Reframing Best alternatives to negotiated agreements in Representative Negotiations in Sports

The paper starts with differentiating between the positional and interest-based negotiation styles for reaching the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). It outlines the main problems of positional bargaining and the role of agents in representative negotiations in sports. The paper aims at specifying negotiation styles and tactics/games that could produce optimal win-win solutions in sports. It focuses on the need of tactical flexibility, timing, collaboration, issue-linkage and leverage creation that could possibly reframe BATNAs for reaching mutual gain agreements and optimal win-win solutions. The paper aims is to propose solutions for reaching agreements in representative negotiations in sports. The methodology’s starting point is BATNA. The analytical framework includes both choosing the appropriate negotiation style (positional or interest-based) and tactics (negotiation games) to end up with a given strategy. Principled negotiation and mutual gain approach are suggested as solutions. The results of the analysis could be summarized in four categories. The first is the importance of considering the specifics of sports negotiations, especially the advantages and disadvantages of using agents as representatives. Here short versus long-term interests have to be weighed. The second is the advancement of issue linkages, creative alternatives for win-win solutions, leverage and appropriate bargaining style. The third is the focus on the process of reframing BATNAS as a process of evaluating alternatives, seeking leverage but maintaining credibility and flexibility. The fourth is the application of the mutual gain approach to expand the frontier of possibilities. Here the most important is the brainstorming session and the concept of the next best solution.

Theorizing Principled Collaboration

Interorganizational collaboration is often at the crux of making decisions that impact and are impacted by inherent tensions of the human experience. Many theoretical models and literature reviews conceptualize collaboration through a teleological lens where being "good" is tied to accomplishing the collaboration's goals. In this essay, we broaden the understanding of collaboration problematizing what is meant by a good outcome. We propose collaboration is a principled activity with associated processes and outcomes and advance three arguments. First, that collaboration when viewed as a principled activity changes our understanding of collaborative processes and the way we might evaluate collaborative outcomes. Second, that dialogue operates as "ethical practice" and is woven through communication in collaboration that facilitates principles such as legitimacy, accountability, and shared power. Third, a principled lens of collaboration further develops the principled negotiation process, problematizing so-called objective criteria for decision making. This essay begins by attending to certain principles associated with collaboration processes. We review the experience of communication in collaboration as being oriented toward dialogue, interests, conflict, consensus, and solutions. Building on the ways in which communication is oriented to in collaboration, we use an empirical example to posit the importance of conceptualizing and evaluating collaboration as principled. By directing attention to principles as an important component of collaboration, scholars are positioned to recognize useful responses and the implications of those responses for collaborating.

Fighting for Our Principles: Interests vs Values in Conflict Resolution

Recent events, especially in the realm of political negotiation, provide some evidence that ‘win-win’ negotiation may be going out of style. The undeniable success of some unabashedly win-lose dealmakers, in the US and elsewhere, should force us to reflect again on our own negotiation precepts, especially those in the win-win tradition of principled negotiation. How can it be that negotiators with questionable ethics have succeeded at least in the negotiation of becoming elected in several major countries? Are values no longer important, or at least the values that many of us hold dear? These negotiators certainly understand the concept of interests. The Harvard approach to negotiation famously differentiates between positions and interests, admonishing us to get beneath closed binary demands made by the opposing side in a negotiation and instead explore the interests underlying those demands, which are usually more personal, broader and more readily addressed once properly understood. These can then be pursued more effectively, leading to either a win-win or a win-lose result. In any case, they help us to seal the deal. At the same time, in his farewell speech, Barack Obama warned of a “buckling of democracy if we allow our values to weaken”. But just where do values fit into negotiation analysis? As a consequence, questions arise for those who study, teach and practice negotiation: How do we differentiate values from interests? And what strategies and tactics are needed when the conflict arises not from what people want but from their values – who they think they are? Are values ever negotiable? And what is the difference between negotiation and advocacy? This paper first seeks to establish clear definitions for some of these terms in order to contrast the dynamics of interest-based negotiation with those of value-based conflict. In that discussion, we also explore the consequences of disputes arising out of shared vs conflicting values, especially in interaction with interests. To understand the practical implications, I apply all of this to the particular case of a surprising successful negotiation around the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. Here was a seemingly intractable situation with highly ideological protagonists in conflict mode for a very long time. Yet somehow it turned out to be values as well as interests that yielded the seed of the solution. While many tricky issues remain, it is a fertile case for exploring not only the difference between negotiation and advocacy, but also the power within each when they can be combined successfully.