Principled Negotiation

Principled negotiation, a term originally proposed by Roger Fisher and William Ury, generally applies to the process that negotiators employ to achieve win-win or value-creating agreements. Principled negotiation, however, is not a term common to the general parlance among those who conduct academic research on negotiation. Those authors might use other terms to describe the principled approach, such as integrative negotiation or problem-solving negotiation. And an entry on “principled” negotiation suggests that there is such a thing as “unprincipled” negotiation, which implies an approach in which negotiators do not subscribe to commonly accepted standards of fair treatment, respect for the other parties, honorable conduct, and willingness to stand by agreements and commitments made during negotiation. In the research literature on negotiation, this process has more typically been called distributive bargaining, competitive bargaining, or win-lose bargaining.

When applied to negotiation, the term principled refers to an underlying ethical orientation in one’s approach. But the distinction between principled and unprincipled negotiation may not be as clean and transparent as the reader might wish. It may [Page 600]not be that some negotiators are unprincipled but instead that they subscribe to a different set of principles! Advocates of the more unprincipled views most likely subscribe to a teleological view of ethics; this view generally holds that the moral worth of a behavior is best judged by its consequences. The more extreme view of the teleological view is called egoism, in which acceptable behavior is judged based on its consequences for the self, while less extreme views are defined as utilitarianism, in which acceptable behavior is judged based on the best consequences for the greatest number. These are further explained in the writings of philosophers John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. In contrast, principled negotiators tend to subscribe to different sets of ethical principles, generally called deontology, which advocates that there are clear standards of right and wrong and that all individuals deserve minimal standards of respect, or virtue ethics, which stresses adherence to a clear set of moral virtues on how one should treat others, such as standards of truthfulness, honesty, and fairness. These are further explained in the writings of philosophers Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Thus, it is not that some negotiators are unprincipled; instead, they most likely subscribe to ethical principles that advocate self-gratification and the acceptability of pursuing those outcomes regardless of the costs and consequences. Principled negotiation is certainly a topic that is central to the practice of management. Managers negotiate all the time—with coworkers, subordinates, bosses, salesmen, purchasing agents, labor unions, financial institutions, and others. While the early theory on negotiation was generally restricted to labor relations and purchasing, the last two to three decades has seen a strong emergence— in research and teaching—of negotiation as a critical skill, part of a larger portfolio of skills related to managing organizational conflict and maintaining productive interpersonal and intergroup relations with others. This entry describes the fundamental nature of principled negotiation and the principled negotiation process. It discusses the relevant theory and research that support this process as well as the nature of the strategy and tactics used to execute a principled negotiation. In doing so, comparisons will inevitably be drawn to the more competitive, distributive negotiation strategy and tactics. Next, the entry shows how the theory has evolved and how some of the tactics often associated with unprincipled negotiation can become entangled in the principled negotiation process. Finally, the entry suggests some ways that a principled negotiator can convert his or her competitive opponent to a more principled process.

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