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Chapter 8
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.
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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.
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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
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(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.
5. Power based on relationships.
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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.
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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.
