The issue of interest in this discussion is the effects that the relationship history of the parties to an international business negotiation process likely will have on the conduct of the negotiations. Negotiation is the preferred approach for conflict resolution among business enterprises regardless of the arena of operations - domestic or international (Gelfand & Dyer, 2000). Further, all international business negotiations should be view as conflict resolution exercises. Each party is pursuing its own specific goals. Thus, regardless of friendliness or unfriendliness and regardless of cooperation or non-cooperation, there exists a conflict of interests between international business organizations when they sit down at the negotiating table (Bazerman & Curhan, 2000).
The relationship history between negotiators is relevant to the conduct of negotiations in terms of (a) the past negotiating history between the international business organizations that are involved and (b) the past negotiating history between the negotiators who are representing the international business organizations that are involved in the negotiating process (Olekalns, Brett, & Weingart, 2003). At the individual negotiator level, the history of emotional interactions between the parties involved is influential on the tenor of and on the level of cooperation or non-cooperation in the conduct of the negotiations. Druckman and Olekalns (2008) noted that the structure and the character of the emotional history between negotiators can (a) facilitate positive negotiating outcomes or (b) they can act as barriers to negotiating success.
The emotional history between negotiators also affects the perceptions of the individual negotiators in relation to the anticipated fairness of the opposing parties in the negotiating process (Drolet, Larrick, & Morris, 1998). As past history between negotiators that fosters perceptions of probable unfairness ...