Bringing the Social Back into Sustainability: Why Integrative Negotiation Matters

Abstract

Although economic and environmental paradigms of sustainability in organizations are highly researched, more work is needed to understand the mechanisms concerning the impact of social factors. Given the importance of social sustainability in current organizational contexts, we explore how gender dimensions (diversity, equality) and social capital dimensions (embeddedness, cohesion) can lead to the betterment of socially driven, sustainable outcomes. Our conceptual framework and propositions are centered on how negotiation—particularly in its integrative form—is likely to promote social sustainability. Our study contributes to the ongoing research on the latest socially driven trends of sustainability in organizations.

1. Introduction

Organizations are constantly required to reach sustainability agreements from both a moral and business perspective [1]. In this sense, a sustainable approach is needed for firm competitiveness [2]; thus, sustainability aspects need to be included on the organizational agenda. Sustainability has been studied extensively through social, economic, and environmental paradigms, as its outcomes have profound impact in the value-chain processes of organizations [3,4,5,6].

Although there are many facets of sustainability in organizations, the social dimension has received much less attention compared with the economic [7] and environmental ones [8,9]. This is natural since literature on the topic has integrated social factors into debates on sustainable development [10]. Social sustainability has been conceptualized several times based on concepts such as social justice [11], culture [12], and well-being [13]. Within this lot, two factors have received frequent mentioning: gender and social capital [11,14,15]. For gender, diversity is regarded an important antecedent of sustainability in organizations [16], whereas for social capital, actor embeddedness has been previously linked to social sustainability [17].

However, both gender diversity and actor embeddedness need two things: first, a clear outcome related to sustainability, and second, the context for such an outcome to be socially meaningful in organizations, something that the current literature lacks. This gap is meaningful, as the transition from mere social factors to social outcomes of sustainability requires a focus by the organization in understanding how gender and social capital become sustainable goals. Thus, our first research question is: how are gender diversity and actor embeddedness related to social sustainability outcomes, namely gender equality and social cohesion? We achieve this objective by exploring how gender diversity and actor embeddedness, as social sustainability antecedents, lead to gender equality and social cohesion when considered as emerging social sustainable goals [15].

Given the organizational context of the social dimension of sustainability, we also discuss the moderating role of integrative negotiation as the context in which gender diversity and actor embeddedness can enable sustainable outcomes such as gender equality and social cohesion. This matters because, to our knowledge, previous research has not addressed how organizational social sustainability is impacted by integrative negotiation, a decision-making process involving employees and management, mostly through social dialogue. Thus, our second research question is: what is the impact of integrative negotiation in the relation between social antecedents and social sustainability outcomes? By assessing both parties’ views on specific issues and including them more fully in corporate decision-making, organizations can benefit from greater exchange and sharing of knowledge, information, and interests, enhanced trust, and more effective processes, which will lead to win-win agreements [18].

Our theoretical nexus is based on social dialogue [19], which is defined as all types of negotiation and consultation, or simply the exchange of information between, or among, representatives of governments, employers, and workers, on economic and social issues of common interest [20]. Such choice is motivated because social dialogue is closely related to the concepts of gender [21] and social capital [22], and by the fact that social dialogue plays a relevant role in improving sustainability performance [23,24].

Our aim is to build a framework that contributes to social sustainability in organizations by highlighting the moderating role of integrative negotiation. To do this, we follow a conceptual design. First, we expose the framework to understand how gender and social capital serve both as antecedents and as outcomes when conceptualized in apposite dimensions. Consequently, we present several propositions linking social antecedents and outcomes of sustainability.

Our study contributes to two literature streams. First, we contribute to social sustainability literature by exploring how gender dimensions (diversity, equality) and social capital dimensions (embeddedness, cohesion) have important social sustainability effects. Second, we contribute to the literature on integrative negotiation by exploring the moderating role of integrative negotiation in the sustainable transformation of gender and social capital.

2. Theoretical Framework

The Gender Paradigm: From Diversity to Equality

Women have long been seen as promoters of sustainability issues [25,26], as they play a key role in managing sustainability [27]. Recent research in organizations has confirmed that gender diversity is relevant for decision-making and overall organizational effectiveness, leading to greater benefits at the CSR level [28,29]. Among other factors, it has been suggested that gender diversity helps to improve decision-making processes [30], encourages a wider variety of views of the issues at stake [31], enhances ethical behavior [32], and is associated with profitability [33]. This is mainly due to the inclusion of different knowledge, experiences, and skills in the process [33]. In line with our study aim, gender diversity has been shown to predict environmental sustainability programs [34]. Given the positive outcomes of gender diversity, the European Commission is increasingly concerned with gender equality in the leading organizational positions, and in recent decades has established tools and policies to foster this progress [35]. In this vein, gender issues such as equality have been considered as important emerging social sustainability outcomes [13,15].

Decades of research have suggested that gender is an important determinant of outcomes at the bargaining table [36,37,38]. However, few studies have explored the role of gender in the negotiation of sustainability issues [34], with some exceptions, particularly in rural households [39] and in the environmental dimensions [27,34,40]. Proper representation of women in decision-making bodies is important, not only to fulfill a democratic principle, but also because their presence in negotiations promotes equality in collective bargaining [41]. As Scambor et al. suggest (p. 552, 2014): “Gender equality policies have been regarded as ‘women’s issues’ for a long time”.

Even though the role of men in gender issues has become more relevant in the last decade [42], previous research has found that when women are involved in negotiations, there is a greater likelihood of gender issues being included on the agenda [41]. As gender equality is a congruent social issue among women and one of the key paths towards sustainability, as illustrated in the fifth United Nations SDG, discussion and agreement on gender equality will be enforced when there is gender diversity in the negotiation process.

Women negotiate more assertively for others than they do for themselves [43]. This is explained by role congruence theory [44], which posits that both women and men prefer gender-congruent to gender-incongruent tasks [37]. Thus, women are exposed to social backlash when focusing on personal goals [45], but not to group or other goals, as this is congruent with the communal behavior expected of their social role. This dimension needs to be taken into consideration, as negotiations are typically held at the collective level, at which women represent the workers or other stakeholder groups in the organization. Since negotiating for others is a communal behavior consistent with the traditional female gender role, women feel more comfortable and perform better when defending other people’s interests [37,43]. This aspect is particularly relevant in association to the previous point, as it can help to prioritize gender equality on the sustainability agenda during negotiation processes. Overall, ensuring gender diversity could ensure that it and other social concerns are taken into consideration, leading to increased gender equality. This leads to our first proposition:

P1. Gender diversity leads to gender equality.

The social capital paradigm: from embeddedness to cohesion

Recent trends in sustainability include the rise of social capital as a relevant theme [14,15,46]. This matters, as social capital is known to be related to the social dialogue framework [47]. More specifically, the two dimensions of social capital, human capital and societal capital, are seen as fundamentals of social sustainability [48]. Whereas the human capital dimension takes a more individualistic approach, the societal capital dimension considers a more collectivistic viewpoint. Extant research has shown that both dimensions can be considered subsets of embeddedness and social cohesion where social bonds and institutions of conflict management co-exist [49].

Firms are known to embed themselves in society and markets through networks of relationships that influence their behavior and social sustainability [50,51]. Embeddedness and its impact on social sustainability has been researched in the context of sustainable consumption [52], transportation sharing economy [53], sustainability practices of small regional firms [54], stakeholder interaction [55], and decision-making [23]. From the foregoing, the consensus is that embeddedness is a social construct that affects the interaction between actors and leads to sustainable actions [56].

More specifically, embeddedness enables an understanding of network configurations that facilitates the dissemination of best practices, and which includes both stakeholder engagement to achieve environmental goals and technological solutions that enable stakeholders to generate knowledge from their interactions [50].

Given the already-established link between embeddedness and social capital in general [57] and social capital’s two dimensions in particular [58], we propose that actor embeddedness leads to social cohesion as an important outcome of social sustainability. We advance such an argument for several reasons. First, given the resource-based goals of business organizations [48] and the well-known role of embeddedness as a resource-tapping medium, a case can be made that links actor embeddedness in social networks with social cohesion for sustainability purposes. Second, actor embeddedness facilitates knowledge transfer, since social networks serve as valuable channels for information exchange due to their effect on the willingness and motivation of individuals to share knowledge [59,60]. Third, social cohesion leads actors to be nested in groups, which matters because if an actor is removed, the group becomes disconnected [61]. Hence, our proposition focuses on the direct and positive relationship between actor embeddedness and social cohesion.

P2. Actor embeddedness leads to social cohesion.

Why integrative negotiation matters

One of the core values cherished by organizations is the belief in social dialogue as the dominant feature of collective industrial relations [19,62]. This compromise between capital and labour continues to be a key element for promoting fairness at work [63]. The main goal of social dialogue is to promote consensus and democratic involvement among the stakeholders, contributing to a more social and fairer labour environment [19]. In this regard, social-oriented sustainable growth strategies should foster a smart, sustainable, and inclusive economy, thereby providing higher-quality jobs and creating greater productivity and social cohesion [63,64].

Sustainability includes the requirements of balancing social, economic, and environmental objectives and reaching compromises between different stakeholders. To arrive at a common understanding of the issues at stake, different stakeholders with different interests are required to enter negotiations. The social dialogue framework has contributed to the triple bottom line sustainability discussion [63]. The agenda for social dialogue has also evolved, from a focus on the traditional “bread and butter” issues (e.g., working hours, pay and incentive systems, performance targets), to more innovative and co-creative issues, including work-life balance, equality, career sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and green issues [20,63,65]. Social sustainability is hence included in these innovative negotiations, which in turn generates space for integrative negotiation [66]. These issues are negotiated by both management, typically HR, and also by workers, who are represented by employee representatives [20]. Therefore, a case can be made that integrative negotiation does matter for social sustainability in organizations.

Integrative Negotiation as a Contextual Moderator

Integrative negotiation is understood as a process that involves the creation and discovery of joint gains. This type of negotiation in which parties create value is a major necessity in the challenging context of today’s business, given the agenda demands to include integrative issues such as sustainability [63]. In this vein, negotiation means making agreements on management, or, more precisely, agreements that address societal choices [24], and the way social agents negotiate these new conditions is continuously becoming more relevant.

Negotiation studies show that even though negotiation in organizations involves the distribution of some resources, there are many opportunities for integrative negotiations [66]. This trend can be observed in issues such as gender equality [67], in which positions can be transformed into interests, thereby allowing parties to create win-win agreements (i.e. work-family balance or equal promotion policies). Such win-win agreements can be explained by the effects of trust and social exchange.

In fact, previous work on negotiation at the organizational level [68] has concluded that organizations investing in a trusting relationship with employee representatives, and empowering these representatives in decision-making, will manage conflicts more constructively and reach more integrative and innovative agreements [20]. Research shows that perceptions of trust play a crucial mediating role in the development of cooperation between parties [69]. Trust creates cooperation for favorable bargaining in negotiation situations [70], as it allows parties to exchange information, leading them to develop accurate judgments about the other party’s interests and create mutually beneficial integrative agreements—expanding the pie [71]. Parties share knowledge and make more effort to find creative ideas when trust is included in the process [72]. Therefore, trust is viewed as the basis for the relationship underlying social exchanges [73,74].

Trust is gradually forged in the process of social exchange [70,72,75] where interests are formed during the interaction between two parties [73]. Further, the parties remain obligated to each other for a longer period; they trust each other to reciprocate, and this in turn strengthens the relationship [75,76]. A central theme here is that parties will develop exchanges for social and economic reasons [77].

Trust has been shown to contribute to social sustainability outcomes in the context of the supply chain [2]. This is explained by the intention to share information, as well as by the willingness of the parties to pursue mutually compatible interests [78]. Hence, social sustainability outcomes can be viewed as beneficial for both parties, given their moral and business benefits [79]. For example, previous research on environmental sustainability has concluded that sharing information helps partners to achieve environmental goals at a lower cost [80].

Extant literature suggests that the inclusion of gender diversity in the negotiation process enhances the relational approach [81]. Women often show more interest in interpersonal relationships [82], which leads to more cooperation [83], whereas men endorse a more competitive perspective [84]. We explore the social role of women at the negotiation table [44,85] to understand the link between gender diversity and an integrative approach to negotiation.

Gender role theory explains the different emphases in prosocial behavior: women being more communal and relational, and men more agentic and strength-intensive [86]. Following this theory, we believe women to be more cooperative and less agentic (i.e., competitive) than men [81,87,88]. This is illustrated by experiments showing that female job candidates are penalized more than male candidates for assertive negotiation behavior [89,90]. As Mazei et al. (2015, p. 86) state: “Women in negotiations might feel social pressure to adhere to the female role and display gender-consistent behavior such as (…) cooperation.” This cooperative and relational approach is related to trust-building, which is a key step in the integrative negotiation process [91]. Furthermore, integrative negotiations require questions to be asked in order to learn about the counterpart’s interests or priorities [90,92,93]. These “caring” behaviors might appear to be more congruent with the female gender role [94], hence making women more suited to integrative, as opposed to distributive, negotiations [90]. Thus, we expect integrative negotiation to positively moderate the relationship between gender diversity and gender equality.

P3. Integrative Negotiation Positively Moderates the Relationship between Gender Diversity and Gender Equality.

Integrative negotiation and social capital-driven sustainability outcomes such as social cohesion share several traits. First, integrative negotiation requires the existence of trust between parties [66], which is known to also be present in social cohesion [95,96]. Second, both integrative negotiation and social cohesion require some form of group cooperation [96]. Third, parties engaged in win-win negotiations are more likely to exchange information [97], which promotes communication and leads to task-related social cohesion in groups [98].

In fact, the use of integrative negotiation in organizations could lead to social cohesion due to two factors: (a) increased commitment to the group among its members, and (b) increased trust. Increased commitment to the group may concern specific group tasks or feelings of attachment to the group [71]. This is because in integrative negotiations, parties may achieve joint gains through cooperation [95]. Trust is fostered as a result of group attachment, which leads to coordinated actions and therefore promotes cohesion among team members [71].

In this vein, integrative negotiations may facilitate resource opportunities that lead to social cohesion via actor embeddedness in social networks. This is because negotiations are an important mechanism for resource pooling and allocation [99]. Second, integrative negotiation can foster information sharing [100], which is present whenever actor embeddedness is linked to social cohesion [61]. Third, links between embedded actors enable them to enter integrative negotiations that promote beneficial solutions, and, in doing so, provide a pathway for nested solutions, leading to social cohesion [101]. Fourth, embeddedness encourages commitment [102], which is known to play an important role in integrative negotiation [103] and to be linked to social cohesion [104]. Given these arguments, we propose that integrative negotiation reinforces the positive relationship between actor embeddedness and social cohesion.

P4. Integrative negotiation positively moderates the relationship between actor embeddedness and social cohesion.

3. Discussion

The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework to explore how social factors such as gender and social capital lead to social sustainable goals. Specifically, in our proposed framework (see Figure 1), we argue that gender diversity, as an antecedent, affects gender equality, whereas actor embeddedness, as an antecedent, affects social cohesion. In our model, gender equality and social cohesion are seen as social sustainability outcomes.

An important component of the proposed model is the concept of integrative negotiation, as it provides the context through which social actors undertake decisions leading to social sustainability outcomes (i.e., gender equality, social cohesion). Negotiating in an integrative way is presented as a mechanism for party effectiveness and performance when negotiating sustainability issues.

This study is an initial attempt to explore and outline social factors that contribute to social sustainability and the role of integrative negotiation in organizational settings. In this regard, our study contributes to social sustainability and negotiation literature in two ways. First, it enhances knowledge of gender and social capital that is relevant to understand how emerging social sustainability goals are met [15]. In particular, emerging factors such as gender equality and social cohesion are highlighted for organizations willing to support social development goals. Second, our framework integrates the negotiation theory in the sustainability literature, and highlights the importance of the negotiation style when reaching sustainability agreements. In this regard, we contribute to the negotiation literature by exploring its role in a context of organizational social sustainability, and by emphasizing that the way agreements are negotiated can be related to social sustainability outcomes.

In this vein, our study provides guidelines to researchers who want to expand our model through empirical research. We do so through a rationale on the relevance of the social dimension concerning the triple bottom line that has traditionally received less academic attention. From a practical perspective, the exploration of gender and social capital and their dimensions both as antecedents and outcomes of social sustainability has the potential as a frame to assist and improve sustainability within and across organizations. This is even more pressing when we consider the moderating role of integrative negotiation as a possibility to achieve a win-win negotiation [105].

Despite these contributions, our study is not without limitations, which future research may address. For instance, given that our propositions do not dwell on other categorizations of gender (e.g. role) or embeddedness (e.g. structural, relational) [57], future research may consider such dimensions’ analysis. Additionally, we consider social cohesion as a prosocial outcome [105], yet embeddedness (noticeably structural) [17] is often linked to an egoistic position, which may need to be assessed by future research. We focus on two antecedents of social sustainability: gender and social capital. Other factors such as perceived fairness and power equality could be explored in relation with the improvement of social sustainability [8]. Additionally, despite our assumptions, there are cultural contexts in which gender diversity is not common Therefore, this antecedent of gender equality may not be applicable to cultural or organizational settings in which it is hitherto different [106].

Finally, the conceptual nature of the article limits the operationalization of this model. In this vein, future empirical research may need to operationalize gender factors (diversity, equality) as well as social capital factors (embeddedness, cohesion). Such operationalization could result from a mixed methods research approach (Sonenshein et al., 2014). Specifically, Blau’s index may be used as a measure of gender diversity, ranging from 0 when only one woman is present or represented, to 0.5 when there are equal numbers of women and men present or represented [107]. For gender equality, assessing its impact on the triple bottom line, potentially through a survey-based five-point Likert scale [108], could be the best option concerning sustainability.

Conversely, actor embeddedness can be operationalized either quantitatively, via network variables such as degree or betweenness centrality [109,110], or qualitatively, in the form of interviews that aim to understand (rather than measure) actor embeddedness [111]. For social cohesion, quantitative measures related to networks, such as the strength of the tie between the focal actor and the other actors, or the tie strength between all actors, are useful [112]. Qualitatively, item scales assessing the perception of participants on interdependence issues leading to social cohesion will be valuable [113]. Finally, integrative negotiation could be operationalized quantitatively by coding integrative negotiation outcomes (i.e. agreements) as the degree to which the deal bridges the interests of all parties and discovers potential joint gains [105], or by assessing the behavior of the parties using the Dutch scale [114]. Further, a qualitative method by item scales may address the individual’s satisfaction and perceptions of fairness with the negotiation [115].

4. Conclusions

This paper presents a conceptual framework to support an improvement of social sustainability in organizations, taking into consideration organizational social factors and the impact of integrative negotiation. The model includes indicators linked to sources of social sustainability, such as gender and social capital, as well as the moderating role of integrative negotiation in the gender–social capital relationship. In this vein, we present four propositions that enhance our understanding on social sustainability issues in organizations. In closing, we believe that social sustainability is becoming an increasingly important topic for organizations, thereby calling for more research on identifying social factors that enhance this outcome. By presenting the role of integrative negotiation as a moderator of gender and social capital when transitioning to more sustainable social factors, we bring back the social into the realm of organizational sustainability.