Negotiating Interorganizational Orders*

Strauss' (1978) negotiation paradigm is used to analyze interorganizational relations leading to development of a complex of eleven rehabilitation agencies. Analysis is based on records over a twenty-five year period and four years of participant observation and interviewing. The structural context for the negotiations is described in terms of over-lapping societal, communal, interorganizational, organizational, and interpersonal levels. The analysis points out the importance of covert, informal negotiations to interorganizational relations. The negotiators who initiated the process employed a strategy of multiple-linked negotiations in which they attempted to select negotiators from the other organizations and the issues to be negotiated. Stakes were manipulated according to a cost-reward-involvement formula. Problematic issues were dealt with in informal covert negotiations which preceded overt negotiations in a peer type council. Consideration of the negotiation process aids in understanding several problems in interorganizational relations: power and autonomy and the consequences of interlocking directorates. The negotiated order approach suggests several lines of additional research.     

Negotiated Discretion: Redressing the Neglect of Negotiation in “Street‐Level Bureaucracy”

This article proposes an interactionist update of “street‐level bureaucracy,” one of the most influential approaches for studying how public policy is translated into street‐level practice. While the street‐level approach assumes that bureaucrats are alone in enacting policy, the present article argues for seeing “street‐level policy” as formed in negotiation between bureaucrats and clients. To demonstrate this, the article uses ethnographic data and a Straussian framework to analyze how nurses and patients negotiated access in a Norwegian emergency service. The article thus sets a new course for street‐level research, helping researchers look beyond the individual to explore inter‐individual negotiation and its influence on street‐level decision‐making.     

Strategies of valuation: repertoires of worth at the financial margins

This article draws upon thirteen months of ethnographic research in a Chicago pawnshop to show how prices of objects in pawnshops are actively, socially negotiated using what I term discursive strategies of valuation. Three kinds of discursive strategies of valuation emerge repeatedly in the data: a. references to the specific material attributes of the objects, b. references to the unique biographical histories of the objects, c. reference to the financial need and (relative) social positioning of the customer involved in the negotiation. Examining these strategies reveals the relationship between socially contingent and culturally constructed perceptions of value and the production of price. I find that rhetorical strategies can and do affect price, within limits. Perhaps most surprisingly, the data show that discursive strategies emphasizing a lower socio-economic status can inflate the value, and ultimately the price, of an object during negotiations.     

Space invaders: the negotiation of teenage boundaries through the mobile phone

Drawing on interview data, this paper explores the area of child/parent negotiation. Specifically, we examine the increasing significance of the mobile phone in the way teenagers negotiate spatial boundaries with their parents. Utilising theories of time and space, especially Giddens’ concept of ‘distanciation’, we show how parents and their children use the mobile phone as a tool for negotiating curfews in public space, thus extending household discussion and negotiation outside of the home. We point out that parents are using the mobile phone to enter their children's time and space as an ‘absent Other’, and see this as a means of extending parental authority and control. Children, conversely, see themselves gaining a degree of empowerment from the mobile phone, as parents are more lenient with curfews if they posses one. The mobile phone, then, has become an important facilitator of negotiations between parents and teenagers regarding boundary setting. We conclude that the mobile phone has enabled teenagers to gain increased leverage in their negotiations with their parents, but underline that parents still hold control and authority by ‘invading’ their children's space.     

Role of Regional Consultative Processes in the lead up to the Negotiations of Global Compact on Migration: The Case of Africa

Regional consultative process was part of the preparations for the negotiations of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). In Africa, the process was managed by the AU, UNECA and IOM and produced the Continental Report that fed into the global report of the UN Secretary General and the Common African Position (CAP) to the GCM. They were endorsed at the highest political level and guided the African states during the compact's negotiations. The article examines the regional consultations and development of these two documents, and highlights their history and normative contents that reflected on the performance of Africa during the negotiations and contributions to the outcome of the GCM. The African member states negotiated as a group, they spoke with one voice and made constructive alliances. Through process‐tracing, the article determines that Africa impacted and made significant contributions to the outcome of the GCM.     

Negotiated Orders: The Negotiation of Directives in Paramedic-Nurse Interaction

Whereas the “negotiated order approach” emphasizes the importance of communicative events in the constitution of organizational settings, there has been little attempt to formally describe the properties of talk that occur in these settings. This article demonstrates that detailed examination of the temporal unfolding of negotiative processes contributes to our understanding of the bundle of tasks which comprise organizational settings. Through close analysis of the negotiation of directives in paramedic calls for emergency field orders, I demonstrate that negotiation is more than a metaphor for describing organizational order; real-world negotiations are complex interactional processes which can be described in their rich detail.     

Faire Formeln

The literature on fair division has experienced a renaissance recently. Novel mathematical procedures promising an envy-free, socially efficient solution to conflicts over nearly indivisible goods play a particularly prominent role. This article presents a comparative experimental evaluation of three procedures. We examine to what extent features of the subjects of the procedures influence the choice in favor of one of the three negotiation protocols and the results of the division. Our analysis of the behavior of 119 subjects shows that psychological factors only affect the procedural choice. Dominance-seeking individuals tend to opt for those procedures that promise a fairer outcome than the relatively crude divide-and-choose-mechanism. In contrast, the outcome of the bilateral negotiations is determined by the attributes of the procedures. The strong influence of psychological factors at the initial stage of the bargaining process nevertheless casts strong doubts on the practicability of the procedures, recommended by the normative strand of game-theoretic negotiation analysis. The further development of ”fair formulas” for the resolution of redistributive conflicts should not neglect that the warring parties have to agree with the philosophy of the proposed bargaining protocol.     

The impact of negotiated exchange on trust and trustworthiness

Negotiated exchanges and trust problems can be regarded as two different forms of exchange, the former representing exchanges with negotiation and binding contracts, the latter representing asymmetric transactions in which one actor has the opportunity to deceive the other. Both forms of exchange have been extensively studied, but the two respective research traditions exhibit very little overlap. In this paper, we investigate the effects of negotiated exchanges in different network structures on the development of mutual trust. We derive hypotheses from various theories and test them by means of an experiment in which subjects first undertake a series of negotiated exchanges under different power conditions, and then face a trust problem with one of the actors that have been involved in the previous exchanges. The trust problem is operationalized by means of the Investment Game which allows us to look separately at trust and trustworthiness. Our results demonstrate that negotiated exchanges increase mutual trust, but not trustworthiness.     

George Herbert Mead and the “Division Of Labor”: Macrosociological Implications Of Mead'S Social Psychology*

By presenting some results of an extensive reconstruction of George Herbert Mead's work published as yet only in German it is argued that Mead's work as a whole and particularly his social psychology contain an implicit conception of social order. This can be characterized as the idea that it is not normative integration as such, but communicative coordination that makes possible human society and social order. This is shown by findings on the early development of Mead's ideas (Hegelianism, Definition of the Psychical), on German influences in Mead, and on the meaning of democracy as self-government in Mead's political biography. Some hints to a comparison of Mead with other concepts of social order (Durkheim; negotiated order approach) are given.     

White Racial Socialization: Progressive Fathers on Raising “Antiracist” Children

For the past 30 years, the definition of racial socialization has referred to how parents prepare children of color to flourish within a society structured by white supremacy. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with eight white affluent fathers, this study explores fathers' participation in white racial socialization processes. The article focuses on fathers who identify as “progressive” and examines the relationship between fathers' understandings of what it means to raise an “antiracist” child, the explicit and implicit lessons of racial socialization that follow from these understandings, and hegemonic whiteness. Findings illustrate how these fathers understand their role as a white father, how their attempts to raise antiracist children both challenge and reinforce hegemonic whiteness, and what role race and class privilege play in this process.     

Between the Procedural and the Substantial: Democratic Deliberation and the Interaction Order in “Occupy Middletown General Assembly”

This article analyzes interaction from an intentional, self‐reflexive democratic meeting of ordinary citizens—a “General Assembly” from the 2011 Occupy Movement—to explore two competing theories of democracy: Habermas's democratic deliberation and Mouffe's agonistic pluralism. The group's rational ideals and procedures for democratic deliberation approximate those of Habermas's “ideal speech situation,” but appear limited in their capacity to ensure Habermasian understanding or consensus. Intertwined with these rational procedures are practices best explained in terms of what Goffman called “face‐work”—the ways in which participants maintain a working consensus of mutual acceptance and respect in conversation. These face‐work procedures—rather than sincere, rational intentions—help constitute the civility necessary for rational deliberation and participation. Such symbolic valuing of self and other provide interactional grounds for the liberty and equality of agonistic democratic conversation as conceived by Mouffe.     

Ethical universals in practice: An analysis of five principles

This paper discusses the application of five general principles of moral reasoning to situations that are characteristic of negotiations and bargaining scenarios. The five moral theories discussed are: utilitarianism, Kantian reasoning, discourse ethics, the maximization of one's own expected utility, and the maximization of the predictability of the consequences for those involved in the bargaining or negotiation. These principles are individually introduced and criticized by examining how they ‘perform’ in individual test cases taken from common negotiation experience. The purpose of the analysis is to lay bare the difficulties faced by the moral philosopher, economist, psychologist or sociologist when attempting to explain, interpret or normatively endorse behavior in concrete cases of bargaining scenarios on the basis of general principles. Because bargaining underlies most of the phenomena of interest to the economist and sociologist, the analysis illuminates a problem of general interest to practitioners of economics and sociology. It is argued that the calculability of the consequences of acting in accordance to a norm and the communicability of the norm in actual negotiation sessions both sharply constrain the application of the principles in practice. The essay therefore represents a reasoned invitation towards further investigation and reflection about the application of moral principles in bargaining and negotiations.     

The Threat of the “Other”: Ethnic Competition and Racial Interest

Racial conflict has been at the center of US society since its inception. Various theories have tried to explain why racial conflict arises and what the motivating factors are. The aim of this article is to examine one of these theories––ethnic competition––by reviewing the sociological literature from the 1970s to present that focuses on racial interest, ethnic competition, and racial threat.     

Gendering the Eye of the Norm: Exploring Gendered Concertive Control Processes in Two Self‐Managing Teams

This article is the result of an ethnographic research project exploring the workplace interactions of two self‐managed teams of recruitment consultants. I use data from participant observation and recorded interviews to show the gendered nature of what Barker terms concertive control: the social processes by which team members regulate each others' conduct in line with negotiated team values. My analysis examines how team members negotiate core team values, translate these into specific actions and regulate these actions through concertive control interactions. I then set out three ways in which gender acts as a resource for these concertive control processes. These are: team members' assumptions about men's and women's relative skills and capacities, the ‘tough’ masculinity of the haulage industry in which one of the teams operates and the regulation of performances of heterosexuality during customer interactions. Building on research by others, I show gender to be not only embedded in the values and managerial style associated with teamwork but also integrated into the collaborative process of team‐working itself. I emphasize that social categories like gender become resources in the regulation of conduct at work and can reify hierarchies even in so‐called participative practices like self‐managed teamwork.     

Talk,Research Technology,and the Achievement of Human Subject “Status Passage”

This article draws on field notes and interviews collected during an ethnographic study of the informed‐consent process in HIV/AIDS clinical trials to examine the movement of individuals from the status designation of patient to that of human subject of research. Its theoretical starting points are Glaser and Strauss's (1971) observation of the centrality of interaction to status passage and their conceptualization of status passage as social accomplishment. Insights from conversation and technology studies are applied to show that human subject status passage is facilitated through (1) the enlistment efforts of research professionals and patients, (2) the talk of participants on informed consent and protocol‐related matters, and (3) the placement of signatures on informed‐consent documents. The analysis reveals that human subject status passage is indeterminate, negotiated, and unmarked by ceremony and cultural symbols. The implications of these findings for future studies on status passage and informed consent in human research are considered.     

Passion,Submission and Motherhood: The Negotiation of Identity by Unmarried Innercity Chicanas*

This paper examines the negotiation of young unmarried women's sexual identities in the cultural context of an innercity Chicano community. Previous work often views the unmarried mother status as unproblematic, that is, as deviant or as equal to a married mother. Values are assumed to determine directly the evaluation of the status of unwed mother, and motherhood is viewed as an instrumental action. This analysis of premarital sex and motherhood suggests that motherhood plays an expressive role and that the evaluation of a young woman's sexual identity is not directly determined by her becoming premaritally pregnant and an unwed mother, but her identity is negotiated. In this negotiation process traditional values are blurred and changed. Here nonuse of birth control cannot be explained by lack of information or irrationality but must be understood as part of the process of developing a sexual identity within a particular cultural context. The relationship between behavior and identity is viewed as problematic and the construction and symbolization of this relationship in a public dialogue is the concern of this analysis.     

“Order through Fluctuation”: An Evolutionary Epistemology for Human Systems**

Most approaches to systems theory, group theory and family theory suffer from two major inadequacies. First, they are heavily oriented toward structure (e.g. structure of the system) as opposed to process. Second, because of this bias, such theories overemphasize stability at the expense of change and transformation. In contrast, Ilya Prigogine's concept of “order through fluctuation” demonstrates how systems suddenly organize themselves and, equally suddenly, make discontinuous shifts from one coherent order to another. As a paradigm, “order through fluctuation” constitutes a basic nonequilibrium ordering principle that governs the forming and unforming of systems at all levels.     

Planned Change and Contract Negotiation as an Instructional Model

To facilitate integration of the concepts of a purposeful planned change process and contract negotiation as integral parts of social work practice, a teaching model was developed whereby students were asked to design and implement a change process through the use of contracts with the instructor. The student as client system established change goals appropriate to beginning practice experience, negotiated a contract to reach these goals, and engaged in a change relationship with the instructor as change agent.

The use of this teaching model gave clear indication of students' understanding and integration of the planned change process and components of contracting for actual implementation in practice efforts.     

What is Negotiated in Negotiated Accountability? The Case of INGOs

This paper discusses the constructivist, negotiated perspective to INGO accountability. According to this perspective, INGO accountability is a process of mutual negotiations between different INGO stakeholders who hold different accountability demands. Acknowledging that this perspective provides a good starting point for a better understanding of INGO accountability, we comment on this conceptualization of INGO accountability. Through an analysis of accountability instruments and procedures, we examine closely how the demands of the INGO’s stakeholders are embedded in particular relationships of accountability which are sustained by particular accountability logics. From this analysis, we point out that, due to the differences that exist between these accountability logics, processes of negotiation are likely to be filled with complex tensions and trade-offs. Moreover, as some accountability logics are much clearer and more compelling than others, a constructivist perspective on INGO accountability does not automatically coincide with an understanding of INGO accountability in which primordial importance is given to the beneficiaries.     

Juvenile or adult? Negotiating and contesting childhood in the courtroom

Legislative changes during the 1980s and 1990s made it easier to treat juveniles as adults in the U.S. justice system. Research on the sentencing outcomes of juveniles in the criminal court has been somewhat mixed, with some studies showing that they receive severe or long sentences and others showing that many young people receive probation or relatively short jail or prison sentences. Less attention has been placed on the process through which these cases move through the criminal court and the ways in which the labels of “juvenile” and “adult” are negotiated and contested by legal actors. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the negotiation of these labels. While it finds that legal rules are important in establishing the potential outcomes in a case, the power of specific actors and the context of specific courtrooms are also important in shaping the negotiations and contestations over these labels. The article provides a framework to understand outcomes and presents ways that advocates can become involved in helping to shape the outcomes of these cases.