Distributive and Integrative Approaches to Bargaining (Negotiation)

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Distributive and Integrative Approaches to Bargaining Distributive patterns, analysis and paradigms of negotiation behaviour (and training) are concerned with ways of getting ‘more of the pie’. Taking the standard American eight slice pizza; distributive bargainers set out to gain as many slices for themselves as possible. This essentially means that if they take four slices, four are left for the other party. If they manage to scoop a fifth slice, then this extra slice has to come out of the other party’s share - so one side’s gains are the other side’s losses and it becomes a zero sum game. Distributive bargainers exhibit the following implicit assumptions:negotiations are seen as ‘one-off’ contests; you seek to ‘win’ by dominating the other party; more for you usually means less for them (which is their problem, not yours); negotiations are concerned with bluffs, ploys, ‘dirty tricks’ and even coercion; getting something for nothing. Integrative bargainers (and their negotiation training methods) attempt to look at the pizza from the perspective of joint problem solving, and seek to find ways of ‘enlarging’ it. The following example illustrates the integrative bargainer’s approach: Two people are about to make lunch. There is one orange. One person needs “all of it” to prepare twelve desserts for guests she has invited over later that afternoon, the other person wishes to have the entire orange immediately with his sandwich. The integrative bargainer looks to delve deeper into the situation and find ways to ‘enlarge the pie’ (or in this case the orange) for everyone concerned. In this case it turns out that the person making the desserts wants the orange for its peel to garnish the desserts she’s making for her friends, and the sandwich eater wanted the orange for its juice as a drink. Both sides can therefore get 100% of what they want, which is a better

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