Article Critique assignment. Select an article from the list of Journals below only:
1. American Bar Association Journal
2. Dispute Resolution Journal
3. Group Decision and Negotiation
4. Harvard Business Review
5. International Journal of Conflict Management
6. Journal of Business & Psychology
7. Journal of Social Issues
8. Management Science
9. Negotiation Journal
10. Public Administration Journal
11. Societal Culture and Management
12. The Journal of Conflict Resolution
The object of your critique is to describe how a negotiation theory has been empirically studied. The article should not more than two years old. Choose one that has sufficient content that you can write a report of two pages in length. Send me a copy of the article as well.
Please include the following critiques in your selected article:
? A brief introduction of the article
? A statement of the research problem
? A description of research procedures
? Flaws in the procedural design
? Analysis of the data
? Limited and justifiable conclusions
Example of the Write-up for the article critique:
Statement of the Research Problem
The researchers state that while there is a widespread assumption that service delivery in the private sector is superior to that in the public sector, a 1991 study by Miller and Miller found "generally favorable assessments...for most local government services" (Poister and Henry, 1994, p. 157). Poister and Henry's study was designed to examine Georgia residents' assessment of the quality of local public and private sector services. The survey responses were reviewed to determine how the assessment of the quality of public services compared with that of private sector services. In addition, perceptions of the public were compared with those of recent consumers. Poister and Henry provide an adequate literature review on service quality, including several studies on quality in the public sector. The scope of their study was limited to Georgia residents. They did not provide precise meanings of significant words, but this is probably not unusual in descriptive research. Their definition of this research question was adequate.
Description of the Research Procedure
The researchers provided information on their method of collecting data. It was sufficient to allow evaluation of their method and permit duplication of their study. The mention of a "computer assisted telephone interviewing system" (p. 156) was somewhat unclear. Was the system only used to select respondents and assign them sets of questions or was the interview actually conducted by the computer? Even with standardized responses the possibility of interviewer bias exists through inflection and prompts. This would not be a factor if a computer conducted the interview.
Flaws in Procedural Design
The researchers did discuss the difficulty of attempting to parallel public and private services. While agreeing that direct comparisons in many types of services were impossible, they attempted to compensate for this by "solicit[ing] ratings across broad slates of public and private services" (p. 158). Poister and Henry discussed the wide variation in quality ratings of both sectors. They emphasized that their findings should only be viewed in an overall context and not as a direct comparison of any one service.
Analysis of Data
As previously mentioned, the sample characteristics of the Georgia study favorably compared to the population characteristics. Results paralleling the Miller and Miller findings tend to support the reliability of the Georgia study. The findings of the ratings of recent users versus those of the public are also supported by the studies of Katz et al. (1975). A minimum of information is given on the statistical findings. The mean, standard deviation, and significance are given in an easy to read table and provide the basic necessities for evaluation.
Limited and Justifiable Conclusions
Poister and Henry posed their central question as: "How does the public's assessment of the quality of specific public services compare with that of private sector services?" (p. 156). The specific conclusion of this study is that "Georgia residents exhibited no particular tendency to rate the quality of local public services as better or worse than other services provided by businesses in their local communities" (p. 158). This study supports only this specific conclusion.