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Introduction
Many negotiation writers (e.g. Thompson, 2012; Shell, 1999; Watkins, 2002) claim that everyone is a negotiator and everyone negotiates something almost every day, be it in their personal or professional lives. Fells (2010, p. 3) defines negotiation as "a process where two [or more] parties with differences which they need to resolve are trying to reach an agreement through exploring for options and exchanging offers." Organizations today are faced with globalization, workforce diversity, customer-focused strategies, intense competition, and flatter organizational structures. These organizations have a vested interest in developing employees' skills to negotiate effectively and structure deals optimally (Brett et al. , 1999; Kim et al. , 2005; Stevens and Gist, 1997). Negotiation skills are often a vital component to both employee and organizational success (Grennan, 2014; Bendersky and McGinn, 2010; Lax and Sebenius, 1986). Weingart et al. (1990, p. 7) go as far as to say that negotiation research has drawn significant attention "because the topic has direct relevance to the development of managerial skills."
Employee negotiation skills are exhibited in multiple ways during employment, from bargaining the employee's own compensation and terms of employment to negotiating on behalf of the organization with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Thus, the need for effective negotiation skills transcends all industries and employee levels, so a model that illustrates employee development of such skills should be very worthwhile in helping to organize research in such a key area of the literature and practice.
We believe that the leadership development literature provides some logical parallels to our effective negotiator development framework; therefore, we will make several comparisons between the two literatures. Much like great leaders, some people believe that great negotiators are born with the talent (Malhotra and Bazerman, 2007). However, similar to the concept of leadership, the typical definitions of negotiation (e.g. Fells, 2010; Fisher et al. , 1991; Thompson et al. , 2010) suggest that negotiation is a process that transpires between people (Makhdom and Ghazali, 2013). Just like leadership, negotiation might be developed and further honed, but the question is how? Similar to leadership skills, negotiation skills are challenging to teach, assess, and provide feedback on (Nadler et al. , 2003). Though scholarly researchers have presented comprehensive tutorials and guides for effective negotiation...