For the Sake of the Team: Unity and Disunity in a Multiparty Major League Baseball Negotiation

"Divide and conquer" is a well-known expression although the literature on distributive negotiation offers little theory in support of this technique. This article develops theory to explain increases or decreases in unity and disunity among negotiation groups comprising multiple parties in organizational settings. Specifically, this study analyzes the negotiations surrounding the purchase of the Seattle Mariners baseball team in 1992 by a group that included Japanese investors. The study identifies reframing as a technique that can be used strategically to create disunity between cooperating parties on the same side in a negotiation. This article also develops a theory about techniques that can enhance unity between cooperating parties and can protect against disunity that may be generated by the opposition. Dividing and unifying techniques are both components of a larger negotiation theory that seeks to evaluate actions designed to affect the degree of unity between parties working together in distributive settings.     

Market Failure and Non-Standard Contracting: How the Ghost of Perfect Competition Still Haunts Antitrust

Modern antitrust policy has a ‘love hate’ relationshipwith non-standard contracts that can overcome market failure.On the one hand, courts have abandoned various per se rulesthat once condemned such agreements outright, concluding thatmany non-standard contracts may produce benefits that are cognizableunder the antitrust laws.¹ The prospect of such benefits, itis said, compels courts to analyze these agreements under theRule of Reason, under which the tribunal determines whethera given restraint enhances or destroys competition.² At thesame time, courts, scholars, and the enforcement agencies haveembraced methods of rule of reason analysis that are undulyhostile to such agreements.³ In particular, courts and othersare too quick to view such agreements and the market outcomesthey produce as manifestations of market power. This articleseeks to explain why these agreements are still the object ofundue hostility.