Tim Herglotz
Methodology

How the research was done

Entries on this site are written out of a doctoral study, and a reader is entitled to know what that study actually consisted of before deciding how much weight to give a claim. This page states the design, the evidence base, and its limits.

Evidence base
16
semi-structured interviews with senior executives and professional negotiators across Europe
03
AI models interviewed under the same protocol
19
interviews analysed in total

Participants are identified only as Participant 1 to Participant 16 throughout the thesis and on this site. Employers, sectors, and deal specifics are withheld. Quotations reproduced in the entries are drawn from the interview transcripts; see Evidence.

Design
PhilosophyInterpretivist–pragmatist, structured through the Research Onion. Negotiation behaviour, trust dynamics, and strategic decision-making are treated as context-specific and best explained through the lived experience of practising negotiators.
ReasoningInductive and abductive combined, balancing contextual understanding against practical relevance.
StrategyPrimarily qualitative, with semi-structured interviews at the core, supported by preparatory questionnaires and secondary sources for triangulation.
Time horizonLongitudinal, to capture negotiation practice as it evolved through and beyond the COVID-19 period.
AnalysisAI-assisted transcription followed by thematic analysis. A pilot study preceded the main data collection; coding procedures are set out in Chapter 4.
Themes

Thematic analysis produced five themes across the nineteen interviews. These, in turn, produced the seven pillars of the Business Negotiation Framework.

  1. Transformation of negotiation practice
  2. Building and sustaining trust in a virtual setting
  3. Negotiation preparation with a data-driven strategy
  4. AI as enabler for negotiation effectiveness
  5. The human factors in negotiation today
Limits

This is qualitative work with a purposively small sample. It is not statistically representative and does not claim to be: sixteen senior practitioners cannot stand in for a population, and their accounts are self-reported rather than observed. The scope is European, post-COVID, and confined to large and complex B2B negotiation; findings should not be carried over to consumer, political, or small-transaction settings without argument.

The dissertation is unpublished at the time of writing. Citation details and requests to read it are handled through correspondence. Further interviews and organisational collaboration are invited onParticipate.