Bargaining theory

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Negotiation theory ( English negotiation research ) generally describes the theories and insights into the procedure, tactics and strategy in negotiations , the process by which individuals or groups negotiate business transactions or make working agreements. Negotiation theory has established itself as a separate research area over more than three decades at important business schools. There is not one theory, but different approaches and research directions.

history

Negotiations since the prehistoric times of mankind out. Children negotiate with parents about the duration of television viewing, trade unions with employers about wages , customers with suppliers about delivery times and much more.

Negotiation theories have their scientific origin in the mathematical analysis of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, which led to the findings of John Nash . The negotiation theory according to Mara Olekalns and Wendi L. Adair was established as an independent research direction through the publication of only three books. these are

Game theory approaches

Game theory has been the dominant paradigm for negotiation theory for about 50 years . The prisoner's dilemma was considered the preferred method of investigation and Robert Axelrod's Tit for Tat emerged as one of the strongest strategy developments. Game theory relies on assumptions that are not always observed in the real world. These are:

  1. Players are always rational.
    1. Players try to maximize their profit / benefit
    2. Players accept the highest win
    3. Players only accept solutions at their loss limit or better.
    4. Players know the "rules of the game"
    5. Players start from the premise that all other parties are completely rational as well.
  2. The number of players is fixed and known to all parties.
  3. Each party recognizes the options available and develops clear, unchanging preferences between those options.
  4. Each party knows the options and preferences of the other parties or can at least assess them.
  5. Communication is limited, tightly controlled, or not relevant to the conflict / negotiation.
  6. A decision is possible and will come at a mutually acceptable point.

Psychological approaches

In psychological negotiation research, one can differentiate between the cognitive and the motivational approaches. Other approaches, such as the self-regulation approach, were hardly reflected.

Negotiation research enjoyed great popularity in the social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s . This got lost in the cognitive turnaround of the late 1970s, only to experience a boom in the 1980s and 1990s . Many of the advances are based on the behavioral explanation of decision theory . In the late 1990s there were calls for the social impact to be brought back into focus.

In the early stages of this research, researchers focused on the individual traits and characteristics of negotiators and the situational factors of the negotiation. None of these factors was able to explain significant differences in the negotiation process or in the outcome of the negotiations. The situational factors examined, for example electorate, performance incentives and rewards , power , deadline pressure , the number of negotiators on both sides or the presence of witnesses at the negotiation could not explain any significant differences. All in all, these research approaches suffered from various conceptual problems that prevented a solution to the problem.

Research from the 1980s to the 1990s focused heavily on behavioral foundations. More interactions between prescriptive and descriptive researchers led to an improvement in the decision-making perspective.

Cognitive approaches

Negotiating situations require participants to make complex decisions on an ongoing basis, the content of which influences the further course of the negotiations. The significance of many of these decisions are not known at the time of the decision (see Limited Rationality ) and the consequences cannot be fully assessed. The topics of cognitive negotiation research are therefore: Which information processes (reception, processing, decision, communication) play a role before, during and after the negotiation? The anticipated realization is that the deficiencies in the various processes and process chains cannot lead to optimal results.

When dealing with this situation, people resort to simplifications, i.e. cognitive scripts , heuristics, or similar processes that enable them to cope with the situation. This restriction to known procedures in turn leads to a limitation of the possibilities, also known as cognitive barriers. Such barriers have been addressed by various researchers, for example:

In the most common simplification, the zero-sum assumption, many negotiators assume that the parties' goals are opposing and mutually exclusive.

literature

  • Mara Olekalns and Wendi L. Adair (Eds.): Handbook of Research on Negotiation

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harvard Law School's Negotiation Glossary ; Retrieved November 20, 2016.
  2. ^ A b Leigh L. Thompson (2006) Negotiation Theory and Research - Frontiers of Social Psychology ; Psychology Press, 2006; ISBN 978-1-135-42352-0 ; Page 1 ff.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Roman Trötschel and Peter M. Gollwitzer (2004) Negotiation - psychological basics . In: War and Peace - Handbook of Conflict and Peace Psychology . Weinheim: Beltz, pp. 116-128.
  4. ↑ Mara Olekalns and Wendi L. Adair (2013) The Complexity of Negotiating: From the Individual to the Context, and what lies between in Mara Olekalns and Wendi L. Adair (editors) Handbook of Research on Negotiation ; 1st chapter; ISBN 978-1-78100-589-7 ; doi: 10.4337 / 9781781005903 .
  5. ^ A b c Greg Walker: Fundamentals of Game Theory and Negotiation. Gregg Walker, Dept. of Speech Communication, Oregon State University. In: Oregon State University website. Retrieved October 13, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Robert Axelrod: The evolution of cooperation . 7th edition. Oldenbourg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-59172-9 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Max H. Bazerman, Jared R. Curhan, Don A. Moore, and Kathleen L. Valley (2000) Negotiation ; Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2000. 51: 279-314.