC/P&P INT PROC, ECON SPT Hatta etal. (2007) email INT PROC, ECON LIT Hine etal. (2009)A-CMC + NSS INT ECON LIT Hollingshead etal. (1993) FTF/A-CMC INT ECON, S-E MRT, TMFH, SPT Huang etal. (2008) FTF/email/ORA DIST S-E LIT Jain and Solomon (2000) FTF/S-CMC INT S-E MRT, TMFH Jensen (2009) email FIELD PROC MRT, SPT, SIPT Johnson and Cooper (2009a) PH/IM DIST PROC, ECON MRT, GRC, SPT Johnson and Cooper (2009b) IM DIST PROC MRT, GRC, SPT King and Glidewell (1980)FTF/VIS + P&P/NO VIS + AUD/P&P INT PROC, ECON LIT Koeszegi etal. (2006)A-CMC + NSS/A-CMC INT PROC, ECON LIT Koeszegi etal. (2011) S-CMC/A-CMC INT PROC LIT Kurtzberg and Naquin (2010) email INT ECON, S-E MRT, SPT Kurtzberg etal. (2005a, ) email DIST ECON, S-E MRT, SPT Kurtzberg etal. (2005b) email/P&P INT S-E MRT, SPT Kurtzberg etal. (2010) email DIST, INT PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Lai etal. (2006)A-CMC + NSS INT PROC, ECON LIT Lai etal. (2010) A-CMC INT PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Laubert and Parlamis (2019) email DIST S-E LIT Lewis and Fry (1977) FTF/NO VIS INT ECON LIT Lim (2000)FTF/NO VIS/FTF + NSS/NO VIS + NSS INT ECON MRT, SPT
226 I.Geiger 1 3 Table 4 (continued) Article MediaaSettingbDependent variablescTheoriesd Lim and Yang (2008)S-CMC/S-CMC + NSS/S-CMC + LING/S- CMC + LING + NSS INT PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Loewenstein etal. (2005) IM/email INT PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Lu etal. (2017) FTF/CMC META S-E MRT Mahenthiran etal. (1993) A-CMC/P&P INT PROC, ECON, S-E MRT Matheson (1991) S-CMC INT PROC SPT McGinn and Keros (2002) FTF/PH/email DIST PROC, ECON LIT Mennecke etal. 2000 FTF/VID/PH/S-CMC INT PROC MRT, TMFH Moore etal. (1999) email INT PROC, ECON SPT Morley and Stephenson (1969) FTF/PH DIST ECON NO Morley and Stephenson (1970) FTF/PH DIST ECON LIT Morris etal. (2002) FTF/email INT PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Naquin and Paulson (2003) FTF/email INT ECON, S-E LIT Paese etal. (2003) FTF/PH/email DIST PROC, ECON LIT Parlamis and Geiger (2015) email INT ECON, S-E MRT, GRC, MST Pesendorfer and Koeszegi (2006) S-CMC/A-CMC INT PROC, ECON, S-E MRT, GRC, SPT Pesendorfer and Koeszegi (2007) S-CMC INT PROC, ECON MRT Pesendorfer etal. (2007) A-CMC INT ECON LIT Potter and Balthazard (2000) A-CMC/email INT ECON MRT, TMFH Purdy etal. (2000) FTF/VID/AUD/S-CMC INT PROC, ECON, S-E MRT Rangswamy and Shell (1997) FTF/email INT ECON LIT Rosette etal. (2012) FTF/email DIST PROC, ECON SPT Scheck etal. (2008)AUD + S-CMC/AUD/S-CMC GROUP PROC, ECON, S-E MRT, TMFH, SPT Schoop etal. (2008) SYNC/ASYNC FIELD ECON MRT
227 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… Table 4 (continued) Article MediaaSettingbDependent variablescTheoriesd Schulz and Pruitt (1978) FTF/P&P INT PROC, ECON LIT Sheffield (1995)FTF/PH/S-CMC + VIS/S-CMC INT PROC, ECON MRT Short (1974) FTF/VID/AUD INT ECON LIT Smith (1969) FTF/P&P DIST PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Sokolova and Szpakowicz (2007) A-CMC + NSS INT ECON LIT Sokolova etal. (2006) FTF/A-CMC + NSS INT PROC LIT Staples and Zhao (2006)FTF/AUD + S-CMC NS PROC, ECON, S-E LIT Stuhlmacher and Citera (2005) FTF/VIRT META PROC, ECON MRT, BAR, SPT Stuhlmacher etal. (2007) FTF/VIRT META PROC, ECON LIT Suh (1999) FTF/VID/AUD/S-CMC DIST PROC, ECON, S-E MRT, TMFH, SIPT Swaab etal. (2009) FTF/S-CMC GROUP ECON SPT Swaab etal. (2012) VISC (y/n) x AUDC (y/n) x SYNC (y/n) META ECON MRT, SPT, SIPT Townley and Jones (2016) email/LET FIELD PROC NO Turnbull etal. (1976) FTF/VID/AUD INT ECON LIT van Es etal. (2004) FTF/S-CMC INT PROC, ECON LIT Vinciarelli etal. (2014) PH NS PROC MRT, SPT Volkema etal. (2010) email INT PROC, ECON MRT Volkema etal. (2011) email INT PROC, ECON LIT Wachter (1999) FTF/VID/AUD/S-CMC INT ECON, S-E LIT Wang and Doong (2014)FTF/VID + NSS/S-CMC + NSS DIST PROC, ECON, S-E MRT, TMFH Wang etal. (2010)S-CMC + NSS INT S-E LIT Wolfe and Murthy (2005)FTF/S-CMC + NSS DIST ECON, S-E MRT, SPT Yang (2012) FTF/IM/email INT PROC, ECON, S-E SPT Yuan etal. (2003)VID + S-CMC/AUD + S-CMC/S-CMC INT PROC, ECON MRT, TMFH, GRC, SPT, SIPT
228 I.Geiger 1 3 Table 4 (continued) Article MediaaSettingbDependent variablescTheoriesd Zornoza etal. (2002) FTF/S-CMC DIST PROC MRT, TMFH, SPT a FTF: face-to-face communication, VID: video, NO VIS: no visual access but co-location, VIS: visual access and co-location, AVA: avatar mediated communication, PH: phone, AUD: audio other than phone, VOIC, voicemail, S-CMC: synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication, IM: instant messenger, A-CMC: asynchronous text-based computer-mediated communication, email: electronic mail, ORA: online reverse auction, P&P: pencil and paper, LET: letter, SYNC: all synchronous media, ASYNC: all asynchronous media, VIRT: virtual communication = anything but FTF, VISC: visual channel, AUDC: audio channel, NSS: functional negotiation support system, DOC: document sharing, LING: multi-lingual support b DIST: distributive negotiation, INT: integrative negotiation, GROUP: group (multi-party) negotiation, NS: non-scored negotiation exercise, META: meta-analysis, FIELD: field study on negotiation c PROC: negotiation process variables, ECON: economic negotiation outcome variables, S-E: socio-emotional negotiation outcome variables d MRT: media richness theory, TMFH: task-media fit hypothesis, GRC: grounding in communication, MST: media synchronicity theory, BAR: barrier effect, SPT: social presence theory, SIPT: social information processing theory, LIT: literature review, past empirical findings and other non-media related theories, NO: no theory
229 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… a similar vein, computer support made text-based negotiation quicker compared to pencil and paper as witnessed by fewer offer rounds in a study by Mahenthiran etal. (1993). Despite the shorter negotiation time in media with an audio channel, the amount of communication was still higher in those media (King and Glidewell 1980; Sheffield 1995). This finding is also mirrored in synchronous versus asynchronous text-based electronic negotiation, where negotiators using an instant messenger (IM) system (synchronous) communicated more than those using email (asynchronous) when one side (the seller) had intricate (vs. simple) arguments (Loewenstein etal. 2005). Contrary to these majority findings, other studies report no significant time differences between the various media employed (Barkhi etal. 1999; Delaney etal. 1997; King and Glidewell 1980; Smith 1969; Wang and Doong 2014). While in the studies by Smith (1969) and King and Glidewell (1980) sample sizes were too small 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1960s to 1990s 2000s2010s Main communication media in the reviewed studies Total # papers Face-to-face Video Audio incl. phone Synchronous CMC incl. IM Asynchronous CMC incl. Email Fig. 3 Main communication media in negotiation studies across different time intervals 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1960s to 1990s2000s2010s Dependent variable categories in the reviewed studies Total # papers Process variables Economic outcome variables Socio-emotional outcome variables Fig. 4 Dependent variable categories in the reviewed studies across time intervals
230 I.Geiger 1 3 to reach significance of results, Barkhi etal. (1999) speculate that a greater taskorientation or power application of the most powerful party may be responsible for similar negotiation times between FTF and CMC communication. In Delaney and colleagues’ (1997) study the time taken to use a functional negotiation support system (NSS) in both FTF and CMC may be responsible for equal negotiation times, and Wang and Doong’s (2014) similar finding may be due to the simplicity of their negotiation task (transparent price bargaining). Chinese negotiators in synchronous CMC took more time when they used a native language support tool compared to not using it (Lim and Yang 2008). This may be due to the slower Chinese characters keyboard or eventually because negotiators send more messages and offers in their native (Chinese) compared to a foreign language (English; Lai etal. 2010). When FTF negotiations were supported by a negotiation support system (NSS), they also took longer than without such support (Delaney etal. 1997). 4.1.2 Number ofOffers Some articles report the number of offers made in negotiations with different media. From the empirical evidence, no clear picture emerges. Neither Schulz and Pruitt (1978) nor Fry (1985) find main effects for media (FTF, paper & pencil) on the number of offers or number of different offers, but only interaction effects: Team oriented FTF negotiators (Schulz and Pruitt 1978) and FTF negotiators in high-low Machiavellianism dyads (Fry 1985) make less offers than the other respective negotiators. In the study by Delaney etal. (1997), most offers are made by FTF negotiators who use a NSS, while the number of offers in synchronous CMC plus a NSS is no different from pure FTF negotiators. Lai etal. (2010) report more offers for e-negotiators who negotiate in their native compared to a foreign language. In sum, 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1960s to1990s 2000s 2010s Dependent variables in the reviewed studies Total # papers Time used for negotiation Number of offers, concession making Economic reference points Negotiation behavior Other perceptual and affective process measures Agreement Individual profit Joint profit or other dyadic outcome Dispersion of profits Satisfaction or related socio-emotional outcomes Trust or related outcome Socio-emotional outcome about the opponent and the self Fig. 5 Dependent variables in the reviewed studies across time intervals
237 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… help handle high intensity conflicts better and increase agreement probability. In a distributive property negotiation conducted via email, where agents represented the principals, disproportionately higher agreement rates were found among agents that were similar and familiar compared to those who were lower in similarity and/or familiarity (Kurtzberg etal. 2005a). Volkema etal. (2010) report a positive correlation between agreement and perceived honesty of the other party in email negotiation. Hine etal. (2009) found that successful e-negotiations contained more positive emotion and agreeable language than failed ones, although they were actually shorter in time. Geiger and Parlamis (2014) show that email comfort, a person’s affective attitude towards email, is positively related to joint gain, individual gain and social value in integrative email negotiation. In addition, reactive medium management, i.e. trying to reactively fix shortcomings of the medium, was negatively related to joint profit and social value in email negotiation (Parlamis and Geiger 2015). In electronic text-based communication, some more interaction effects can be witnessed: In a study by Lai etal. (2010), in a native language group the buyer’s utility was higher than the seller’s, but not in a non-native language group in asynchronous CMC negotiation. In synchronous CMC, negotiators who had access to a NSS reached higher individual outcomes than those without (Lim and Yang 2008), however, no such effect could be found for using a multi-lingual support tool. Kurtzberg and Naquin (2010) write that email negotiators who received emails with a disclaimer statement in an email footer had lower individual and joint outcomes than those receiving email with a confidentiality statement or no statement at all. Ultimately, Kurtzberg etal. (2010) report higher joint profit in email negotiation when they were started with a humorous event compared to when not. 4.3 Socio‑emotional Negotiation Outcomes 4.3.1 Negotiator Satisfaction Beyond economic negotiation outcomes, some papers also report a variety of socio-emotional outcomes in negotiations conducted in different communication media. As one of the first studies, Carnevale etal. (1981) observe a more positive negotiation atmosphere for negotiators without visual access compared to FTF. Regarding negotiator satisfaction with the negotiation outcome, disparate results are stated: Some papers report highest satisfaction in FTF communication with other media at a disadvantage (Barkhi etal. 1999; Hollingshead etal. 1993; Naquin and Paulson 2003; Wachter 1999 for process but not for outcome satisfaction; Wolfe and Murthy 2005), or higher levels of satisfaction when audio or video channels were present compared to text only (Scheck etal. 2008). Others report greater satisfaction in text-based CMC compared with FTF (Delaney etal. 1997; Geiger 2014; Giordano etal. 2007). Similarly, Pesendorfer and Koeszegi (2006) found higher satisfaction with the outcome in asynchronous versus synchronous computer mediated negotiation. Moreover, a number of papers report no difference in outcome and/or process satisfaction (Ang etal. 2013; Jain and Solomon 2000; Lim and Yang 2008; Purdy etal. 2000; Wang and Doong 2014;
238 I.Geiger 1 3 Yang 2012) for various media and/or support systems (NSS, multi-lingual). The work by Wang and Doong (2014) suggests that the type of negotiation (easily analyzable, difficult to analyze) may interact with the medium to influence process satisfaction: While it is highest in text-based CMC with NSS support for an easily analyzable task, it is lowest for a more difficult one, compared with FTF and video supported by a NSS. Kurtzberg etal. (2010) found that in email negotiation sending a funny cartoon upfront led to greater satisfaction. In NSS supported text-based CMC, perceived control, fairness and collaborative atmosphere of the system enhance negotiator satisfaction (Wang etal. 2010). Some more papers report constructs related to satisfaction. Wachter (1999) found decreasing outcome affect from FTF through video and audio to CMC. In Jain and Solomon’s (2002) paper, FTF provides greater effectiveness of communication and a more positive perception of group processes than CMC. Wolfe and Murthy (2005) report greater task conflict and relational conflict in synchronous CMC with a NSS compared with FTF. Results regarding desire for future interaction partly mirror the results for satisfaction: Naquin and Paulson (2003) find a higher desire for future interaction in FTF than email negotiations. In contrast, no influence of media richness (FTF, video, audio, email) on desire for future interaction when controlling for collaboration and satisfaction was observed by Purdy etal. (2000). Media richness does also not impact the likelihood of renegotiations in practice (Schoop et al. 2008). State anger in FTF versus CMC negotiations seems to be moderated by the type of conflict: in functional conflict it is lower in FTF while in dysfunctional conflict it is higher in FTF compared with CMC (Chen and Tseng 2016). 4.3.2 Trust Trust formation during negotiation seems to be influenced by the medium: Generally, some papers find higher negotiation trust and/or credibility in the opponent in FTF than in email negotiations (Citera etal. 2005; Lu etal. 2017; Naquin and Paulson 2003; Wachter 1999). These findings are mirrored in purchasing processes where trust formation (benevolence, credibility) during FTF negotiations is greater than in email negotiations when procurement complexity is low. However, there are no significant differences between face-to-face and email when procurement complexity is high. (Huang etal. 2008). Similarly, trust was higher in audio plus text or video plus text than in text-only CMC negotiations (Scheck etal. 2008; Yuan etal. 2003). Interestingly, avatar mediated communication witnessed a greater positive change in trustworthiness compared to video (Ang etal. 2013). For email negotiations, emails with a disclaimer message lead to lower trustworthiness than those without or with a confidentiality footer only (Kurtzberg and Naquin 2010) and to higher trust when a funny cartoon is sent compared to when it is not (Kurtzberg etal. 2010).
239 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… 4.3.3 Socio‑emotional Evaluation oftheOpponent andtheSelf Some socio-emotional evaluations also have to do with the opponent. Positive feelings towards the opponent were greater in dyads that had a 5min phone conversation and then negotiated via email than those who only negotiated by email (Morris etal. 2002). In a different study, negotiators experienced greater friendliness in asynchronous versus synchronous computer mediated negotiation (Pesendorfer and Koeszegi 2006). Avatar mediated communication witnessed a greater change in opponent likeability compared to video (Ang etal. 2013). Interpersonal awareness did not vary between FTF and electronically multi-media supported negotiations (video, text, document sharing; Damian 2002). In email negotiation, correctly perceiving the opponent’s emotion seems very difficult (Laubert and Parlamis 2019). Also in email negotiation, loyalty of an agent to the other agent in agent-agent property negotiations is highest when agents are similar and familiar and seems to go hand in hand with the highest agreement rates (Kurtzberg etal. 2005a). Moreover, negotiators seem to rate their peers worse when the peer appraisal after negotiation is provided by email as compared to pencil and paper (Kurtzberg etal. 2005b). Finally, some socio-emotional outcomes have to do with the self. Mahenthiran etal. (1993) show that negotiators’ perceived autonomy in budget negotiations is greater under pencil and paper versus CMC. Lai etal. (2010) find a higher language self-efficacy and negotiation self-efficacy for native versus non-native e-negotiators. 4.4 Critical Assessment ofEmpirical Findings The diversity of empirical findings underscores that this research field within group decision and negotiation is still far from consensus as to the effects of different media on most negotiation processes and outcomes. Therefore, the original assumption that FTF is the most suitable communication medium for negotiation, voiced in many theoretical writings and empirically substantiated in some, especially earlier ones, needs to be taken with many grains of salt. As the review of empirical studies shows, only two types of process variables seem to mostly benefit from FTF communication: the formation of trust, including its components of benevolence and credibility, and the accurate assessment of the opponent. For all other process and outcome variables, this review revealed diverging findings. In some instances, FTF produces more cooperative and less competitive behavior, in others it is the other way around. In turn, sometimes differences in outcomes in one or the other direction can be observed; in many instances, no such variations were found. Social information processing theory and the communication orientation model in negotiation provide some theoretical suggestions as to how some of the diverging findings can be reconciled, e.g. by regarding negotiator orientations (Swaab etal. 2012). Specifically, the communication orientation model suggests that more channels (i.e. audio, visual, synchronicity) benefit initially neutral negotiators, harm non-cooperative negotiators, and do not influence cooperative negotiators in reaching good dyadic outcomes. In addition, several other boundary conditions may be valuable to understand
240 I.Geiger 1 3 differences in negotiation processes and outcomes in various communication media. In media with fewer channels, notably CMC, the review suggests that a personal relationship or similar constructs (social embeddedness, similarity, familiarity) can make up for some of the missing richness in those media (e.g. Pesendorfer etal. 2007). A positive communication style (honesty, agreeable language, humor, positive emotion transmission) and a person’s familiarity and comfort with a communication medium may do the same (e.g. Geiger and Parlamis 2014). Other boundary conditions, assessed in past research, include person- or role-specific aspects (culture, Rosette etal. 2012, Machiavellianism, Fry 1985, in-group homogeneity, Staples and Zhao 2006), expectations and incentives (Barkhi etal. 1999, 2004; Mahenthiran etal. 1993), partner similarity and familiarity (Kurtzberg etal. 2005a, b) as well as characteristics of the negotiation task (analyzability, Wang and Doong 2014, type of conflict, Chen and Tseng 2016, complexity, Gattiker etal. 2007). Beyond various boundary conditions assessed in some empirical papers, several other reasons may be responsible for why the different empirical studies do not fully converge in their results regarding the various dependent variables. First, the timeframe from which this review draws empirical papers is six decades. In these six decades, both the availability and the use of different communication media have dramatically increased. Thus, it is at least questionable whether the same study with a similar sample of test persons would have come to the same results, say, in 1995 and 2015. Second, while some studies offer differentiated results by explicitly looking at interaction effects between communication medium and other variables, their concrete data collection procedures may implicitly introduce more boundary conditions, not controlled for in this review or earlier meta-analyses (Stuhlmacher and Citera 2005). For example, it may indeed make a difference in results whether a FTF versus IM negotiation study is conducted among tech-savvy engineering students (Damian et al. 2000) or among communication students (Mennecke et al. 2000). Another obvious boundary condition, practically not regarded so far in negotiation studies, is people’s attitude towards or preference for a certain communication medium (e.g. Kelly and Keaten 2007). Third, as the review of empirical findings shows, for many important process and outcome variables, null findings are reported, i.e. no statistically significant differences between media conditions. Interestingly and in contrast to the original studies, all pertinent meta-analyses—although necessarily less fine-grained in differentiating various media—find significant differences in outcomes between various media categories or characteristics. Thus, missing statistical power due to small sample sizes also represents a potential explanation for many of the null findings. 5 Discussion andOutlook 5.1 Current State ofResearch andPersisting Research Gaps This paper has taken stock of six decades of research on the communication medium’s influence in negotiation. Various strategic communication and psychological
241 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… theoretical vantage points offer different suggestions as to how using a certain communication medium in negotiation may help or hinder successful processes and outcomes. While a certain convergence of theoretical perspectives can be witnessed over time, both the communication strategic and the social psychological perspectives on communication media in negotiation still fail to offer a unified theoretical framework. The former acknowledges the possibility to use a combination of media, the latter includes the socio-emotional aspects into the discussion; they thereby complement each other. Both perspectives, however, lack a thorough discussion of how communication outcomes in general and negotiation processes and outcomes in particular relate. They also need updating with regard to pertinent boundary conditions. As the review of the empirical studies shows, media effects on negotiation processes and outcomes seem to depend largely on a number of boundary conditions. Only for two socio-emotional process measures did FTF compared to other media have a positive effect that is mostly independent from boundary conditions. Initially feared disadvantages of leaner media, especially the ones only based on text, can be minimized, e.g. by taking more time, personal relationships, a positive communication style, or a person’s familiarity and positive attitude towards the medium. Past research has also identified conditions under which FTF compared to leaner media is advantageous, e.g. when negotiators initially have a neutral orientation toward the opponent, when the negotiation task is difficult or complex rather than simple, or when negotiators are not familiar with the task or partner, yet. The current state of research also reveals a number of more or less obvious research gaps that have only insufficiently or not at all been addressed. First, the rapid development of more and more differentiated communication media in recent decades combined with the natural use of those media by younger generations, i.e. the digital natives, casts questions as to whom knowledge on communication media and negotiation, gained over the last decades, applies today. For example, if communication patterns between today’s teenagers, heavily relying on the use of different features of smartphones and the related apps (e.g. Twenge etal. 2019), are dramatically different from past teenager generations that are twenty or forty years older, why wouldn’t these differences also translate into differentiated use of communication media in negotiations in later life stages? The literature shows differentiated media use among younger and older generations, e.g. for email (Metzger and Flanagin 2002); mobile phone and texting (Ishii 2006), or Twitter (Metallo and Agrifoglio 2015). However, several studies also cast in doubt whether generational differences in communication media use behavior actually lead to different communication outcomes between generations, e.g. in learning contexts (Gros etal. 2012; Waycott etal. 2010) or in general psychological well-being (Liu etal. 2019). Second, nearly all knowledge on the effects of communication media in negotiation stems from studies that allow only one or the other communication medium for a given negotiation task. Both theoretical deliberations (Dennis etal. 2008) and first empirical evidence (Ambrose etal. 2008; Damian etal. 2000, 2003, 2008; Geiger and Laubert 2018; Townley and Jones 2016) show that in real negotiations, various communication media are chosen and used depending on different factors such as stage of the negotiation, communication efficiency, or limiting external factors. The combination of different media may happen in parallel (e.g., Damian et al. 2000,
242 I.Geiger 1 3 2003) or in sequence (e.g., Damian etal. 2008). Additionally, the general availability of different media also poses the question of how negotiators choose their communication media. This topic has been largely neglected in negotiation research (Geiger and Laubert 2018), but already dealt with in the general organizational, communication, or psychological research, (e.g., George etal. 2013; Hertel etal. 2008; Kelly and Keaten 2007; Trevino etal. 1987, 1990, 2000; Webster and Trevino 1995). Third, the disregard of many important features of real-world negotiations in the reviewed studies represent a persisting research gap. Among others, these features include physical distance between negotiators (e.g., Geiger and Parlamis 2014), different languages (e.g., Lügger etal. 2015), negotiations stretching a longer period of time (e.g. Simonelli 2011), as well as official and unofficial documentation policies (e.g. Spittler and Jentzen 1992). 5.2 Recent Developments Beyond the aforementioned research gaps, new developments in media availability and use contribute additional research needs. What seems to be missing altogether in negotiation research until the present day are accounts of the use of social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) as well as the use of communication media enhanced by artificial intelligence. According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010, p. 61), “Social Media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.” In social media, users can create, share and exchange information in a virtual community (Ngai etal. 2015), transforming 1:1 dialogue into 1:n communication. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no negotiation study has yet analyzed in how far social media are or could be used in negotiation processes. Overall, for social media research in negotiation, Ngai et al.’ (2015) conclusion, derived in a comprehensive review of social media research in various disciplines, currently also applies: “Notwithstanding, the phenomenon of social media remains new to academia” (p. 33). Another current topic very closely related to communication media in negotiation, but diligently overlooked in most studies, may profit from recent developments of artificial intelligence (AI) that have passed the fledgling stages: language, in the meaning of mother tongue or foreign language. Language becomes especially important in negotiation when negotiators do not share the same language. In those instances, both negotiators may choose one common foreign language, often English, or one negotiator may choose to communicate in the other negotiator’s language if she/he is able to do so. However, this may lead to a disadvantage of the nonnative speaker, e.g. in terms of language self-efficacy, negotiation self-efficacy, or persuasion behavior (Lai etal. 2010). This fact is not very often addressed and only sometimes criticized (e.g. Lügger etal. 2015) in most empirical research, perhaps because it has been predominantly conducted in English speaking countries such as the US, the UK, Canada, or Australia. Moreover, research looking specifically at the influence of language in business negotiations is very sparse (Alvarez etal. 2017;
243 1 3 From Letter toTwitter: ASystematic Review ofCommunication… Lai etal. 2010; Lim and Yang 2008; Nagler 2018). What could put language center stage in research on communication media in negotiation today, are well-developed translation aids in some channels. Google translator has become very accurate, even in idiomatic translations (the author tried English, French, and German), and Skype now includes a translator for written text as well as for audio, albeit with a slight delay in communication. Thus, for email, instant messaging, audio communication and video conferencing, AI tools are available to bridge language barriers and thus support international negotiation. 5.3 Future Research The current state of theoretical reasoning on communication media in negotiation and its empirical underpinnings as well as the more recent developments offer various avenues for future research. One theoretical challenge that has not yet been solved is the relation between communication outcomes and negotiation processes and outcomes. All the general theoretical perspectives, i.e. those that are not specifically geared toward negotiation, assume mutual understanding of the communicators as the ultimate goal of communication (The social psychological perspectives also have some social outcomes in view). However, mutual understanding is only a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for successful negotiation processes and outcomes. If negotiators reached 100% mutual understanding on their positions and positional arguments, an agreement would likely be sub-optimal: Understanding was then on the “wrong” type of information. Therefore, reaching the goal of successful communication according to those theoretical perspectives, i.e. mutual understanding, is too little to reach different possible goals in a negotiation, be they distributive and/or integrative. Working out more dependable relations between communication outcomes in general and negotiation processes and outcomes in particular thus remains a theoretical challenge for the field. Media synchronicity theory’s distinction between the communication sub-processes of conveyance and convergence may be but a starting point. With regard to the state of current empirical knowledge and the identified research gaps, several research directions come into mind. Especially in the last two decades, several boundary conditions have been introduced into the research field. Some of them certainly warrant more attention: One promising topic is the relation between a negotiator and the communication medium. Are negotiators with certain attitudes or traits, e.g. introvert versus extrovert people, better served by different media? Which effect do knowledge and use of or preference for specific communication media have on the negotiators’ dealings? A second boundary condition that has proven useful but that has not been fully explored is the type and character of a negotiation. Which role do different aspects of the negotiation task play, e.g. the number of issues, the predictability of outcomes, uncertainty of external factors? Which role do different phases of a negotiation process play?
244 I.Geiger 1 3 As laid out above, the rapid development of communication media over the last three decades (email, instant messaging, text messaging, etc.) has led to differential communication media use among different generations. Whether such generational differences in communication media use make a difference in negotiation is another broad research question worthy of investigation. Potentially the greatest white spot in the topical field of communication media effects in negotiation is the combination of different media in a negotiation. Combination of media can happen either in parallel or in sequence. The number of available media today and the different possibilities of combination across a negotiation and potentially its phases offer numerous possibilities for research, with potentially great value for practice. Also from a practical perspective, questions pertaining to (sometimes limiting) features of real-world negotiations, and how communication media interact with them, offer important research questions. Which influence does real physical distance have on the choice and use of communication media and respective negotiation processes and outcomes? How do language barriers between international negotiators play out in different media? Which role does the communication medium play in negotiation processes stretching over a longer period of time? Which role do documentation policies, e.g. leaving or avoiding a paper trail, have on communication media choice, use, and effects? Finally, recent developments in the use of social media and AI may inspire research on the communication medium’s role in negotiation. In how far social media can be and are used in negotiation, as suggested by the introductory example of US president Trump’s tweet aimed at Kim of North Korea, is but one question worthy of investigation. Another interesting research question may be how the composition, size and type of audience that communicators allow in their social media activities influence social media use and effectiveness in negotiation. Such analysis may draw on and connect with negotiation research dealing with constituencies (e.g., Steinel etal. 2009) and with research on public and private communication (Diermeier etal. 2008). Other interesting questions pertain to certain features of different social media, such as the permanence or vanishing of social media content, exemplified by Facebook and Snapchat, respectively. Several research questions pertaining to the use of AI in bridging language differences can be imagined. For example, do language support tools for nonnative speakers have differentiated effects in different media or may one medium be especially conducive to language-aided negotiation among non-native speakers (e.g. Jensen 2009)? In which communication media do language stereotypes play a role in negotiation (e.g. Alvarez etal. 2017)? When language support tools are used, does the chosen language for negotiation play a role? Ultimately, this review shows that despite a peak of research in the 2000s, many more interesting research questions on the interplay between communication media and negotiation lay ahead of us. Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
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