Chapter 08
Finding and Using Negotiation Power
Overview
In this chapter,
we focus on power in negotiation. By power, we mean the capabilities negotiators can assemble to
give themselves an advantage or increase the probability of achieving their
objectives. All negotiators want power; they want to know what they can do to
put pressure on the other party, persuade the other to see it their way, get
the other to give them what they want, get one up on the other, or change the
other’s mind. The tactics of distributive bargaining and integrative
negotiation are leverage tactics—tactics used to exert influence over the other
party in the service of achieving the best deal for one or both parties.
Learning Objectives
1.
Why is power important to negotiators?
2.
A definition of power.
3.
Sources of power and how people acquire them.
4.
Dealing with others who have more power.
I.
Why is Power
Important to Negotiators?
A. Seeking power in negotiation usually arises from one of two
perceptions:
1. The negotiator
believes he or she currently has less power than the other party.
2.
The negotiator believes he or she needs more power
than
the other party to increase the probability of
securing a desired outcome.
B.
Embedded in these two beliefs are significant
questions of tactics and motives.
1.
Tactics may be designed to enhance the negotiator’s
own power or to diminish the other’s power, and to create a state of either
power equalization or power difference.
2.
The motive questions relate to why the negotiator is
using the tactics.
C.
Negotiators employ tactics designed to create power
equalization or minimize the other party’s ability to dominate the
relationship.
II. A Definition of Power
A.
There are two perspectives on power:
1.
Power used to dominate and control the other.
a) This power is
fundamentally dominating and coercive in nature. The receiver experiences this
power as powerless and dependence.
b) The dynamics of
this power relationship can range from benign and supportive to oppressive and
abusive.
2.
Power used to work together with the other.
a) The power holder
jointly develops and shares power with the other. The receiver experiences this
power as empowered and independent, and its dynamics
reflect the benefits of empowerment.
3.
Deutsch (1973) notes a tendency to view power as an
attribute of the actor only. This tendency ignores those elements of power that
are derived from the situation or context in which the actor operates.
4.
The effective use of power requires a sensitive and
deft touch, and its consequences may vary greatly from one person to the next.
5.
Not only do the key actors and targets change from
situation to situation, but the context in which the tools of power operate
changes as well. This only allows us to
identify a few key sources of power.
III. Sources of
Power – How People Acquire Power
A.
Raven (1959) identified five major types of power:
1.
Expert power.
2.
Reward power.
3.
Coercive power.
4.
Legitimate power.
5.
Referent power.
B.
The major sources of power are embedded into five
different groupings:
1.
Informational sources of power.
a) Information power is derived from the
negotiator’s ability to assemble and organize facts and data to support his or
her position, arguments, or desired outcomes.
b) The exchange of information in negotiation is
also at the heart of the concession-making process. A common definition of the situation emerges
and serves as a rationale for both sides to modify their positions and,
eventually, arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement.
c) Power derived from expertise is a special
form of information power. Expert power
is accorded to those who are seen as having achieved some level of command and
mastery of a body of information.
2.
Power based on personality and individual differences
a) Personal orientation – According to Deutsch
(1985, p. 74), “cognitive, motivational and moral orientations to a given
situation that serve to guide one’s behavior and responses to that situation.”
b) Cognitive orientation – According to Burrell
and Morgan (1979), there are three ideological perspectives – each operates as
a frame, shaping expectations about what one should pay attention to, how
events will evolve, and how one should engage situations of power:
(1)
The unitary.
(2)
The radical.
(3)
The pluralist.
c) Motivation orientation – Focuses on
differences rooted more in needs and “energizing elements” of the personality
rather than in ideology.
d) Dispositions and skills – orientations to
power are grounded in individual dispositions to be cooperative or competitive.
e) Moral orientation – individuals differ in
their moral views about power and its use.
f) Moods – short-term aspects of personality can
create power for a negotiator.
3.
Power based on position in an organization (structural
power).
a) Legitimate power.
(1)
Derived from occupying a particular job, office, or
position in an organizational hierarchy.
(2)
Legitimate power is at the foundation of our social
structure.
(3)
People can acquire legitimate power in several ways.
(a) It may be acquired at birth.
(b) It may be acquired by election to a designated
office
(c) It may is derived simply by appointment or
promotion to some organizational position some legitimate authority comes to an
individual who occupies a position for which other people simply show respect
(4)
The effectiveness of formal authority is derived from
the willingness of followers to acknowledge the legitimacy of the
organizational structure and the system of rules and regulations that empowers
its leaders.
(5)
It is also possible to apply the notion of legitimacy
to certain social norms or conventions that exert strong control over people:
(a) The
legitimate power of reciprocity
(b) The
legitimate power of equity
(c) The
legitimate power of responsibility or dependence
b) Resource power control
(1) People who control resources have the capacity
to give them to someone who will do what they want and withhold them (or take
them away) from someone who doesn’t do what they want.
(2) Important organizational resources include:
(a) Money, in its various forms.
(b) Supplies.
(c) Human capital.
(d) Time.
(e) Equipment.
(f) Critical
services.
(g) Interpersonal support.
(3) Pfeffer and Salancik (1974), among others,
stress that the ability to control and dispense resources is a major power
source in organizations.
(4) Power also comes from creating a resource
stockpile in an environment where resources appear to be scarce.
(5) To use resources as a basis for power,
negotiators must develop or maintain control over some desirable reward that
the other party wants or control over some punishment the other seeks to avoid.
4. Power based on
location in a network.
a) Another
major type of structural power comes from location in an organizational
structure, but not necessarily a hierarchical one. In this case, power is
derived from critical resources that flow through a particular location.
b) Networks – comes from location in an
organizational structure, but not necessarily a hierarchical structure.
(1)
Power is derived from whatever flows through that
particular location in the structure individuals can become powerful because of
the way that their actions and responsibilities are embedded in the flows of
information, goods and services, or contacts.
(2)
Through information and resources as the primary focus
of transactions, personal relationships, referent power, and “pressure” may
also be negotiated across network lines.
(3)
Several key aspects of networks shape power:
(a) Tie strength – An indication of the strength
or quality of relationships with others.
(b) Tie content – Content is the resource that
passes along the tie with the other person.
The more the content, the stronger the relationship, and the more trust
and respect created for each other.
(c) Network structure – the overall set of
relationships within a social system.
(i) Centrality.
(ii) Criticality and relevance
(iii) Flexibility.
(iv) Visibility.
(v) Membership in a coalition.
5. Power based on
relationships.
a)
Goal interdependence – How the parties view their
goals—and how much achievement of their goal depends on the behavior of the
other party—has a strong impact on how likely parties will be to constructively
use power.
b)
Referent power – Referent power is often based on an
appeal to common experiences, common past, common fate, or membership in the
same groups. It is made salient when one party identifies the dimension of commonality
in an effort to increase their power (usually persuasiveness) over the other.
6. Contextual
sources of power.
a)
Power based in the context, situation, or environment
in which negotiations take place.
(1) BATNAs.
(a) The availability of a BATNA offers a
negotiator significant power because she now has a choice between accepting the
other party’s proposal or the alternative deal.
(2) Culture.
(a) Culture is a system of basic assumptions,
norms, and/or common values that individuals in a group or organization share
about how to interact with each other, work together, deal with the external
environment, and move the organization into the future.
(b) Culture often shapes what kinds of power are
seen as legitimate and illegitimate or how people use influence and react to
influence.
(c) National cultures also differ in the degree to
which these “power over” or “power with” orientations are supported or
encouraged.
(d) Culture—both organizational and national—often
translates into deeply embedded structural inequalities in a society.
(3) Agents,
constituencies and external audiences.
(a) Negotiations become significantly more complex
when negotiators are representing others’ views.
IV. Dealing
With Others Who Have More Power
A. Never do an
all-or-nothing deal.
B. Make the other
party smaller.
C. Make yourself
bigger.
D. Build momentum
through doing deals in sequence.
E. Use the power of
competition to leverage power.
F. Constrain
yourself.
G. Good information
is always a source of power.
H. Ask many
questions to gain more information.
I. Do what you can
to manage the process.
Summary
In this chapter,
we discussed the nature of power in negotiation. We suggested that there were two major ways
to think about power: “power over,” which suggests that power is fundamentally
dominating and coercive in nature, and “power with,” suggesting that power is
jointly shared with the other party to collectively develop joint goals and
objectives. There is a great tendency to see and define power as the former,
but as we have discussed in this chapter and our review of the basic negotiation
strategies, “power with” is critical to successful integrative negotiation.
We reviewed five
major sources of power: Informational sources of power, personal sources of
power, position-based sources of power, relationship-based power, and contextual
sources of power.
In closing, we
wish to stress two key points. First, while we have presented many vehicles for
attaining power in this chapter, it must be remembered that power can be highly
elusive and fleeting in negotiation. Almost anything can be a source of power
if it gives the negotiator a temporary advantage over the other party (e.g., a
BATNA or a piece of critical information). Second, power is only the capacity
to influence; using that power and skillfully exerting influence on the other requires
a great deal of sophistication and experience.
