After a hostage negotiation incident, it is common practice for either no debriefing to occur or a formal, administration-attended debriefing to discuss issues and possible emotional as well as, psychological stressors with the hostage negotiation team members. However, many times negotiators are reluctant to be honest in front of administrators or supervisors about their weaknesses as they feel this will lead to termination or loss of service weapon. Little is known about what effect, if any, best practice hostage negotiation after incident debriefings would have given regarding possible psychological distresses on the negotiators as well as effects on team bonding. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate whether and how after incident hostage negotiation debriefing strategies lower PTSD symptoms among hostage negotiators. The theoretical framework for this study was Kelley's followership theory. The sample was 12 negotiators from a local county negotiation team and a local city negotiation team. The research questions focused on hostage negotiator preference for debriefing strategies, honesty in debriefings in relation to stressors, opinions of the meeting's effects on dealing with trauma, and effects on team bond building. The results were that peer run, peer driven debriefing strategies are most wanted and most effective for hostage negotiators. The positive social change implications are numerous, including a more effective, more mentally fit, and closer bonded hostage negotiation team capable of saving more lives who in turn will have a healthier family life, which will resonate into the community.

No description available.

Current political research on peace negotiations is fundamentally incomplete because it lacks the capacity to explain individual intents, choices and actions. This dissertation asks what impact individual negotiators, their approaches and choices of tactics have on peace talks and their outcomes. Individual people—be they representatives of rebel groups, non-governmental organisations or states—negotiate peace agreements. Consequently, an examination of individual motivations and actions in negotiations yields important knowledge. A fuller understanding of political negotiations, negotiators, and their tactics in Sierra Leone and Liberia is facilitated through a multidisciplinary consideration of the psychology, law and management studies literatures that consider individual motivations, biases, and behaviours. Based on extensive field research in Sierra Leone and Liberia, including numerous interviews with key players, I argue that individuals and their specific approaches and tactics influenced and altered the course of these peace negotiations, as well as their outcomes. Negotiators engaged in peace talks with underlying approaches (such as competitive, collaborative and cooperative styles) and then came to use various tactics (including shifting goalposts, hardball, silence, and bad faith), many of which were influenced by their innate biases and frames. Exploring these individuals’ conduct gives us previously unexplored insight into peace processes.

In the last four decades, hostage situations have rapidly increased in the world due to the threat of terrorism and other social problems. The goals of hostage takers are to achieve certain political, criminal, and/or social benefits through hostage situations. It is not only a police problem but also a governmental problem. Police apply either negotiation or tactical intervention in hostage situations to recover hostages without bloodshed or loss of life. Success in this endeavor is based on effective negotiation. The purposes of this study are to analyze the major actors and their roles in hostage situations, to identify effective negotiation strategies and tools, and to provide some future recommendations for governments, police agencies, and researchers for peaceful resolutions in hostage situations.

By conducting this theory-based empirical study, gathering data from working negotiators in the US and Canada, I have determined what primary dynamic activities, communication skills, and negotiation tools are used by hostage/crisis negotiators. Negotiators implement their negotiation and decision strategies differently depending on whether the situations they deal with are instrumental or expressive. I have determined which elements of negotiations and factors affecting negotiations differ while handling instrumental and expressive hostage situations. I found that the collected data did not reveal any significant relationship between handling instrumental/expressive hostage situations differently and belief in the elements of Brenda Dervin's and Shannon-Weaver's theories. I have also determined that the belief in the elements of the Dervin's and Shannon-Weaver's theories is workable and practical for negotiators to use. Based on the above findings, the model suggested by this research adds the elements and directives of Dervin's and Shannon-Weaver's models to the common approach used by the negotiators. This revised model suggests that the negotiators pay attention to the dynamics of the interactions presented between the two parties: the negotiators themselves and hostage takers. The revised model also recommends that the negotiators focus on not only the hostage takers behavioral characteristics, psychological conditions, and criminal history but also on the meaning of the sent message and the interaction itself as performed between the two parties. This perspective enables the negotiators to look at the negotiation process as information and communication process. We are not ignoring the fact that hostage negotiation is a format of extreme information management. By looking at such an extreme case, we can add to our understanding of Dervin's and Shannon-Weaver's perspectives in order to see the hostage negotiation process from a wider perspective. The revised model is not an alternative approach to the common approach most negotiators use. Instead, the revised model uses the perspective and directives of the common approach and extends its meaning and content by also focusing on Dervin's sense making theory and Shannon-Weaver's communication model perspectives. The use of the perspective of this revised model is one more tool for the negotiators to use in order to promote new ways of looking at hostage negotiation resolutions.

[pt] A capacidade de negociar efetivamente é considerada uma competência crítica na administração moderna (Ertel, 2000). A negociação é parte constante do dia a dia de qualquer ser humano e sua importância é ainda maior para o administrador, pois este utiliza a negociação nos mais variados aspectos e das mais variadas formas em seu dia a dia profissional. Aos estudantes e praticantes da administração brasileiros que desejem se aprofundar nas teorias e práticas de negociação, desenvolvidas dentro ou fora do país, restam poucos caminhos: a busca do auto conhecimento através de artigos e livros, cursos particulares dentro e fora do Brasil ou cursos em Universidades estrangeiras. Sendo assim, o objetivo principal deste trabalho é descobrir como negociadores estratégicos brasileiros praticam a negociação, englobando seus pontos positivos e negativos, além de tentar descobrir como estes negociadores encaram a negociação no Brasil e como essa prática se relaciona com a teoria de negociação. Este estudo buscará responder a algumas das seguintes perguntas, vistas sob o ponto de vista de grandes negociadores brasileiros: que relação tem a prática da negociação no Brasil com as teorias de negociação mais conhecidas? Será que as mesmas técnicas e táticas desenvolvidas e utilizadas nos Estados Unidos são utilizadas no Brasil? Esta pesquisa partiu da idéia de que seria interessante, numa tentativa de aumentar a efetividade do negociador brasileiro e baseado na falta de estudos desenvolvidos localmente, entender como alguns grandes negociadores nacionais praticam a negociação, o que gostam de usar e encontrar do outro lado da mesa, assim como o que não gostam. / [en] The ability to negotiate effectively is one the most crucial ones in today`s business environment (Ertel, 2000). During his day to day a professional businessman or businesswoman will probably use negotiation on almost all aspects of any business. To the Brazilian professionals or students interested in deepening their knowledge of negotiation techniques there are only few paths available: self study, private courses both in and out of Brazil or negotiation courses in foreign Universities. That is one of the reasons why the main objective of this study is to shed some light on Brazilian strategic negotiators and their style, and also to try to find out what these negotiators think are the best and worst aspects of negotiating with Brazilians and foreigners. This work will try to answer the following questions, seen from the eyes of great Brazilian negotiators: what does the theory of negotiation used in Brazil have to do with the well-known international negotiation theories? Are the same techniques developed, mainly, in the United States used in Brazilian negotiations? One of the main ideas for this work is that, due to the lack of locally developed theories, it will be interesting to see how great Brazilian negotiators practice negotiation, what does their style have to do with well known theories and what do they like and dislike on a negotiation.

The level of readiness of police branches (especially police negotiators) for the threat of terrorist attack on the airport in Planá nearby České Budějovice. This thesis is focused on the preparedness of the security forces, especially police negotiators for the possible threat of terrorist attack on the newly constructed international airport in Planá nearby České Budějovice. There are defined the basic concepts and features regarding the terrorism, security forces and crisis negotiations. The goal of my thesis is to find out the level of preparedness of security forces for a possible terrorist attack on the airport in Planá nearby České Budějovice. A part of my work are interviews with twenty policemen, members of the special police team-emergency squad of the Regional Police Directorate of the South-Bohemian Region, six of which are members of the crisis negotiation team.

This thesis attempts to map out the negotiation strategies used by unskilled negotiators and among these, to identify those strategies which prevent such negotiators from achieving the most effective outcome. In highlighting such incorrect negotiating strategies, the thesis aims to steer academics away from using such strategies as part of their future teaching material on negotiation strategies. The theoretical aspect of this work describes the theory behind negotiating strategies and maps the features, styles and negotiation procedures which are used during negotiation. The practical part of the thesis interprets results gained from the research which was carried out. This research, which was conducted in the winter semester of the 2013/2014 academic year, involved the staging of bargaining games that were held over five separate sessions as part of the subject "Introductory training of social and management skills".