Business Negotiation Tutorial 3

The Path(s) to Integrative Decisions

Integrative Negotiation Process

1. Creating Value
a. Relationship Building
i. Important to build rapport and trust
ii. Being hard on task and soft on non-task elements
iii. Signaling strength and focus on own interests, but simultaneously
flexibility and genuine concern for other party’s outcome (define as part
of the problem)
b. Identification and definition of the problem
i. Integrative negotiation as group problem solving task
ii. Define problem in mutually acceptable and neutral (!) form
iii. Emphasize commonalities
iv. Establish open minds and avoid preconceptions about solution
v. Establishing agreement about the process
c. Identification of true interests and needs
i. Substantial interests
ii. Process interests
iii. Relationship interests
iv. Interests in principle
d. Creation of alternative solutions
i. Creative group task (comparable to brainstorming)!
ii. Avoid production blocking, social loafing, and evaluation apprehension
2. Claiming Value
a. Evaluation of alternatives
i. For oneself
ii. For negation partner
iii. Relative evaluation
b. Selection of alternatives
i. Positive framing: focus on strongly supported solutions
ii. Use knowledge of intangibles/non-task elements
iii. Emphasize logrolling

Direct Information Exchange

 Providing Information
o Is often perceived as competitive behavior (“to clarify a position”)
o Increases own vulnerability, information can be used opportunistically
o No scientific evidence so far that unilateral provision of information positively
effects integrative negotiation outcomes
Indirect information Exchange
 Issue for issue or block offers = multi-issue offers?
o In general block offers! Negotiating all issues separately
 Does not allow for logrolling between issues (or makes it much more
difficult)
 Can cause deadlocks or termination of the negotiation if the ZOPA is very
small and logrolling is necessary to settle
 Does often lead to inefficient compromises
o Series of block offers allow implicit information exchange about the priorities
between negotiation issues
 Multiple equivalent simultaneous offers (meso)
o Prepare multiple block offer that have equivalent value for you
o Present those (for you) equivalent offers simultaneously
o Ask the other party to indicate his/her preferences