We’ve seen that people whose sacred, or morally significant, values are threatened tend to react with strong emotions that make them uncompromising. In a new study published in Judgment and Decision Making, University of Southern California researchers Morteza Dehghani, Peter J. Carnevale, and Jonathan Gratch find that our counterparts’ emotions affect how cooperative we are … Read More

Given the frequency with which companies air their private grievances, there must be an upside to going public, right?

In fact, there are several.

First, once you’ve threatened to take your dispute public, following through demonstrates your willingness to stand by your words.

In addition, being in the spotlight can motivate both sides to address their differences with … Read More

In the business world, long-term loyalty to a CEO is supposed to be a good thing. For New England supermarket chain Market Basket, however, employees’ reverent appreciation for their former chief and co-owner, Arthur T. Demoulas, has proved to be destructive to the business in the short term, causing employee and customer protests as well … Read In Dispute Resolution, A Tale of Two Arthurs

To turn up the heat on opponents, negotiators sometimes advertise their grievances.

Here’s negotiation skills advice on when it’s a good idea to be vocal—and when to keep talks private.

The decision seemed nonsensical.

Early on the morning of March 7, 2010, with the Academy Awards telecast just hours away, the Walt Disney Company pulled the signal on … Read More

Most business negotiators understand that by working collaboratively with their counterparts while also advocating strongly on their own behalf, they can build agreements and longterm
relationships that benefit both sides.

During times of economic hardship, however, many negotiators abandon their commitment to cooperation and mutual gains.

Instead, they fall back on competitive tactics, threatening the other … Read How to Deal When the Going Gets Tough

During the past several years, one scandalous story of unethical behavior after another has made headlines: Countrywide’s and AIG’s risky business practices, trader Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged attempt to sell a U.S. Senate seat. As instances of people behaving badly proliferate, some commentators have wondered if we are … Read Negotiators: Guard Against Ethical Lapses

In the workplace, misunderstandings, power struggles, and stress can cause conflict to fester and take a toll on productivity. The best organizations put in place conflict management processes and systems to confront conflict directly. Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to do so—and suffer the consequences of sweeping conflict under the rug.
Take the case of Paradigm … Read At the Office, Conflict Management is Key

On June 19, Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a libertarian, teamed up with two liberal Democrats, Zoe Lofgren of California and Rush D. Holt of New Jersey, to push through an amendment that places new prohibitions on the National Security Agency and the CIA’s surveillance operations, including barring the agencies from engaging in warrantless … Read More

Adapted from “Coping with Culture at the Bargaining Table,” first published in the May 2009 issue of Negotiation.
Why we focus on culture
Why does concentrating on the other side’s culture lead to problems in negotiation? Consider that negotiators often focus too narrowly on the most obvious information about the task at hand. Such focusing failures lead negotiators to … Read Why We Focus on Culture in Negotiations

Adapted from “Coping with Culture at the Bargaining Table,” first published in the May 2009 issue of Negotiation.

Though intercultural negotiating schemas can be useful, negotiators often give too much weight to them, according to an article in the May issue of the journal Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, “Starting Out on the Right Foot: Negotiation Schemas When … Read More

On July 7, Eduard Shevardnadze, foreign minister to Mikhail Gorbachev and a driving force behind the perestroika era in Russia, died in his native Georgia at the age of 86.
In June 1985, Shevardnadze—then a lifelong Communist official with no diplomatic experience—was reportedly taken aback when his old friend Gorbachev asked him to take charge of … Read More