Adrian Borbély & Andrea Caputo, The Organization as Negotiator, in Negotiation
Desk Reference (Christopher Honeyman & Andrea Schneider eds., forthcoming).
Draft – Please do not quote or cite without permission.
Most of the literature on business negotiation (and the largest part of this volume)
focuses on how individuals negotiate, how they prepare, whether they negotiate
individually or in teams, and how they act and interact at the negotiating table. A deep
understanding of those human behavior processes is indeed crucial for a sound
comprehension of negotiation. However, the larger picture of negotiations taking place
within and around an organization can be lost if we focus too much attention on fine
detail. We attempt to provide an overview of that picture in this chapter.
Quite often, during negotiation courses and trainings, top executives ask, “How
do I make my business better at negotiating?” Accordingly, we hope with this chapter to
construct a coherent response to this kind of question, which arises from the “real” world
and which the academic literature has not yet answered. Indeed, we will question the
motto that “organizations do not negotiate but individuals do,” instead arguing that
negotiation can and should be considered as a capability at the organizational level.
The usual response to that question is given as: “train your key personnel, those
people directly involved with negotiation.” Since negotiation training and continuing
negotiation practice offer a nearly unlimited learning curve to mindful individuals, further
coaching may be suggested, in order to translate classroom skills into the field. However,
the initial question calls for a more insightful answer, which requires an integrated
1
perspective that would fill the disciplinary gap between negotiation and management as
we know it.
Acknowledging Different Perspectives on Negotiation
We opt for a wide definition of negotiation that encompasses all forms of joint
human decisions (Zartman 1977), which include the obvious, visible negotiations (sales
and purchasing, collective and individual employment relations, etc.) as well as the more
ordinary, everyday negotiations that occupy most of every manager’s time in every
organization.
Broadly speaking, research has taken two main approaches to the study of
negotiation (Stimec 2014). Currently, the most widely-used one is the micro-level, or
behavioral one, which looks, usually through the prism of organizational psychology, at
the human interactions in and around the negotiation table, with little concern for what is
being negotiated. A second approach, the contextual one, focuses on particular types of
negotiations and their specific contingencies. The problem, however, is that the specifics
of the behavioral approach are taken as a given, a sort of black box, for the contextual
approach – and vice versa. This has led to a plea for a third approach, which would cover
both the behavioral and the contextual aspects of negotiation. Such an “integrated”
approach has been suggested by William Zartman (1988) and combines behaviors and
processes in the context of specific negotiations; to serve its premises, this approach
relies mostly on case studies from the geopolitical arena. Although its characteristics
would easily allow for an application to business contexts, this has not yet happened;
2
Zartman’s approach has received limited attention from those studying organizational or
business negotiations.
Our contribution aims to look, from a theoretical and methodological standpoint,
at what such an integrated approach in organizational settings would look like, and how it
would enhance our understanding of negotiation as it is actually experienced by
practitioners. We begin by describing three possible macro perspectives on negotiation,
each of which will take a wider perspective than the last. First is the study of negotiation
linkages, i.e. “the way in which one discrete negotiation influences or determines the
process or outcome of another” (Crump 2010: 3). Grounding his work in international
relations cases, Larry Crump isolates different linkage mechanisms and makes the case
that such a wider, more strategic approach to negotiation may offer a better perspective
on complex situations and allow us to better understand the players' full interests and
available strategies.
A second, wider lens is offered by Arnaud Stimec, a French researcher on
negotiation and mediation from Sciences Po Rennes. He suggests an infrastructure
approach to negotiation within the organization, which would require researchers to
bridge the micro and contextual approaches outlined above. In terms of methodology, this
means observing behaviors in real-life, instead of laboratory settings. By mixing
negotiation theory with organizational theories, the objective would be to draft guidelines
for action through an understanding of negotiation’s systems effects and reflectiveness in
negotiation steering and results. That is: looking at how the organization manages its
different negotiations (including its informal ones), pools them together and tries to
derive performance from this whole. In doing so, Stimec sets an agenda for research that
3
“deals not only with the characterization of the observed negotiations and the level of
regulation at play but looks deep into the system’s ability to articulate the different
negotiations within an infrastructure that could be in part thought and formalized, in part
tacit or empirical” (translated from Stimec 2014: 210).
Following this line of thought, more work is being done which focuses on
whether organizations develop their own signature way of negotiating. A pattern in the
organizations’ behavior is shown across different studies, in particular with reference to
contract negotiations (Lee et al. 1998; Luo 1999; Luo and Shenkar 2002). Recent works
on institutional practices help us to understand the dimensions of organizations’ behavior
in negotiations (Helms et al. 2012; Helfen and Sydow 2013). If we think about unions,
public agencies or NGOs, their negotiation strategies are broadly consistent despite
changes in negotiating teams, showing some form of institutional movement behind
individual practices. In addition to converging interests, there appears to be an imprinting
of the organizational culture on negotiating (Sydow, Schreyögg and Koch 2009). Certain
patterns may create coherence among organizational negotiation practices; however, this
remains to be formally documented in research. Nonetheless, as for example with the
U.S. Government's well-known statement that “we do not negotiate with terrorists,” we
can often identify a sort of negotiating culture in organizations.
The third level takes an even wider perspective, by treating negotiations from a
systematic viewpoint. This requires acknowledging the reciprocal relationship between
an organization’s strategy and its negotiation practices. In what follows, we will suggest
ways to examine the different processes through which (1) strategy may impact
4
negotiation practices and (2) negotiations may influence the way strategy is defined and
implemented. Here, regrettably, research is scarce in both directions.
Certain key variables in strategy formation may impact conflict-proneness and
negotiated relationships between headquarters and foreign subsidiaries; for example, if
subsidiaries are given increased autonomy to adapt to their local context, this creates
avenues for internal negotiations and decreases the level of conflict with headquarters
(Pahl and Roth, 1993). Similarly, some strategic decisions taken at the centralized level
(e.g. recourse to complex outsourcing contracts) give the organization structured and
clearly identifiable ways to negotiate with their external stakeholders (Quélin and
Duhamel 2003). Also similarly, the strategic positioning of the company (e.g. as a leader
in its market) dictates the behavior of its agents at different negotiation tables; for
example, when a leading company opts for a cost-killing strategy, this necessarily
translates at diverse negotiation tables into hard-bargaining tactics on the financials
(Borbély 2014).
Conversely, negotiation also plays an influential role in strategy formation. If we
examine this process through the top-down model of strategy making, several studies
have clearly shown the relationship (e.g. Amason and Schweiger 1997; Elbanna Ali and
Dayan 2011; Parayitam and Dooley 2011). Such a stream of research considers strategy
as a top-down phenomenon, with leaders defining strategy in formal settings, often
behind closed doors. In these settings, when conflict arises, it may affect the strategic
decision making process. If, however, we use the emergent model of strategy, which
posits that strategy emerges from practices and human interactions at all levels of the
organization (Mintzberg 1978), this suggests that social dialogue, employee participation,
5
and negotiation culture within an organization will all strongly impact strategy
formulation and implementation. In any case, very little research has looked beyond
certain negotiations of strategic importance to study how negotiation can and should be
nurtured from a strategic point of view.
Negotiation as Organizational Capability
To justify efforts towards a negotiation infrastructure within an organization, one
first needs to recognize that negotiations taken as a whole may provide a comparative
advantage to the organization and, consequently, that negotiation should be approached,
at the organizational level, as a capability.
Our discussion thus far suggests that organizations should look at negotiation
from a systemic perspective, in order to reap its full benefits. Consider several
organizations supplying similar products (goods or services) to the same market: the one
that negotiates best with internal and external stakeholders will undoubtedly take the
lead. All other things being equal, negotiation, especially when considered at the
organizational level, needs to be perceived as a source of performance and growth,
supporting competitive advantage. Negotiation is therefore linked with performance, an
idea congruent with the strategy literature, in particular the Resource-Based View of the
firm (RBV).
As one of the dominant theories in business, RBV seeks to understand how
competitive advantage is created and sustained over time, by focusing on the internal
organization of firms, rather than placing the focus on the firm’s positioning in its market.
6
Competitive advantage can be achieved and sustained if the firm possesses, through
development or acquisition, resources that are valuable, inimitable, rare, and nonsubstitutable (e.g. Wernerfelt 1984). RBV therefore posits that organizations own a
unique set of resources and capabilities, the latter being defined as their ability to deploy
the former in the most productive wayi.
The RBV literature stresses the notion of human capital (Schultz 1961), which, in
negotiation terms, leads to the idea of “relational capital”, defined as “the set of all
relationships – market relationships, power relationships and cooperation – established
between firms, institutions and people that stem from a strong sense of belonging and a
highly developed capacity of cooperation typical of culturally similar people and
institutions” (Welbourne and Pardo-del-Val 2009: 486 citing Capello and Faggian 2005).
Following this reasoning, the fruit of successful negotiations is defined as part of the
firm’s capital, thereby stressing negotiation’s potential impact on the organization’s
performance. This applies to commercial negotiations (sales and purchasing) but also to
the organization’s ability to regulate its internal relationships through negotiation, from
the work floor (unions) to the board’s table (strategy). Well-managed ongoing negotiated
relationships, such as an innovative collective agreement with the workforce or an
influential lobbying relationship with the regulator, are therefore assets for an
organization.
Recognizing negotiation as a capability does not seem to conflict with the
literature, which, in particular, provides cases in which organizations’ negotiation and
conflict management abilities protect them from adverse aspects of their environment. As
an example, doing business in fragile, war-torn areas of the world requires specific skills,
7
in order to be accepted by the local communities and shielded from the consequences of
local conflicts (Ganson 2014). Similarly, contexts of intractable labor conflict may
prevent organizations from efficiently doing business, or even making key decisions. A
recent example may be found in the deadlock at Air France, the French national air
carrier, in September 2014: the board’s plan to develop a Europe-wide low cost airline,
described as the only way to address competition, was stalemated because of failed
negotiations with the pilot unions (Clark 2014).
Few companies exemplify the recourse to negotiation to further their competitive
advantage better than Ryanair, the Irish low cost airline (Borbély 2014). For the first
decade and a half of our century, Ryanair has managed to leverage its ultra-low fare
positioning in the highly competitive European air travel market with spectacular
financial results. To achieve this, it relies on a thorough cost-killing approach, which goes
beyond its operations to negotiation with its key stakeholders. By leveraging its market
domination, the company has proven able to capture much value in its negotiations with
customers, employees, aircraft manufacturers and regional airport operators. As an
example of their success in negotiation, some airports pay Ryanair a “marketing fee” to
serve them, rather than the more common agreement in which the airport collects a
landing fee from each airline. Such arrangements alone are said to generate more revenue
every year than the airline’s published yearly profits (Borbély, 2014). If this proves true,
it means that Ryanair actually loses money on their air operations, making the results of
their negotiations all the more central to the company’s performance., Ryanair has built
its business success on an ultra-hard-bargaining stance, often equated to a “take-it-orleave-it” approach, which it applies to all its stakeholders: customers and staff are
8
explicitly told to go to the competition if they are not satisfied. It uses a similar approach
toward the all-powerful airplane manufacturers, Airbus and Boeing: the case study shows
how, facing extreme demands regarding discount prices, Airbus has decided not to deal
with Ryanair despite well-engaged discussions in 2003, while Boeing has. Ryanair got
cheap deals on its fleet, in part because they placed their two last giant orders for 737s in
times of hardship for Boeing, i.e. when Boeing had a poor BATNA (in the midst of the
moribund, post 9/11 aircraft market in 2003, and during the 787 Dreamliner “teething
troubles” in 2013) (Borbély, 2014). We can therefore identify idiosyncratic processes of
negotiation within this airline which stand at the root of its financial performance. The
example of Ryanair shows that an organization may negotiate in a consistent manner,
regardless of the agent sent to the table, the counterpart, the stakes, or the context of the
different negotiations. Thereby, organizations’ larger strategies have an imprint on daily
negotiation practices on the ground.
Daily negotiation behavior in a company is difficult to observe with either of the
classical methodological lenses used in negotiation research (behavioral or contextual),
requiring instead an integrated approach which unveils the ways that coherence is
created, maintained and exploited within an organization. Furthermore, organizational
studies may help us understand how organizations nurture good practices into a true
capability.
We were only able to locate two works in the literature which explicitly claim that
negotiation is an organization-wide capability. The first to argue in that direction was
Danny Ertel (1999); Hal Movius and Lawrence Susskind (2009: 5) followed ten years
later, providing support for the idea in the bluntest possible terms: “organizations that
9
look past negotiation as a core capability do so at their own peril”. From a negotiation
perspective, the idea that successful negotiations create value is thereby transposed from
the level of individual exchanges to the organizational level. The central question then
becomes: how can an organization drive the entirety of its negotiation practices so as to
secure competitive advantage? Research in organizational negotiations, and in
management as a whole, is surprisingly quiet on this point.
Growing Negotiation as an Organizational Capability
How can managers reap maximum value from the organization’s negotiation
practices? We believe that this requires some conscious, visible change efforts. Some
contextual aspects also play a role, as the way people negotiate depends on the
organization they serve; one explanation may therefore have to do with organizational
culture. Apart from the classical agency theory incentives argument (e.g. Pratt and
Zeckhauser 1985), we do not know how a specific negotiation culture naturally spreads
within an organization. A possible alternative explanation may have to do with strategy:
as the Ryanair case exemplifies (Borbély 2014), people negotiate based on their leaders’
strategic impulse and the resources and positioning of the organization they work for
(e.g., Bazerman, Magliozzi and Neale 1985; Appelt and Higgins 2010). For example, a
purchaser for Walmart does not negotiate in the same way as his equivalent at the local
food co-op; among other factors, it is easier (at least in theory) to negotiate for a powerful
company than for a small start-up. Comparing Ryanair with other successful negotiating
10
companies may lead to the emergence of a set of strategic features associated with better
negotiating practices.
Beyond these contextual elements, we suggest that business managers take steps
to cohesively structure their organization’s negotiation streams. By this, we mean a broad
management change and organizational structuring effort, designed to lead the company
to view negotiation from a systematic perspective, rather than, or in addition to,
individual negotiations taken individually. These steps must be grounded in reflections
about the negotiation performance of the organization, perhaps starting from one set of
issues in particular (sales, purchasing, employment relations, employee participation and
quality of life at work, etc.), or possibly taken from a global perspective. Following are
some ideas provided by the few existing sources on this issue.
In their 2009 book, Movius and Susskind offer a consulting approach, which
follows up on negotiation training and attempts to give trainees the tools to apply the
mutual gains method in their work. Their step-by-step method, which can either emanate
from the leadership (top-down) or individual negotiators (bottom-up), begins with a
diagnosis of current negotiation practices. Change efforts then focus on innovation
diffusion (tailor-made training programs, experiments, exchange of good practices, etc.);
adaptation of processes (especially negotiation preparation); and change of the incentive
structure. The final step in their method is the traditional ex-post assessment of the
change effort, in order to tackle persistent barriers.
Although published somewhat earlier than Movius and Susskind's book,
consultant Danny Ertel's 1999 Harvard Business Review article offers a more detailed
11
picture. He lists different mechanisms through which negotiations may be influenced
from an organizational perspective, in addition to the hiring, training, and retaining of
individual negotiators. He first explicitly invites managers to move away from a
situational to a more strategic and systematic approach to negotiation— i.e. they should
look at all negotiations simultaneously, instead of each negotiation individually. He
advocates coordinating all negotiations, rather than creating stricter rules and regulations,
or setting stricter mandates to negotiators. His advice may be categorized along the
following two lines.
First, Ertel suggests creating a negotiation infrastructure, which not only enables
people to share information, brainstorm, and exchange good practices, but motivates
people toward such coordination efforts. Setting aside the idea that each negotiation is
unique, such an infrastructure aims to provide negotiators with organizational support, by
standardizing processes, imposing some form of management control over negotiators,
and changing the way employees approach negotiation. This can lead to the creation of a
central database of all negotiations, to be used as a reference in one’s individual
negotiation efforts.
Second, Ertel offers reflections about how to better incentivize negotiators to
make the organization’s negotiation efforts more efficient overall. This requires
modernizing negotiators’ key performance indicators to better align their remuneration
scheme with the objectives of the company. For example, instead of quantitative
successes (turnover, clients, etc.), negotiators may be evaluated on the quality of the
relationships they create, or the innovative character of their deals. When correctly
incentivized, negotiators may become less concerned with their immediate gain and work
12
harder toward long-standing business relationships; this may in particular help them quit
responding to relationship issues with concessions on the substance (e.g. discounts).
Furthermore, negotiators need to be reassured that it is fine for them to walk away when a
proposed deal does not fit with the organization’s interests. Finally, for coherence
purposes, Ertel insists that such efforts need to transcend organizational boundaries, be
applied by management, and be aligned with the company’s public relations efforts.
All of these consultants offer cases where successful management changes were
applied at the departmental or company level to align negotiation practices to better serve
the organization’s strategic objectives. Such structuring changes are directed by
management and aim to increase overall negotiation outcomes on a company-wide basis,
rather than individual negotiations, so that negotiation best serves the organization’s
strategic objectives.
At this point, three remarks appear necessary. First, neither source claims to be
comprehensive. They provide examples and methods to increase efficiency, without
aiming to cover the entire field. Second, their methodology is experiential. They do not
provide empirical support for their central argument that a negotiation infrastructure
makes the organization more efficient overall. Finally, neither source was able to observe
more than a handful of organizations which had actually implemented the methods that
they recommend. Their contribution is therefore a basis upon which to begin to build a
global understanding of the diffusion of negotiation within organizations; but this work
remains to be done.
Taking Negotiation to the Organizational Level
13
So how do we go from training better negotiators to ensuring that the organization
as a whole negotiates more efficiently? In other words, how do we ensure that negotiation
serves its role in fulfilling the organization’s strategy and reaching its objectives?
Approaching the question from this angle can permit us to merge fundamental
negotiation theories (as discussed in other sections of this volume) with research on sales
management, dispute resolution systems design, social dialogue, happiness at work
(which largely deals with “invisible” everyday negotiations), and corporate strategy.
We recommend that these efforts begin with an attempt to determine whether
various companies consider negotiation as anything more than an individual skill to
nurture among their employees. We need to know how companies structure their
negotiation efforts, whether along the lines suggested by Ertel (1999) and Movius and
Susskind (2009), or through other methods. We should also carefully define “efficient
negotiation processes” by identifying and mapping the different processes and settings of
negotiation throughout the organization, in a systematic way, such that interorganizational and cross-cultural comparative studies are made possible. This also
mandates the establishment of efficiency indicators, either on a longitudinal basis, or as
rigorous, cross-sectional dependent variables.
Whether we follow Henry Mintzberg (1978) with his idea of “emerging strategy”,
or we approach strategy formulation as a top-down phenomenon, strategy needs to be
diffused within and around the organization, in part through negotiation among different
actors and stakeholders. One may therefore hypothesize that, across the board, the
efficiency of such negotiations will positively impact the success of the strategy, and
therefore the organization’s performance. If we postulate that organizations that negotiate
14
better perform better, can we justify this with empirical data? This will require us to use
the existing performance indicators for strategy (or create new ones) and build the
appropriate key performance indicators for negotiation. It will also mandate a careful
look for (possibly numerous) exogenous factors that may mediate the relationship
between negotiation and strategy.
The way people negotiate within an organization may impact its strategy in terms
of how well that strategy is implemented, but also in other ways. For example, one may
also hypothesize whether efficient negotiation practices, consistently applied throughout
the organization, lead to less conservative, more entrepreneurial strategy formulation,
with more risk-taking and innovative potential. The Ryanair example seems to suggest
this: companies that perform persistently well in negotiations may be able to set, and
reach, more ambitious objectives. A structured approach to negotiation at all levels of the
organization may profoundly impact its culture, for example through employee
participation processes and collective feedback on negotiation practices, which may in
turn lead to more creative strategy ideas.
A systematic map of different organizational practices regarding negotiation may
enable us to isolate best practices. Some structuring efforts may work, others may not and
some may only work in certain circumstances. Ertel suggests giving more freedom to
negotiators and incentivizing them to search for creative deals. This may work for some
functions of the firm or in certain industries, and prove non-productive in others.
A structured approach to negotiation practices does not have to follow the
organization chart. Often, the cases showcased by the different sources talk about
15
purchasing, sales, human resources, or strategy formulation. Beyond helping specific
functions of the firm negotiate better, can a structured approach to negotiation help all
functions of the firm to achieve better results? We conclude that the coherence of
negotiation practices across the various functions of the firm (one is tempted to use here
the word “negotiation culture”) may have a significant impact on overall performance.
Bibliography
Amason, A. C., and D. M. Schweiger. 1997. The Effects of Conflict on Strategic
Decision Making Effectiveness and Organizational. In Using Conflicts in
Organizations, edited by C. K. W. de Dreu and E. Van de Vliert. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Appelt, K. C. and E. T. Higgins. 2010. My Way: How Strategic Preferences Vary by
Negotiator Role and Regulatory Focus. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
46 (6): 1138-1142.
Bazerman, M. H., T. Magliozzi and M. A. Neale. 1985. Integrative Bargaining in a
Competitive Market. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 35:
294-313.
Borbély, A. 2014. Negotiations, Ryanair-Style. Case available at the case center
(www.thecasecenter.org), ref. 314-293-1.
Capello, R., and A. Faggian. 2005. Collective Learning and Relational Capital in Local
Innovation Processes. Regional studies 39(1): 75-87.
16
Clark, N. 2014 (29/09/2014). Air France, after Strikes, Faces New Uncertainty. The New
York Times.
Crump, L. 2010. Strategically Managing Negotiation Linkage Dynamics. Negotiation
and Conflict Management Research 3(1): 3-27.
Elbanna, S., A. J. Ali and M. Dayan. 2011. Conflict in Strategic Decision Making: do the
Setting and Environment Matter? International Journal of Conflict Management
22(3): 278-299.
Ertel, D. 1999. Turning Negotiation into a Corporate Capability. Harvard Business
Review 77: 55-71.
Ganson, B. 2014. Business in Fragile Environments: Capabilities for Conflict Prevention.
Negotiation and Conflict Management Research 7(2): 121-139.
Helfen, M., and J. Sydow. 2013. Negotiating as Institutional Work: The Case of Labour
Standards and International Framework Agreements. Organization Studies 34(8):
1073-1098.
Helms, W., C. Oliver and K. Webb. 2012. Antecedents of Settlement on a New
Institutional Practice: Negotiation of the ISO 26000 Standard on Social
Responsibility. Academy of Management Journal 55(5): 1120-1145.
Hine, D., R. Parker, L. Pregelj and M. L. Verreynne. 2014. Deconstructing and
Reconstructing the Capability Hierarchy. Industrial and Corporate Change 23(5):
1299-1325.
Jemison, D. B. and S. B. Sitkin. 1986. Corporate Acquisitions: A Process Perspective.
Academy of Management Review 11(1): 145-163.
17
Lee, J. R., W. R. Chen and C. Kao. 1998. Bargaining Power and the Trade-Off between
the Ownership and Control of International Joint Ventures in China. Journal of
International Management 4(4): 353-385.
Luo, Y. 1999. Toward a Conceptual Framework of International Joint Venture
Negotiations. Journal of International Management 5(2): 141-165.
Luo, Y. and O. Shenkar. 2002. An Empirical Inquiry of Negotiation Effects in CrossCultural Joint Ventures. Journal of International Management 8(2): 141-162.
Mintzberg, H. 1978. Patterns in Strategy Formation. Management Science 24(9): 934948.
Movius, H. and L. Susskind, L. 2013. Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiating
Organization. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Pahl, J. M., and K. Roth. 1993. Managing the Headquarters-Foreign Subsidiary
Relationship: the Roles of Strategy, Conflict, and Integration. International Journal
of Conflict Management 4(2): 139-165.
Parayitam, S., and R. S. Dooley. 2011. Is too much Cognitive Conflict in Strategic
Decision-Making Teams too bad? International Journal of Conflict Management
22(4): 342-357.
Quélin, B., and F. Duhamel. 2003. Bringing Together Strategic Outsourcing and
Corporate Strategy:: Outsourcing Motives and Risks. European Management
Journal 21(5): 647-661.
Schultz, T. W. 1961. Investment in Human Capital. The American Economic Review
51(1): 1-17.
18
Stimec, A. 2014. Vers une Ingénierie des Négociations dans les Organisations.
Recherches en Sciences de Gestion 102: 95-212.
Sydow, J., G. Schreyögg and J. Koch. 2009. Organizational Path Dependence: Opening
the Black Box. Academy of Management Review 34(4): 689-709.
Welbourne, T. M., and M. Pardo-del-Val. 2009. Relational Capital: Strategic Advantage
for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises (SMEs) through Negotiation and
Collaboration. Group Decision and Negotiation 18(5): 483-497.
Wernerfelt, B. 1984. A Resource‐Based View of the Firm. Strategic Management
Journal 5(2): 171-180.
Zartman, I. W. 1977. Negotiation as a Joint Decision-Making Process. Journal of
Conflict Resolution 21(4): 619-638.
Zartman, I. W. 1988. Common Elements in the Analysis of the Negotiation Process.
Negotiation Journal 4(1): 31-43.
i
It is worth noting that the strategy literature hosts numerous conceptual debates around the notion of
capability, which is often characterized by an adjective such as “dynamic”, “strategic”, “competitive” or
simply “corporate” or “firm”. We do not wish to enter the debate about what type of capability best suits
negotiation, as it is highly technical and beyond the point we are making here. For a deeper understanding
please see Hine, Parker, Pregelj and Verreynne (2014).
19