Negotiation 

 Negotiation is a complex social process aimed at reaching agreement through discussions.

 The process of making joint decisions when the parties involved have different preferences
or there is a conflict of needs and desires between two or more parties and they need each
other to achieve their preferred outcomes or objectives.
 An act of strategically ‘exchanging’ involving ‘searching’, ‘conceding’ and ‘agreeing’. An
ability to uncover the other parties’ needs is essential.
 Parties negotiate because they think they can get a better deal than by simply acceptance.
 All negotiation situations are susceptible to conflict and require exceptional communication
and collaboration skills are critical to the outcome but should not prevail over underlying
structural factors.
 Ineffective negotiations can cause needless breakdown, high costs, more negative
outcomes.

Framing
The subjective mechanism through which people evaluate and make sense out of situations

 Lead people to focus on certain issues and pursue or avoid subsequent actions
 Define a person, event or process
 Impart meaning and significance 

Three Frames exist (Urry and Goldberg (1988)

1. Interests

2. Rights

3. Power

KEY! Which frame do you have in your favour?

Rights Frames 

 People may be concerned about who is “right” – that is, who has legitimacy, who is correct,
and what is fair.
 Negotiators focus on rights when they seek to resolve a conflict by drawing upon rules or
standards.
 Parties try to determine how to negotiate by applying some standard of fairness, contract or
law
 Negotiators focus on rights when there is no concern for interests or when there is an
imbalance of power.
 Usually leads to a distributive agreement- one in which there is a winner and a loser or a
compromise that does not realise potential integrative gains
 Examples:  Court  Third parties  Formal proceedings

Power Frames

 People may wish to resolve a conflict on the basis of who is stronger.

 Negotiators focus on power when they feel they can achieve their aims by making threats or
coercing the other.
 Can override interests and rights if not dealt with strategically.
  Opening the negotiation by discussing your power to coerce the other party to concede may
result in a short negotiation if your power is credible and the other negotiator conceded.
 Usually lead to a distributive agreement and potentially can result in a desire for revenge or
the creation of future disputes

Interest Frames

 People are often concerned with what they need, desire or want.
 Negotiators focus on interests when route to solution is unclear and they seek a mutually
satisfying outcome
 can be affected by power and, to a lesser extent right.
 Parties try to learn each other’s underlying needs, desires and concerns and find ways of
reconciling them in the construction of an agreement.
 Provides an opportunity to learn about the party's common concerns, priorities and
preferences which are necessary for the construction of an integrative or mutually beneficial
agreement that creates values for parties

 Question: which frame is most advantageous to have in your favour.  Examples?  Making a
purchase  Social situations  Politics

Distributive Bargaining
 Competitive bargaining strategy in which one party gains only if the other party loses
something. It is used as a negotiation strategy to distribute fixed resources such as money,
resources, assets, etc. between both the parties.
 Also called zero sum negotiations because the assets or the resources which need to be
distributive are fixed and limited
 Used when the objective is short term, and not relationship oriented
 The aim is not to come to a win-win kind of situation but that one side wins as much they
can. Both parties will try to get the maximum share from the asset or resource which needs
to be distributed.
 Some negotiators use unscrupulous tactics in that type of situation and may become
secretive, manipulative, punitive or deceptive. An adversarial approach to negotiations can
lead to less-than-optimum outcomes. Both parties could, for example, withhold information
that would benefit the other party, resulting in a less favourable outcome than might
otherwise be possible.

Some people may adopt aggressive, coercive, threatening and/or deceptive techniques, this
is known as a hard negotiation style, a theoretical example of this is adversarial approach
style negotiation.
 Others may employ a soft style, which is friendly, trusting, compromising, and conflict
avoiding. According to Fisher and Ury, when hard negotiators meet soft negotiators, the
hard negotiators usually win their position, but at the cost of potentially damaging the long-
term relationship between the parties.

Having a great batna can help you get a bigger slice of the pie

BATNA- Best Alternative to a Negotiated agreement

 What you’ll do if you don’t reach your goal in current negotiations

  Critical to negotiations because you cannot make a wise decision about whether to accept a
negotiated agreement unless you know what your alternatives are.
 If you know you have a good alternative, you don’t need to concede as much. You can push
the other side harder
 Key focus and the driving force between a successful negotiator
 Should not accept a worse resolution than its BATNA
 Improve your BATNA by perhaps pursuing several negotiations at the same time

Reservation Point

 The figures that indicates you are indifferent between accepting the deal you’ve negotiated
and instead turning to your BATNA.
 Important to determine your reservation point before you negotiate as there is a good
chance your counterpart will try to convince you to accept less than you should.
 When you know your reservation point in advance and keep it at the forefront of your mind,
you will be less likely to cave into unreasonable demands

THEFT AND FRAUD OFFENCES ACT 2001

 Prevent negotiators to obtaining services, making gains or causes loss by deception

 Breaches of this act can result in a fine or imprisonment

Integrative Bargaining
 Aka interest-based bargaining/win-win bargaining
 parties collaborate to find a "win-win" solution to their dispute
 This strategy focuses on developing mutually beneficial agreements based on the interests
of the disputants.
 Interests include the needs, desires, concerns, and fears important to each side. They are
the underlying reasons why people become involved in a conflict.
 More gratifying for all involved in negotiation, as the true needs and concerns of both sides
will be met to some degree. It is a collaborative process and therefore the parties end up
helping each other. This prevents ongoing ill will after the negotiation concludes. Instead,
interest-based bargaining facilitates constructive, positive relationships between previous
adversaries.