Negotiating the Business Environment: Theory and Practice for All Governance Styles

The business environment across the globe is today characterized by three primary governance arrangements - bureaucracies, markets and networks. For organizations operating within each of these business contexts the terms of engagement in regard to negotiation are different. Rather than starting from a broad ‘how to’ approach or a specific cultural interface, Negotiating the Business Environment looks at governance arrangements within the business environment and at how such governance arrangements impact on how negotiation occurs. Uniquely, it takes into account the context in which negotiations take place. Negotiating the Business Environment demonstrates how responding to business style in negotiations can effect successful outcomes.

Kerry Brown is Professor of HRM in the School of Management at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Kerry’s principal research areas are change management, collaboration, networks and clusters, capability, strategy, management and policy for infrastructure and asset management, work-life balance, gender and careers in the public sector, public sector management and policy, and government-community relations and employment relations. Kerry has co-authored two books, co-edited four books, and published over 50 articles in scholarly journals.

ROBYN KEAST is Associate Professor in the School of Management at Queensland University of Technology, Australia, and is the Research Director for the Airport Metropolis Project. She has taught cross cultural negotiation courses at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Robyn has an extensive background as a public sector practitioner, policy officer and manager, and has also worked in the non-government sectors in Australia and New Zealand. She has published widely in international academic and industry journals.

JENNIFER WATERHOUSE is Senior Lecturer in the School of Business at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Jennifer teaches in the area of employment relations, with a particular focus on diversity in the workplace and on negotiations. This research has extended to broad areas of consideration, including the wine industry in the Hunter Valley as well as networks established to address homelessness in regional Queensland.