Strategic Choice in Negotiation: Asking the Right Questions
3 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2014
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
Most of the literature on negotiation describes five major categories of strategies that negotiators can choose from, individually and independently of each other, when facing an upcoming negotiation situation. Of course, they can also choose to switch strategies as the negotiation goes along, to another one of these five.
However, how should one go about choosing a strategy, in practice? How does one decide which of these is likely to bring you, as a party to negotiation, to your desired outcome?
This paper provides a starting point from which to begin to address that question.
Taking a theory-to-practice approach, this paper incorporates and elaborates on a review of a number of theoretical frameworks and a series of research findings provided by Dean Pruitt, Jeffrey Rubin and Sung Hee Kim (2004), in their book Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate and Settlement (3rd ed.), NY: McGraw-Hill
This resource aims to provide negotiation teachers and trainers with a convenient teaching resource to supplement classroom activities on this topic.
Keywords: Negotiation, cooperation, competition, avoidance, yielding, accommodating, compromise, win-lose, win-win, lose-lose, zero-sum, interest-based, integrative, bargaining, positions, interests, options, alternatives, BATNA, teaching, learning, pedagogy, contentious, distributive, competitive, positional
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