You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Strategic Issues in Negotiation

Negotiation is a process based on strategic choices. Each participant must fix carefully its objectives and decide what are the most appropriate ways and means in order to attain those. While in practice negotiation is always a mix of cooperation and competition, these two elements correspond to different approaches of the relationship and also different and quite incompatible orientations in term of strategy. The techniques, tactics and arguments employed by the negotiators in both cases will have different related effects and in the end will produce different and initially undefined outcomes. The choice of a strategy can be influenced by many factors, from the negotiator's power to the level of trust, the stakes or the concern for the other party's outcome.Drawing on concepts from several disciplines, our intention in this paper is to clarify, in a specific negotiation, the aspects and elements of the relationship between the determinants of a strategic choice and its effects on the capacity to reach an agreement which fulfil the participants’ expectations and objectives. This should allow uncovering new hypotheses for experimental research.