GAINING POWER IN

NEGOTIATIONS
THROUGH NONCONTEXTUAL EFFORTS
Literature Review

Abstract
Through this research, tactics and strategies which when employed
can garner greater value in negotiations have been identified. The
perception of ones power will change how that person acts but
moreover making actions typically made by those in positions of power
will give an impression of power such as making an offer and tailoring
that offer to reduce and control a counterparts counteroffer.
Furthermore information sharing can lead a powerful counterpart to a
more integrative negotiating style and so reduce his or her dominance.
Thought slight tricks like these a party can gain ground on their
powerful competitor, level the playing field and achieve a better resut.

Niall Murphy
15203870
niall.murphy.9@ucdconnect.ie
MSc Project Management
Procurement & Contract
Management
BMGT43670

Introduction
Not a day goes by without some form of negotiation, whether it be between a
parent and a child, a teacher/lecturer and a student, a buyer and a supplier or
one business to another. Negotiation has become a common ritual, and can vary
from simple conversations to difficult and heated debates among rivals. But
throughout either scenario there will always be a power dynamic at play. One
party may be relatively powerful or powerless or perhaps there exists a power
balance. But in order to preform best in a negotiation, and most would agree, a
party must be more powerful.
So the question is; how can a party gain power in a negotiation. Often one party
will be perceived as holding the power and wield it accordingly, though
distributive negation tactics, wielding anger and intimidation and an overall
confidence (Type of Negotiation: Many Path to a Deal, 2003). However powerful
parties often have a slight understanding how others think, see, and feel, as
such being in the weaker position can often offer you a better vantage to
accurately assess what the other party want and how you can best delver it
(OHara, 2004). According to Jeff Weiss author of HBR Guide to Negotiating youll
often find yourself underestimating your own power, and over estimating their.
Powerful players will typically aim for agreements that distribute payoffs
proportional to their power (Wei and Luo, 2012)
Power can be defined as the capacity to exert influence on other people (Kelley
thaibaut 1978) as well as an individuals relative capacity to modify others
states by providing or withholding resources or administering punishments.
(Keltner et al, 2003)
In terms of gaining power many would suggest having a solid best alternative to
a negotiation (BATNA) (Thompson et al, 2009) (Magee et al, 2007). Another such
tactic would be to expand your power by negotiating as a collective and hence
using others as a collective leverage, increasing your bargaining ability and
power.
However for the context of this paper we will assume that these aforementioned
strategies have been fruitless and the party is looking to gain power from a
psychological and/or non-contextual point of view.
This paper will examine what tactics can be employed throughout a negotiation
to grow a partys power, to mitigate a counterparts perceived power or even to
take advantage of a counterparts overestimation of their power or
underestimation of your power.
Through adopting tactics and strategies to leverage better use of emotions,
priming of negotiators, anchors with first mover advantages and finally greater
knowledge of total cost ownership and information sharing, it is possible for a
relatively weak player to gain substantial ground

Methodology
Negotiations form a critical part of any procurement, having proceeded through
all prior steps from identifying ones needs to a make or buy judgement through
to choosing sourcing strategies, contract types and supplier selection one will be
lead to a negotiating table. This is where all the effort can be lost, given the
context of what it is you are procuring and your relative strength of your firm, it
is possible to fail under the pressure of negotiating. This concept, though
ubiquitous in todays cultures, is still largely underestimated by many who do it.
It is for this reason that I chose this topic. Moreover it seems evident that where
one has relatively little power against a rival, they can gain much power by
simply expanding your purchasing power or co-operating with someone in a
similar position.
The subject area that, for me, was least understood was how a person in a
relatively week position could gain power through psychological means or
tactics. Is it possible to gain perceived power by simply acting powerful? Or Is is
possible to act in cush a way to mitigate a counterparts power against a
powerless party?
From choose the main are of this paper, the research topic had to be refined. To
achieve this a short list of phrases were compiled. There are as follows

Negotiation from weak position

How to negotiate against powerful
Bargaining against powerful suppliers
Emotions in negotiation
Power dynamics in negotiations

From various literature found a brief outline of what was necessary in a

document was defined, this would be defined as; documents pertaining to power
in negotiations, whether powerful or powerless. The ability for a party to gain
subjective power of ones counterpart trough non-contextual tactics and
strategies and how a negotiator can out manoeuvre an experiences negotiator in
a powerful situation.
From compiling a list of 35 articles the list would be reduced to 25, removing
articles with little value to add to this paper. From deeper readings of these
articles more would be moved and through examination of relevant articles, area
of interested which were not understood but could come under the context of
negotiations would be searched, found again scrutinised and finally some were
added to achieve a greater understanding of negation tactics and strategies,
such as distributive negotiations, specifically anger in negotiating, precise
numbering and emotional intelligence.

Literature Review
Priming
Setting yourself up for success can be a simple idea, though in practice can be
incredibly difficult. In order to be powerful, one must act powerful and to act
powerful one needs to feel powerful, as such reducing anxiety will control the
fight or flight response, and alleviate a tendency to make timid offers, through a
lack of confidence and enable to distinguish between good and bad offers
(Brooks, 2015).
To alleviate this people can simply practice, and through practice learn to control
your anxiety as well as other emotions including anger as happiness.
Overzealous celebrations after a negotiation could leave the counterpart with
feelings of loss or disappointment contrarily they could be acts of over
confidence.
Finally dont make name for yourself, for example liars often garner a reputation
. . [] . . making it difficult for them to win counterparts trust in future
(Thompson et al 2009). This can also be said any other traits, what is important
to note here is that often names and reputations are not what the always appear
to be.
There is also some evidence to suggest that priming yourself to believe that you
possess greater power than perhaps you do by simple writing powerful words or
remembering times where you were powerful in some aspect.
Other studies have shows this priming counterparts to think in terms of fairness
will change their approach to their negotiation.

Emotions
Throughout any negotiation, emotions can play a pivotal role (Pietroni et al,
2008, Steinel et al, 2008). Emotions have the ability to cloud someones
judgement or even give tells as to what value is attached to certain aspects of
the negotiation. The most frequently written about emotion in negotiation is
anger, Van Kleef (2010) posits is certain situations the use of anger can be of
great beneficial, however it can have some detrimental effects going forwards.
Though it should be noted that this is relative to desired outcomes of a
negotiation. Where a party is looking to form a lasting-relationship the use of
anger could be of little benefit, though contrarily on a second negotiation those
who were the victims of the anger tend to come to the table with smaller
demands. Anger or negative emotions may, however, trigger a fight-or-flight
response in those will less perceived power leading two either retaliation or
standing back from the negotiation entirely. In a general approach it would seem
that positive emotions will usually elicit the best outcome (Kopelman et al,
2006).
From a weak perspective a negotiator must be aware of his or her tendency to
react to their counterparts emotions. People tend to response to a dominant
emotions with either behavioural mimicry or even with complementary
responses (Tiedens & Fragle, 2003), this may lead someone to act
subconsciously uncharacteristically and even be psychologically controlled by a

power skilful negotiator. In this regard a negotiator with a higher sense of

emotional intelligence would perhaps be a greater judge of a counterparts
emotional state and thus be more self aware (Goleman, 2003).

Anchors and round numbers and first mover

Powerful people move first both by initiating negotiations and by making the
first offer . . . In addition, moving first set an anchor that determined the final
sale prices, with first movers gaining more favourable outcomes than second
movers (Magee et al, 2007). According Schweinberg et al (2011) final prices
are positively correlated with first offers the more a seller ask for, the higher
the final price; the less a buyer offers, the lower the final price. Though there is
substantial literature to posit the opposite of this case, the fact remains. Issues
arise in terms of the context of the offer. The greater the first offer, either too
large on the part of a supplier or too little on the part of the buyer can lead to an
impasse and end any negotiation (Schweinsberg et al, 2012). Furthermore some
research would suggest that where an initial offer is made and immediately
accepted there will be a level of dissatisfaction among the offering party. This
stems from counterfactual thoughts regarding possible outcome, regardless of
their first offers being better than their best expected outcomes (Galinskey et al,
2003)
Finally in order to mitigate bargaining or adjustments over first offer numbers.
Studies have indicated that where more precise numbers are used in first offers
the lesser the adjustments are resulting in greater value creation for the offering
party (Mason et al, 2013; Keloharju, 2016). There are speculations that this
phenomenon occurs from a perception that a more precise value is indicative of
a more accurate and fair value. Also Thomas et al (2010) argues that smaller
adjustments are made due to a view that the more precise number is much
smaller than the rounded figure.
Thus in a negotiation, a less powerful side would benefit from making the first
offer, setting an anchor point from which the negotiations would develop. It
would be unwise of this party to greatly over or under estimate their figure as
this could lead to a negative outcome and even a stalemate. It would be in their
best interest to make a fair but slightly over or under valued offer, from which to
start. To achieve this an insight into the zone of potential agreement would be
exceptionally beneficial, not wishing to offend the counterpart with a greatly
under or over estimation. Finally and above mentions a more precise figure
would again benefit the offering party, thou again how precise would have to be
based on the context..

TCO
Ven den Abbeele et al, (2008) postulated that buyers who use TCO information
achieve greater results during negotiations. This is substantiated by Van Kleef, et
al (2006) that typically people with greater relative power tend to be less

motivated to acquire information and further more to share it. This is consistent
with distributive negotiation strategies which discourage information sharing
before and throughout negotiations (Type of Negotiation: Many Path to a Deal,
2003). However powerless buyers can create a cooperative relationship though
information sharing about needs and preferences which can be reciprocated by
the suppliers. Thus a party which is perceived to be less powerful will
substantially raise their power and lower that of their counterpart by simply
being in a much greater possession of knowledge.
Parties in such positions will engage in integrative win-win negotiating. This is of
course in their interests as where they can great value for their counterpart they
can create value for themselves through greater problem solving techniques.
Finally is can be see that power motivates parties to conceal information which
lead to less effective and failed negotiations.

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