The Things Negotiators Do With Money

Deal-making negotiations, in the minds of most people, center on theamount of money that is involved in a transaction. However, the timing ofa money transfer, the different methods of payment, and the addition ofother parties to a negotiation are all factors that sometimes are just asimportant as the amount of the transaction. The author uses case examplesfrom a variety of recent negotiations to illustrate some of the ways thatthe who, when, and how of a deal can have significant impact on a negotiationprocess.     

Negotiation: The Chinese Concept

It is no understatement to say that negotiation activity has skyrocketed in China in recent years; however, these negotiations are frequently unsatisfactory. Part of the reason for this lack of success is that Chinese people have a conception of negotiation that is fundamentally different from that of people in the West. Based on extensive interviews with Chinese and non-Chinese negotiators over a period of five years, the author explains the Chinese approach by using two metaphors: mobile warfare and the joint quest. Understanding this approach has significant implications for negotiation practice.     

Groundhog Day: Teach it Again...and Again.

The problem of teaching the same negotiation class again and again, yet remaining fresh and spontaneous, is a dilemma familiar to academics. The situation is akin to that of characters in the movie, Groundhog Day, living the same 24 hours over and over, trying to get things just right. This article reflects on this problem, and offers some advice.     

New Problem-Solving Scholarship: An Historical Tale with a Happy Ending

The teaching of negotiation in law, business, and other professional schools has greatly increased over the last quarter-century. The author sets the stage for a review of two negotiation texts and an educational video by opening with an historical overview of the development of negotiation pedagogy, which has been informed by scholars from many different academic disciplines. Teaching negotiation in law schools (which have a long tradition of the case method style of teaching, which often encourages an energetic but adversarial approach to problem solving) is still relatively new. The two texts and the educational video examined in this essay offer lessons in a wide angle approach to negotiation, which includes (among many other useful topics): ideas fundamental to theory and practice; social and emotional considerations; the role of cultural and gender difference; relationships between principals and representatives; differences among various types of ADR; and applications of various forms of negotiation in many different contexts.     

Ready for Prime Time: The When,Who, and Why of International Mediation

Most of the literature on international dispute resolution emphasizes timing and ripeness when considering whether or not a dispute is suitable for mediation. In addition to this focus, the authors believe analysts should consider whether a particular mediator is ready for prime time. Their framework posits that one may gauge the appropriateness of a mediator for a particular dispute along three different types of considerations: operational and political; strategic and diplomatic; and relationship and cultural fit. They provide numerous case examples illustrating how the choice of a mediator might apply in each dimension.     

The Ombudsman: What's in a Name?

The role of the ombudsman is perhaps the least well understood inthe field of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). This essay introducesreaders to the differing conceptions of the role; the sometimes fractiousdivide that has existed in the past between classical andorganizational ombudsmen; and a collection of essays by four well-known practitioners that shed lighton what it is ombudsmen do; the kinds of disputes they deal with and howthey operate; how they view their role (and how others view it); and boththe possibilities and limitations of the ombuds function.     

Crafting the language of consensus

Conclusion In summary, the consensus process provides a necessary set of procedures and standards that provide the essential foundation for reaching mutually supported settlement of disputes. Adjudicatory or voting processes are antithetical to the very nature of the consensus process. When voting takes place, winners and losers are explicitly defined. This can lead to lessened support for implementation of solutions—and even to the losers preferring that implementation fail.As with any other processes, consensus-based processes can—and, at times, should—fail. Where consensus fails, participants will have recourse to other alternatives for making decisions, including administrative, legal, and political forums, the alternative forums which provided the impetus for disputing parties to seek mutually agreeable solutions through a consensus process. Gerald W. Cormick is a mediator specializing in public policy dispute settlement and a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate school of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. His mailing address is 15629 Cascadian Way, Mill Creek, Wash. 98102.This column is based on materials developed by the author for the British Columbia Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, 8 April 1991.     

Trajectories Toward Peace: Mediator Sequencing Strategies in Intractable Communal Conflicts

The author identifies three distinct mediation sequencing strategies used in intractable communal conflicts: the gradualism model; a boulder-in-the-road approach; and the committee strategy. Using case examples of contemporary mediation efforts, he describes the three approaches and their advantages and disadvantages. A wider-angle approach to the differences in how mediators and conflicting parties achieve peace in these destructive conflicts is useful for both scholarly inquiry and practice.     

Caveats for Cross-Border Negotiators

Scholars and practitioners have detailed a number of ways that differences in national culture can affect bargaining behavior: from surface etiquette and protocol to deeper cultural characteristics and to systematic variations in decision making and governance. Such cross-national analysis can be quite useful but is prone to at least four hazardous fallacies described in this article and illustrated, in some cases, by probabilistic reasoning. Along with suggestions for avoiding them, these fallacies include: (1) The John Wayne v. Charlie Chan Fallacy (stereotyping); (2) The Rosetta Stone Fallacy (overattribution); (3) The Visual Flight Rules Fallacy (skewed perceptions and information processing); and (4) St. Augustine's Fallacy (When in Rome...).     

Supplemental Joint Brainstorming: Navigating Past the Perils of Traditional Bargaining

Though decision makers in many domains use bargaining as their primary approach to negotiation, it has limited efficacy in multi-issue, nonquantifiable transactions. Nevertheless, many negotiators use back-and-forth bargaining rather than other approaches. The author explicates reasons for this choice and describes supplemental joint brainstorming, an innovative strategy to supplement the institutionally-entrenched bargaining approach to negotiation with interest-based negotiation.     

Realizing the Potential of International Conflict Work: Connections Between Practice and Theory

The author reviews the insights of four expert practitioners of international conflict resolution, pointing out a common theme that signals a major shift in the way we conduct and conceive of international conflict intervention. In addition to traditional top-down interventions, leading conflict resolution practitioners are advocating a bottom-up approach, a complementary effort that includes development of conflict resolution potential among the parties themselves, without external imposition. This increased emphasis on the kinds of structures, understanding, and relationships that help to transform international conflict situations reflects the impact the developing field of conflict studies has had on practice.     

Fighting the wimp image: Why calls for negotiation often fall on deaf ears

Conclusion Must calls for war always dominate pleas for more serious negotiation? Not necessarily. But, if negotiation is to prevail, its advocates have to recognize which elements of their rhetoric sound weak and timid to others.Right after the routing of the Iraqis from Kuwait, the conventional wisdom was that American voters would repudiate those members of Congress who had argued for more negotiation — the surrender lobby, one belligerent called them. Iraq would teach elected officials not to talk of negotiation in the future. Now, barely a year from the start of hostilities, the verdict is not quite so clear. With Saddam still in power and the establishment of President Bush's new world order yet to be proven, opinion polls suggest that a growing number of Americans now regard the war as only a partial success. Public awareness of the costs of war, as well as its seeming benefits, can only be to the good, but apostles of negotiation should be careful not to read such numbers as vindication of their views. Skepticism about war still must be matched by some well-founded confidence in its alternative. Michael Wheeler is Director of the Undergraduate Program, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139. He is also Deputy Director of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.     

Sustained Dialogue in Managing Intractable Conflict

In the warn-torn new nation of Tajikistan, the author has been part of a five-stage dialogue for peace since 1993. The focus of the dialogue has been on transforming relationships and changing relationship dynamics so that this intractable conflict can be addressed positively. The author briefly describes this multilevel peace process both historically and substantively. He also discusses the continual process of evaluation of the Inter-Tajik dialogue effort as well as focuses on a series of questions that apply to intractable conflicts in general.     

Parallel informal negotiation: A new kind of international dialogue

Bargaining in the international arena is intrinsically positional. Negotiators are often instructed by their governments not to improvise or explore new options when they meet with their counterparts — even though the invention of additional tradeoffs or packages might well produce better results for all sides. This article describes an approach that we call parallel informal negotiation which encourages a collaborative effort between contending groups that were officially not even allowed to interact: international trade and environment policy makers.     

Scrolling Around the New Organization: The Potential for Conflict in the On-Line Environment

The technological revolution has created as many challenges as opportunities for managers in today's organizations. Besides wandering around to manage, scrolling around on a computer screen has become common-place. This article reviews four key technology-caused challenges facing managers in the workplace, chiefly as the result of communication via e-mail. Specifically, the author focuses on what research to date informs us about negotiation and conflict resolution in an electronic environment.     

Negotiating with Your Nemesis

The assumption that negotiators can and should eradicate emotions from negotiating is unrealistic. Instead, effective negotiators know how to handle emotional outbursts including how to respond when the other negotiator evokes their nemesis. A nemesis is the hidden part of ourselves that we project onto others who push our hot buttons. When emotions are intense, understanding the possibility that you may be giving or receiving a projection can help you sidestep escalatory behavior. This article explores the concept of the nemesis and offers practical steps for confronting it as well as responding to others' emotions at the negotiating table.     

Parasitic Integration: Win-Win Agreements Containing Losers

Parasitic integration involves agreements that are Pareto-superior for two or more of the negotiating parties, while being inferior for one or more of the remaining negotiating parties. The contrast between parasitic integration and integrative bargaining is highlighted. A taxonomy and examples of parasitic integration are provided, as well as linkages to specific areas in the negotiation literature.     

Stage Development Theory: A Natural Framework for Understanding the Mediation Process

Scholars and practitioners of mediation have generally paid little attention to the development of theoretical frameworks for understanding what is taking place in the mediation process. By borrowing from stages of adult psychological development theory (in this scheme, physical; hedonistic/impulsive; conformist/authority-seeking; rational/individualistic; and integrative), we can better understand some of the behaviors that people exhibit in mediation and perhaps find ways to help parties expand their behavioral repertoires so that new avenues for resolution appear to them. Using frequent examples from mediation practice, the author describes each stage, then assesses the limits and possibilities of relating this theoretical framework to mediation. She sees this juxtaposition of theory to practice not so much as a how to for mediation practice, but rather as a new window through which mediators can view mediation clients, the mediation process, and their own behavior in the mediation room.     

The Cairo Stories: Some Reflections on Conflict Resolution in Egypt

The author relates three cases of conflict which he has observed in Cairo and recognizes patterns that cut across each of these stories. The stories shed light on how people in Egypt approach and deal with conflict; in addition, they may help readers understand conflict in their home culture as well as be instructive on how to listen to conflict in different cultures. Six general themes in the way Egyptians approach or handle conflict are identified, and each of these themes is analyzed.     

Correspondences and Comparisons in International and Domestic Conflict Resolution

The eclectic field of conflict resolution is characterized by a constant interplay between practice and theory (to say nothing about varying interpretations of what practice and theory actually are or should be). The author raises a number of questions about how to develop and test theory; the significant role of context in theory generation; and a variety of themes or issues that can be explored to provide scholarly synthesis as well as guidance for the practitioner, in both domestic and international conflict situations.