Chapter 9: Relationships in Negotiation

In this chapter you will learn about one major way that context affects negotiation is that people act within a relationship, and these relationships have a past, present, and future. Negotiators focus on the way these past and future relationships impact present negotiations.

Here are several ways that an existing relationship context changes negotiation dynamics:

-          Negotiating within relationships take place over time.

-          Negotiation is often not a way to discuss an issue, but a way to learn more about the other party and increase interdependence.

-          Resolution of simple distributive issues has implications for the future.

-          Distributive issues within relationship negotiations can be emotionally hot.

-          Negotiating within relationships may never end.

-          In many negotiations, the other person is the focal problem.

-          In some negotiations, relationship preservation is the overarching negotiation goal, and parties may make concessions on substantive issue to preserve or enhance the relationship.

Key Elements in Managing Negotiations within Relationships: Reputation, Trust, and Justice are three elements that become more critical and pronounced when they occur within a negotiation.
1. Reputation is a perceptual identity, reflective of the combination of salient personal characteristics and accomplishments, demonstrated behavior and intended images preserved over time, as observed directly and/or as reported from secondary sources.

2. Trust Danial McAllister defined the word trust as an individual’s belief in and willingness to act on the words, actions and decisions of another.

3. Justice Individuals in organizations often debate whether their pay is fair, whether they are being fairly treated, or whether the organization might be treating some group of people in an unfair manner.

This chapter we evaluated the status of previous negotiation research – which has focused almost exclusively on market-exchange relationships – and evaluated its status for different types of relationship, particularly communal-sharing and authority-ranking relationships.