Gender in Negotiations
Introduction
Gender stereotyping has been prevalent in many cultures with the success of the negotiation, depending on various factors. Gender negotiations imbalance between the genders has seen women suffer the most as they could not successfully win various negotiations, especially in the top sits in management and government. This is not the case today as the address of gender balance has been of great impact in many organizations and governments as the number of women in various positions is steadily increasing over the years. In the year 2018, the UN women announced that fight for gender equity has resulted in a significant positive result by a 12% increase of women in top managerial positions, especially in government. Today women are seen to have enough confidence to compete for proactive roles in the community and even challenge the men to deliver exceptional results. The UN women also indicated an increase in the global women’s literary index due to increased education surveillance of the women’s gender. However, despite the gender balance gaining positivity in equity negotiations, the gap between gender negotiations is still significant and cannot be assumed. So are there any factors that are behind this huge gender gap? There is significant impact women play in the role of negotiations (Nijole, 2016). Women themselves have to be proactive and competent enough as gender policies are there to protect them from discrimination (Rosen, 2019). Therefore, the objective of this paper is to study how gender has an effect on sustainable negotiations.
The main aim of this paper is to find tentative reasons as to why there is still a gender negotiation gap.
The possible method to apply in this research is the use of research tools on various literature on how gender impacts sustainable negotiations.
Literature survey
The impact of communication
Human resource professionals from various areas discuss that impact of negotiations and how it dictates the performance of an organization (Cassandra & Whitney, 2012; Katrien & Stephen, 2019). They explain that communication enables the workers and staff to create a mutual understanding of each other, and they are able to freely share various experiences they are undergoing to either make changes or improve on them (Cassandra & Whitney, 2012). Communication is able to create a synergetic effect on an organization (Gordana, 2014), which is key to the sales department. The synergetic effect is able to utilize the advantages of various communicants to create a unified working environment. Gordana (2014) adds that women have the best synergetic effect in communication, making them the best suited in the sales department. The utilization of key communication techniques is able to maintain and attract more customers in the sales department in which women are rated the best. Generally, communication is the art in which a person is able to deliberate a message to an audience using communication skills such as gestures, good language, and stressing the main points to make an audience have a deeper understanding (Gordana, 2014). Women are therefore preferred in sales negotiations than men as they have a better articulation technique than their male counterparts.
Negotiation behavior
The perception that women have to take only on minor roles in society is still prevalent in society. This perception has always favored men in negotiations due to that belief that ladies are likely to underperform hence giving it a tough time for ladies during negotiations (Aggestam & Towns, 2019). Despite this perception, gender equity sensitization has really helped to see some of the women emerge to compete in society. Professional behaviors are the most crucial tools most people look at the organizational negotiations (Wen, Joshua & Damien, 2019). Wen and his team (2019) add that when it comes to official negotiations, men are more professional than the opposite sex in most cases. They argue that men are likely to take negotiations more seriously, unlike ladies who are prone to have inadequate seriousness in their negotiations. Katrien and Stephen (2019) discuss that women dress code, which seems to be seductive in most cases, is likely to give negative impression making to lose vacancies to their male counterparts.
Agreeableness
It’s the trait that inclines a person’s ability to give maximum yield and performance at work. High performers are likely to oblige, to trust, and warm during negotiations. They also give the person they are negotiating with a lot of confidence to him/her the golden chance (Mohsen & Andrew, 2015). The negotiator’s role is to be able to earn confidence from the person negotiating with to form certain boundaries of agreeableness if negotiating with several people. Mohsen and Andrew (2015) contend that men have a particular stance when they are talking, and it is likely for a negotiator to keep following and agreeable choices between them more than women. They also add that the most common challenge for women when negotiating is for then to say ‘no’ unlike men who like keeping things open.
Emotional stability
Neuroticism is the most challenging aspect of the two genders. It helps people to resist stress, especially in tough circumstances. People with emotional stability are likely to be composed, calm, and less anxious. This is the opposite of people with less emotional stability as they are likely to be nervous, less trust themselves, and always feel insecure. It is believed that emotional stability is likely to be affected by the emotional intellect level of the person (Cassandra & Whitney, 2012). Women have are highly emotional, so do their high levels of emotional intellect. Cassandra and Whitney (2012) add that women are more affected by minor decisions than their male counterparts. These make women be less reliable during negotiations than their male counterparts who are more composed and are likely to be less angry during their negotiations. Therefore, it’s critical to choose which gender to involve in negotiations, and if the choice is picked on women, they will need to be experienced ones.
Conclusion
The difference in gender has an impact on the overall negotiation process. From the various pieces studied, it’s discoverable that men are striving for individual victories while women are likely to seek corporations to make a mutually beneficial agreement in a negotiation. Gender brains also are likely to prove a major impact in negotiations, for example, women brain is known to multitask, and it is likely to favor women in negotiating some complex web tasks. Factors such as communication, behavior, agreeableness, and emotional stability are some of the factors that greatly impact gender in the negotiation process. Despite having a significant gap in gender negotiation, educations of employees and other organizational management are likely to positively improve the gap. Even though women are still lagging behind in modern society in terms of negotiations, some men still prefer women as the best negotiators. Both men and women are able to get involved in flirting negotiations, which can be an essential tool for a successful negotiation.
References
Cassandra M., & Whitney M., (2012). BENEFITS OF CROSS-GENDER NEGOTIATION TEAMS.
Mohsen j., & Andrew m., (2015). Moving Up or Falling Behind? Gender, Promotions, and Wages in Canada, 9-13.
Katrien s., & Stephen w., (2019). Negotiating the Gender Wage Gap.
Gordana D., (2014). THE EFFECT OF GENDER ON NEGOTIATION BEHAVIOUR, 4-6.
Wen S., Joshua K., & Damien J., (2019). Are men better negotiators everywhere? A meta‐analysis of how gender differences in negotiation performance vary across cultures, 5-12.
Nijole Petkeviciute, (2016). GENDER AND SUSTAINABLE NEGOTIATION, 3-7
Rosen, D. (2019). Nice Is Not a Strategy: Women and Negotiations. In ANNUAL (p. 19).
Aggestam, K., & Towns, A. (2019). The gender turn in diplomacy: a new research agenda. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 21(1), 9-28.