NEGOTIATIONS – OUTLINE
THE RHETORICS OF NEGOTIATION
Distributive Bargaining (DB)
Integrative Bargaining (IB)
Argument, including formal legal argument
Selling and Threatening
Managing our adversaries understanding of us, themselves, and their situation
Narrative or Story-telling
Reciprocity or Gift-exchange
INTRODUCTING NEGOTIATIONS–Ch 1
Morton Deutsch, The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes
Ex: about two five-yr-olds fighting over water hose, agreed to alternate in two minute intervals
Conflicts of all Sorts
i. Inquire about participants, their prior relationship, the issue in conflict, the social environment in which it occurred, what modes of intervention and by whom are most effective to resolve conflict
Outline of Variables Affecting the Course of Conflict
i. *This author uses similar concepts to discuss conflict b/t different types of units (b/t individuals, corporations, organizations, etc)
ii. The Characteristics of the parties
1. values, motivations, aspirations, objectives, physical, intellectual, social resources for waging conflict, beliefs about conflict (strategy and tactics), what is considered reward/gain/loss/punishment, tools and skill using them, between (un)equals, between parts of a whole or b/t whole and a part, or b/t wholes
iii. Prior Relationship to One Another
1. attitudes, beliefs, and expectations about one another, belief about the other’s view of you, degree of polarization, prior relations, preexisting attitudes
iv. Nature of the Issue Giving Rise to the Conflict
1. scope, rigidily, motivational significance, formulation, periodicity, general (ideology) or specific, important or trivial, permit compromise or require submission
v. Social Environment w/i which the Conflict Occurs
1. facilities and restraints, encouragements and deterrents, different strategies and tactics for conflict, social norms, institutional forms for regulating conflict, tradition of cooperative/peaceful conflict resolution w/ institutions, norms, facilities, and resources or not
vi. The Interested Audiences to the Conflict
1. their relationsip to the parties in conflict and to one another, their interest in the conflict and its outcomes, how it will react, its behavior
vii. Strategy and Tactics employed by the Parties in the Conflict
1. in assessing/changing other’s utilities, disutilities, and subjective probabilities, influencing other’s conceptions of your utilities, etc, through tactics that vary along demnsions like (ill)/legitimacy, use of positive/negative incentives (promises, rewards, threats, punishments, freedom of choice, coercion, openness of communication/sharing info, degree of credibility/commitment, types of motives appealed to
viii. Consequences of the Conflict to e/ of the Participants and to Other Interested Parties
1. gains/losses relating to immediate issue, precedents, long-term effects on relationship/reputation
This Author’s Approach is Social-Psychological. Key Notions of Social-Psychological Approach:
i. E/ participant in social interaction responds to the other in terms of his perceptions/cognitions of the other; these may or may not correspond to the other’s actualitites
ii. e/ participant is influenced by his own expectations concerning the other’s actions and by his perception of the other’s conduct; your expectation may or may not be accurate
iii. Social interaction is not only initiated by motives, but also generates new motives and alters old ones
iv. Social interaction takes place in social environment that has developed techniques, symbols, rules, values, relevant to interactions; to understand events, one must understand social context
v. e/ participant can act in a unified way toward some aspect of the environment even though w/i the individual there may be struggle b/t different interests and values
Functions of Conflict
i. *Author is trying to identify the conditions that determine whether a conflict will be resolved w/ constructive or destructive consequences
ii. Positive Functions
1. prevents stagnation, stimulates interest, problems can be aired and solutions arrived at, root of personal/social change, process to test oneself, demarcates groups and helps establish group/personal identities, external conflict often fosters internal cohesiveness,
2. by resolving tension b/t antagonists–it stabilizes their relationship, by permitting immediate and direct expression of rival claims it eliminates sources of dissatisfaction, re-establish unity
3. conflict w/i a group—revitalizes existent norms, contributes to emergence of new norms, adjusts norms to new conditions, assures continuance under changed conditions—rigid systems, by suppressing conflict, maximize danger of catastrophic breakdown
4. internal conflict ascertains relative strength of differing interests w/i a structure—maintenance or readjustment of balance of power, can establish new equilibrium
iii. People seek out conflict—ex: sports
iv. Conflict can neither be eliminated or suppressed for long
Definitions
i. Conflict exits whenever incompatible activities occur—such activities may originate in one person/group/nation (interpersonal/intergroup/international)—an action is incompatible when it prevents/obstructs/interferes/injures/ or makes less likely/effective
ii. Competition and conflict are not interchangeable—although competiton produces conflict, not all conflict reflects competition
1. competition—implies an opposition in the goals of interdependent parties such that the probability of goal attainment for one decreases as the probability for the other increases
2. conflict may also occur when there is NO incompatibility of goals; goals are concordant; conflict can occur in cooperative OR competitive context and the resolution that is displayed will be strongly influenced by the context
3. neither the occurrence nor the outcome of conflict is completely an drigidly determined by objective circumstances; whether it takes a productive or destructive cours is open to influence even under unfavorable
ve the universe of possible negotiations according to their particular characteristics (zero-sum vs. non-zero-sum games), 2) to identify alteranative styles/approach among which negotiators must choose (competitive vs. cooperative, win-win vs. win-lose), or 3) argue that one approach is superior ethically/instrumentally—many confine discussion of tactics to DB and IB
ii. Proff—all 7 are relevant to the conduct of N—
1. e/ can be studied, taught, and learned
2. e/ has certain strengths and weaknesses
3. e/ is (in)/appropriate to certain circumstances/tasks
4. together they represent a reasonably complete catalogue of the speech acts relevant to the conduct of negotiations
5. s/t the different rhetorics work together, other times they are incompatible
6. none of them are equally suited to all tasks
iii. Negotiators pursue their purposes through all 7—there are areas of overlap among the 7, this list is probably still incomplete
Examples: Virgil’s Aeneid, Shakespeare’s Henry V and Othello, propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl and Frank Capra, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, The Untouchables, The Tin Men, and Pretty Woman
Through negotiations lawyer reach almost all of their agreements and settle most of their difference, and they are judged by how successfully they negotiate
Negotiation—any situation/process in which two or more parties to some possible consensual A seek to reach that A w/o the aid or intervention of an authoritative 3rd party
Rhetoric—set of speech acts or discursive conventions through which such parties might seek to reach such an agreement
Rhetorics—the process of negotiations is best understood NOT as a single undifferentiated universe of speech acts or rhetorical moves, but as a number of distinct sets of speech acts
Rhetoric of Distributive Bargaining (Haggling)
In this rhetoric one is naming a price that he hopes will be accepted while initiating a process that, through haggling, may lead to an A at a lower but still acceptable price
Assumed Set-Up: two parties, e/ knows its RP, and their RPs are stable and not known to the adversary, there is a ZofA
Basic Object of DB–James White argues that DB comes down to two things: being successful in misprepresenting one’s own RP AND seeing through other’s attempt to misrepresent their RP; capacity to mislead and not be misled; capacity to conceal one’s true position, to mislead opponent about RP
i. Additional Details of the Linguistic Dance:
1. whether, at what point, and in what way to make an opening offer AND how to read and respond to the other’s first and subsequent offers
2. how to manage one’s pattern of concessions AND read and respond to other’s pattern of concessions
