Gender equality has been linked to several positive organizational outcomes, including improved overall organizational performance (Dezsö & Ross, 2012). Yet, several fields in Canada, such as technology and engineering, remain male-dominated (Statistics Canada, 2009). Men and women communicate differently, and women's communication styles are sometimes perceived as weak, particularly in male-dominated fields (Carli, 2001). Women's preference for a more communal communication style also manifests in negotiations: women are less likely to negotiate, and when they do negotiate they are less direct and ask for less than men do (Babcock & Laschever, 2003). In order to help women develop the skills they require to advance their status in male-dominated fields, the NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering delivered five negotiation skills training workshops for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in Ontario. This thesis evaluates this training program using Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick's (2006) four-level training evaluation model, with questionnaires and qualitative semi-structured follow-up interviews as the main data collection methods. Ultimately, the thesis concluded that CWSE-ON was successful in creating a training program that produced positive results at multiple levels of the Kirkpatrick model. The program was particularly effective at encouraging participants to transfer their new skills back to the workplace and actually change their negotiation behaviours. The implications of these findings for training professionals is explored in depth.

The law is something that as individuals we live every day. From paying for our groceries, drafting purchase orders, to employment policies and practices, the law structures the way we interact with each other. In so doing, it shapes our behaviours, affects our autonomy, our emotional well-being, and the ability to resolve problems in creative ways. In effect, it has the capacity to shape who we are. Equality rights law is designed to remove barriers that otherwise inhibit individuals from meaningfully participating in a democratic society. The following research applies a Relational Approach to the study of law by exploring how equality rights structures the Self and its capacity to engage in interactive creation. The research employs an experimental design. 516 volunteer undergraduate students participated in an experiment that manipulated the structure of equality rights law. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions: the construction of the law, its interpretation, or its combined structure. Within each of the conditions, participants were asked to negotiate a cultural-religious conflict. The effect of each of these conditions was tested on the participants’ Relational, Affective, and Creative Selves. The results of this research demonstrate that equality rights law is an influential force on the Self and can be a means by which deep conflicts can be attenuated or even resolved. The results however go deeper. They suggest that just by shaping the law in particular ways, its effect can have a potentially significant impact on how we engage in constructing long-term relationships with individuals, organizations, and even the State. Le droit est quelque chose que chaque personne vit au quotidien. Que ce soit de payer l’épicerie, de rédiger des bons de commandes, d’examiner les politiques et pratiques reliées à l’embauche, le droit structure la façon dont nous interagissons les uns avec les autres. Ce faisant, il façonne nos comportements, affecte notre autonomie, notre bien-être émotionnel, et notre capacité de résoudre les problèmes de façon créative. En effet, le droit a la capacité de façonner qui nous sommes. Le droit à l'égalité est conçu pour éliminer les obstacles qui autrement, empêcheraient des individus à participer de façon significative dans une société démocratique. La recherche suivante applique une approche relationnelle du droit en explorant comment le droit à l’égalité structure le Soi et sa capacité à inciter des interactions créatives. La recherche utilise un modèle expérimental. 516 étudiants bénévoles au niveau du premier cycle ont participé à une expérimentation manipulant la structure du droit à l'égalité. Les participants ont été mis dans une des trois situations impliquant soit la construction du droit, son interprétation ou sa structure. Dans chacune de ces situations, les participants ont été invités à négocier un conflit d’ordre culturel et religieux. L’impact de chacune de ces situations a été testé sur l’autonomie, le bien-être émotionnel et la créativité des participants. Les résultats de cette recherche démontrent que le droit à l'égalité est une force influente sur le Soi et peut être un moyen par lequel des conflits majeurs peuvent être atténués ou même résolus. Cependant, les résultats vont plus loin. Ils suggèrent que, tout en façonnant le droit de façon particulière, ceci peut avoir un impact potentiellement significatif sur la façon dont nous nous engageons dans la construction de relations à long terme avec des individus, des organisations, et même l'État.

An average Swede buys 13 kilograms textile material every year, but an average Swede also throws away 8 kilograms every year. Adding a layer of exponential growth, I wonder what will happen with these numbers over the years and more importantly – how will it affect the emotional life of the consumer? Over the years I have developed an interest in the systemic entanglement of fashion – mainly as the urgency to create systemic shifts only has increased.  Fashruption is a happy marriage of the words fashion and disruption, and forms the title for this travelogue, exploring what a fashruption could be. Fashion – that adorns the bodies to showcase the self in the social. A phenomenon in constant dynamic flow of becoming, that thrives on an expiration date. And disruption – that perhaps can release space for a renegotiation on the ways we create identities and consume fashion. But what kind of disruption has the power to challenge current behaviours? This project is divided into two parts; first a problem setting design process focusing on exploring emotional logics (or illogics) that fashion is intertwined with, extracting reflections on relationships between production–consumption–creation of identities–waste. Secondly, a fashruption is suggested to be a large-scale campaign directed towards people with future-orientated momentum. It will present a strategy proposing ideas of designed material that gives space for self-reflection at the same time building knowledge, aiming to construct publics – who has the possibility to renegotiate the terms upon which they live.

This thesis analyzes the role of negotiation theory and skills training in planning school curricula. This analysis is based on (1) a literature review focusing on planning, managing and negotiating and (2) a survey on negotiation and dispute resolution in North American planning schools. The literature review indicates that negotiation is a foundation skill for planners. Planning and managing are functions performed by planners. Both functions involve political decision making and political communication. Conflict situations are inevitable in political work environments, and negotiation is significant as a way to manage conflict. Hence, planners should have negotiating skills. However, very few planners have, at any stage of their development, been made aware of the range of negotiation theories, roles, strategies or tactics they might adopt. Prominent planning educators such as Baum, Forester, Schon and Susskind have raised a concern that many planners lack negotiating skills. They point to education as a solution. Based on the survey results, at least 25 percent of Canadian and 15 percent of American planning schools now offer one or more courses in these subjects. These courses began to emerge in 1981-1982. An analysis of the curricula materials collected indicates that these courses are based on the cooperative, problem solving approach advocated in two popular American books - namely: (1) "Getting to Yes" by Fisher and Ury and (2) "The Art and Science of Negotiation" by Raiffa. The main recommendation of this thesis is that planning educators recognize the need to equip planners with a basic level of negotiation theory and skill training. The development of negotiating skills depends on learning appropriate kinds of behaviour. Learning is facilitated by practice and exposure to simulated problem solving situations. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

In recent years, mentoring has emerged as a research domain, however, the preponderance of mentoring research has been situated first, in the business or organizational settings and second, in the K-12 educational setting, focusing on protégé experiences, using quantitative survey instruments to collect data. Thus, mentoring research literature includes a paucity of formal studies in the arena of graduate education. Situated in the higher education setting, this study investigated the perspectives of faculty-mentors who provided mentoring to doctoral students who completed the doctoral degree, employing the qualitative research methodology known as phenomenology, as an orthogonal but complimentary epistemology to previous quantitative studies. Located specifically in the College of Education of a large research university, the study asked 262 College of Education doctoral graduates to nominate College of Education faculty who provided mentoring to them during their degree pursuit. A total of 59 faculty were nominated as mentors. Six of the most frequently nominated mentors participated in two semi-structured interviews (Berg, 2004). The interviews addressed the mentor's experience of the mentoring endeavor, seeking to gather a description of their lived experience (Creswell, 1998) of mentoring and the meanings (Cohen & Omery, 1994) they garnered from it. The interviews yielded several shared perspectives on mentoring, including: a Gratifying Perspective, an Intentional Perspective, an Idiographic Perspective, a Teleological Perspective, and a Dynamic Perspective. Other noteworthy concepts that emerged from the mentors' data were: values, motivations, symbiotic relationship, and contextual negotiation. Implications for mentoring theory and practice as well as mentor development were described. The study contributed to development of a fuller phenomenological understanding of the perspectives of faculty-mentors in a mentoring relationship with doctoral students.

The payment of bridewealth is a near-universal cultural practice among the Igbos of SouthEast Nigeria. Bridewealth used to be a symbolic legitimator of marriage. However, its symbolism has been distorted by expensive items on marriage lists. In this context, bridewealth payment provides an excellent analytical tool for the structure-agency debate, which has, in varying degrees, engaged academic interest for centuries. Underlying this debate is the extent to which institutions determine human behaviour and its attendant power relations. While structure refers to the self-replicating, complex elements that sustain institutions, agency refers to the volitional, purpose-driven nature of human activities. In this debate, the structuralfunctionalist-Marxist view, symbolic interactionism, and complementarity view are prominent. From these views, this dissertation develops a needs-based approach to structure-agency interaction, arguing that a focus on the primacy of structure or agency obscures their underlying motivations. It posits that the structure-agency interaction is both the process and product of logical assessments and dialogue, which are driven by socio-economic needs. In the context of this framework, it explored one central question: In what ways do power relations play out in the negotiation process of bridewealth payment in South-East Nigeria? Using literature review, non-participant observation of bridewealth negotiations, and in-depth interviews of 47 key informants, it reveals an interdependent, complex web linking the custodians of culture with agentic tools such as wealth, religion, and education. Despite cultural inhibitions in spousal selection and bridewealth negotiation, prospective spouses have a range of creative tools for reducing exorbitant items on marriage lists, thereby deconstructing high bridewealth. These agentic tools are driven by socio-economic elements such as desire to marry, economic coercion, cohabitation, threat of extramarital pregnancy, and religious values. The study concludes that bridewealth negotiation reflects socio-economic dynamics within hybrid cultural spaces in which potential couples and their parents may navigate the powerful constraints of tradition or sustain tradition through their inaction. These socio-economic dynamics are so powerful that they produce widespread disregard for legislation limiting bridewealth amounts. The study’s findings demonstrate the ineffectiveness of a top-down approach to law, the value of policy sensitivity to people’s lived realities, and the importance of in-depth consultation in the formulation of legislation.

La négociation est un processus pour atteindre un accord concernant un certain sujet entre deux ou plusieurs agents. Dans la négociation basée sur la théorie des jeux, la négociation est vue comme un jeu. Un jeu est appliqué à chaque situation dans laquelle les participants interagissent pour trouver une solution. La négociation basée sur l’argumentation est faite par un échange d’arguments entre les agents négociateurs. Il y a beaucoup de travaux en négociation par la théorie des jeux qui traitent de tous les aspects de la négociation. D’autre part, les recherches en négociation par argumentation se sont principalement focalisées sur les protocoles pour réguler la négociation et les mécanismes de décisions pour générer et ordonner les offres; Cependant l’étude des aspectsstratégiques qui définissent le comportement de l’agent durant la négociation ont été largement négligés. Cela reste vrai pour la contrainte du temps.Cette thèse essaie de combler ces lacunes en travaillant en trois directions. Premièrement, un cadre pour la négociation par argumentation est proposé et qui est basé sur quelques concepts étudiés en négociation par la théorie des jeux. Ce cadre permet de classer les offres suivant les arguments qui les supportent et de négocier en utilisant une adaptation du très connu Alternating Offers Protocol proposé en théorie des jeux. Pour ce protocole une stratégie générique qui peut être utilisée avec n’importe quelle relation de préférence entre les offres et avec n’importe quelle forme de concession a été définie. Deuxièmement, cette thèse propose quelques tactiques pour la négociation par argumentation avec une contrainte de temps. Les tactiques sont basées sur l’information que l’agent possède sur son adversaire. Cette information est collectionnée durant le processus de négociation ou est obtenue en connaissant le rôle de son opposant. En dernier lieu, une évaluation expérimentale montre que les tactiques et les concessions influencent la longueur de la négociation et l’issue de la négociation, sous les hypothèses de contrainte de temps et de la connaissance de certaines informations sur l’agent adversaire. / Negotiation is the process to reach an agreement concerning matters between two or several agents. In game theoretic negotiation, the latter is seen as a game. A game is applied to every situation in which the participants interact to find a solution. Argumentation-based negotiation is done by exchanging arguments between the participating agents. There is a lot of work in game-theoretic negotiation that deals with all the aspects of negotiation. On the other hand, research in argumentation-based negotiation has focused mainly on the protocols to regulate the negotiation and reasoning mechanisms to generate and order offers; however the study of strategic issues that define the behavior of an agent during the negotiation has been largely neglected. The same holds for the time constraint.This thesis tries to fill this gap by working in three directions. Firstly, a framework for argumentation-based negotiation is proposed which is based on some concepts studied in game-theoretic negotiation. The framework permits to set in order the different offers following the supporting arguments and to negotiate by using an adaptation of the well known Alternating Offers Protocol propounded in game theory. For this protocol a generic strategy which can be used with any form of preference relationship over the set of offers and with any form of concession is given. Secondly, this thesis proposes some tactics for time constrained argumentation-based negotiation. The tactics are based on the information that an agent possesses about his opponent agent. This information is gathered during the negotiation dialogue or is obtained by knowing the role of the opponent agent. Finally, an experimental evaluation is presented that shows how tactics and concessions may influence the negotiation length and outcome, under the assumptions of time constraints and the availability of information on the opponent.

The purpose of this study was to examine the types of connection rituals and negotiation patterns that newlywed couples use in their marriage. Past research has shown that rituals can have a positive effect on marital satisfaction . Five research questions guided the study: (1) Who initiates rituals and the frequency in which the rituals are performed? What process does the couple go through to negotiate them? (2) What percentage of rituals do newlywed couples take from their family of origin? (3) Are women the "kin keepers" in their fami ly/relationship? (4) Are there certain factors newlyweds take into consideration when negotiating? and (5) Are there some rituals more important to marital satisfaction? The research questions were tested with data from twenty newlywed couples who completed a survey designed specifically for this study. Results found that women initiate rituals more frequently in newlywed couples, verbal communication was the highest reported process couples go through to negotiate, family of origin practices are more often taken from the wife's family, and there are connection rituals both for husbands and wives that aid to their marital sati satisfaction. Implications and suggestions for future research are also presented.

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Prospect theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1979) predicts that decision-makers work to avoid loss and maximize gains, even when outcomes are expected to be equal. Aversion to loss, and the feelings associated with loss, operates as a strong, often unconscious, bias that guides cognitive understanding of choice and consequently decisions. Prospect theory explains that faming choices around losses biases decision-makers to be more risk-seeking in order to avoid the feelings associated with loss. “The aggravation that one experiences in losing… appears to be greater than the pleasure associated with gaining the same amount” (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979, p. 279). Therefore, prospect theory explains how language framing can affect decision-making under uncertainty. Relatedly, social conflict is resolved by making choices (Diederich, 2003) and often involves a negotiation process that is affected by how negotiators perceive their situation (Schweitzer, et al., 2005). Yet prospect theory is widely underutilized in the context of social conflict (see Barberis, 2013; Butler, 2007). Therefore, this dissertation (1) tests the impact of loss and gain frames on decision-making within a social conflict involving a landlord, (2) examines the boundaries of the theory, and (3) offers insight about the implications of social conflict framing and language on decision-making. Results show that decision-making in a social conflict is significantly influenced by language framing. Loss frames and individual fault frames are two barriers to better conflict. Specifically, loss frames resulted in more negative affect for participants and less collaboration with the landlord. Gain frames resulted in more cooperation by participants. However, these effects were moderated by fault frames, indicating that, within a conflict, the feelings associated with being at fault may be more important than the feelings loss and gain frames evoke. The one exception where language framing may not be as effective is when participants had a prior experience of a similar conflict. For example, being a landlord, and being comfortable with conflict interacted with the language frames and, in some cases, prior experience was a stronger predictor of emotions and decision outcomes. Finally, emotions were found to be highly relevant to language framing and decision-making. Although all frames had some effect on emotion, negative emotion was much more affected by individual loss. Positive emotion was most strongly affected by joint and neutral fault conditions. These findings suggest that negative emotions are easily manipulated by imagining what we might lose individually, whereas positive emotions are more affected by believing we are not alone in the conflict. In support of prospect theory, framing a conflict around loss can make others feel worse about the conflict and about decisions. However, it is more difficult to make others feel positively about a conflict simply by reframing the conflict in terms of gains. Instead, in a social conflict, language frames around joint fault was the best predictor of positive affect. The implications of these findings are discussed. Keywords: Prospect theory, cognitive bias, negotiation, functional conflict / Media & Communication