Notes on Negotiation Research

Notes on Negotiation Research

A Collection of Notes on Negotiation Literature and Research

How Justice Influences Negotiation Processes

  • Negotiators regularly act upon justice considerations and that these can affect the negotiation process.
  • At the most basic level, justice considerations may guide the framing of issues, and thereby facilitate the trade-offs, including:
    • proposals put forward
    • exchange and evaulation of concessions
    • formulation of agreements

Reciprocity

There are several different patterns of how concessions are made while negotiating:

  • Comparative responsiveness - acting based on a comparison of one's own and the other's tendencies to concede

  • Diffuse reciprocity - acting to ensure that roughly adequate or sufficient (rather than specifically equal or comparable), concessions are made to establish a balanced agreement.

  • In situations where parties endorse competing justice principles, negotiators require formulating terms that can earn the respect and voluntary approval of all parties and their constituencies.

Negotiators are thus motivated to act on terms that can be generally accepted as reasonable and balanced.

  • The presence of PJ adds legitimacy to the results.
  • Stable agreements depend on PJ and confronting complex issues during the negotiation process.
  • When PJ are evident in the negotiation process then negotiators are:
    • More willing to disclose information
    • More trustworthy
    • More likely to attain an integrative agreement.
    • Be more durable.

Justice and Negotiation: A Framework

  • Stages of negotiation:
    • Pre-negotiation
    • Negotiation
    • Negotiation Outcomes
    • Post-negotiation (implementation of agreements)

Negotiation Processess: Empirical Insights

  • 3 dimensions to the negotiation process:
  • Substantive Dimension - the position of the parties in each of the issues of the negotiation.
  • Communication Dimension - content of communication between parties
  • Emotional Dimension - emotions fo parties that are communicated

Pareto Efficency

  • Pareto improvement - is a new situation where some agents will gain, and no agents will lose.
  • Pareto-dominated - if there exists a possible Pareto improvement.
  • Pareto-optimal or Pareto-efficient - if no change could lead to improved satisfaction for some agent without some other agent losing or, equivalently, if there is no scope for further Pareto improvement.
  • Pareto front (also called Pareto frontier or Pareto set) - is the set of all Pareto-efficient situations

A utility concession curve data fitting model for quantitative analysis of negotiation styles

doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2013.12.029

A Utility curve can be defined as:

u=100c(t−s)s(t−c),c≤0∨c≥su = \frac{100 c(t-s)}{s(t-c)}, \quad c \leq 0 \quad \lor \quad c \geq s

With properties:

  • At the beginning of the negotiation, it has a utility of 100 (representative of max utility).
  • At the end of the negotiation's time limit, it has a utility of zero (representative of min utility).
  • It is always has a utility of at least zero and at most 100 (representative of min and max utility).
  • The curve can range from an extremely competitive to extremely collaborative.
  • The curve is defined by one free parameter.
  • The concession curve is symmetric along its length.