Increasing Integrative Negotiation in European Organizations Through Trustworthiness and Trust

Abstract

Integrative negotiation in which employers and employees create value is a major necessity in the current challenging context. Collective labor negotiations in organizations are traditionally focused on mostly distributive issues, such as pay, working hours, and holidays. However, the current situation demands the inclusion of other issues of a potentially more integrative nature, such as telework, sustainability, and risk prevention, the enhancement of which is a major challenge for organizations. In this study, we explore the negotiation process between management and employee representatives (ERs), analyzing the roles of trust and trustworthiness. We collected data from 614 human resources managers from different organizations in 11 European countries. The results confirm that ERs who management perceive to be trustworthy have a greater influence on negotiation, particularly with regard to integrative as opposed to distributive issues, and that trust partially mediates this relationship.

Mediation: Understanding a Constructive Conflict Management Tool in the Workplace

“…The aforementioned conflict types allow us to understand the interpersonal disputes in the organization; however, they do not allow us to comprehend the conflicts that workers and their companies have that are caused by issues discussed in employment relationships such as salary, vacations, or the number of hours worked (Elgoibar et al, 2021). In this sense, the labor relationship field distinguishes between interest-based conflict and right-based conflicts (Martínez-Pecino et al, 2008).…”

Opponent or allied? An European analysis of the union presence and human resource practices

“…Collective bargaining is traditionally focused on distributive issues, such as pay, working hours, or holidays. Other issues that may be relevant to the wellbeing of employees such as flexibility, work-life balance, or health promotion are not usually part of collective bargaining agendas (Elgoibar et al, 2021 ). In this sense, and related to specific female concerns, some researchers have argued that the collective bargaining agenda has a strong gender bias and issues of relevance to women are rarely addressed (Gregory and Milner, 2009 ).…”

Healthcare workers’ survival in times of COVID-19: The need for social dialogue

“…To cope with this optimally, all parties involved must be highly engaged and motivated. Participation in decision-making is an important driver for such engagement, as it is in healthcare (Bhatti, Hussain, & Al Doghan, 2018;Elgoibar, Medina, Munduate, & Euwema, 2021). However, as seen in the scenarios presented above, employees often feel they are not, and certainly not sufficiently, involved in decision-making processes, and that their interests are not fully considered, driving them to protest and strike.…”

“…As such, when ERs see that management is investing in their role, trust building is initiated and ERs react with a more cooperative approach. Sharing information and interests can contribute to creating value in the agreement (Brett, 2014;Elgoibar et al, 2021). In this case, a trusting relationship between ERs and management would facilitate open communication, which would contribute to improving, for example, the assignment of tasks to workers in a more efficient way.…”