19. Negotiation

According to Stoner, conflict involves a disagreement over the allocation of scarce resources or a shock between goals, status, values, perceptions, or personalities. Given the above, we have that negotiation can help us manage conflicts of all kinds, more effectively and satisfactorily for the parties.

We understand negotiation as a process in which the parties involved reach agreements on different points of view and where communication plays an important role.

According to Lewicki and Litterer, negotiation situations are defined by three characteristics:

1. There is a conflict of interest between two or more parties; that is, what one wants is not always what the other wants.

2. There is no fixed set of rules or procedures to resolve the conflict, or the parties prefer to work outside of the set of rules and procedures to invent their own solution to the conflict.

3. The parties could seek a settlement, have someone back off, end the conflict, or take the dispute to a higher authority for resolution.

Finally, according to Stoner, the negotiation process depends on:

1. That one of the parties considers that their interests depend on the other.

2. The degree of trust or distrust that the parties have.

3. The ability of one party to communicate clearly and convince or force the other to accept its point of view.

4. The personalities and idiosyncrasies of the people involved.

5. The goals and interests of the parties.

June 2023