NCMR Special Issue: Negotiation and Conflict Management in Public Relations and Strategic Communication

Negotiation and Conflict Management Research (NCMR)
Special Issue Call for Papers

Negotiation and Conflict Management in Public Relations and Strategic Communication

Submission Deadline: March 15, 2020

Special Issue Editor:
Lan Ni, University of Houston

Public relations aims at maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their strategic publics. One of the most important challenges lies in how organizations can maintain such relationships when conflicts arise. More and more organizations nowadays are facing this challenge, whether the conflict is about interests, risks, or values; whether the conflict is online or offline. Conflicts can occur in a variety of organizations, including corporations, government, non-profits, activist groups, community organizations, and others. It is important to advance our understanding about how organizations interact with and negotiate the relationships with their public during conflict situations.

Negotiation can play a critical role in how organizations manage and/or resolve conflicts. It serves an important role in practicing two-way symmetrical communication that can help find common ground, if any, between different parties. Using literature in management, psychology, sociology, communication, and political science, negotiation research has the potential of making public relations serve a strategic and ethical function that serves both organizational and social interests.

Conflicts may arise between organizations and their various internal and external publics, such as employees, customers, government, media, activists, community members, etc. Conflicts can also arise among different groups. The fast development in technology and social media has made it more challenging to resolve conflicts and engage in real negotiation.

We call for scholars to submit empirical and theoretical papers, addressing negotiation and conflict management in public relations and strategic communication. Topics include but are not limited to the following:

  • How do organizations and groups negotiate when conflict arises?
  • What conflict management strategies and negotiation styles lead to effective conflict management and positive negotiation outcomes?
  • Do situations features affect the use of conflict management and negotiation strategies?
  • What are the factors influencing different conflict management and negotiation strategies?
  • What is the role of social media in conflict management?
  • What is the role of culture in conflict management?

The call is also available at NCMR’s homepage: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17504716. Please submit your manuscript at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ncmr (click on the Special Issue submission link). When preparing your manuscript, carefully follow author guidelines at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1750-4716.

Timeline:

Submission due: March 15, 2020
Initial decisions: May, 2020
First round revisions due: August, 2020
Final manuscript due: October, 2020
Expected publication: November, 2020

Please direct topic ideas and special issue inquiries to Lan Ni at lni@uh.edu. Contact Qi Wang, NCMR Editor-in-Chief, at q.wang@villanova.edu with inquiries about NCMR.

Negotiation and Conflict Management Research (NCMR) publishes articles that develop theory and report research on negotiation and conflict management across levels, including interpersonal conflict, intergroup conflict, organizational conflict, and cross-cultural conflict, across a range of domains including environmental conflict, crisis negotiations, and political conflict, as well as across a variety of approaches, including formal and informal third party intervention, mediation and arbitration. Impact factor: 1.189.