The Outcome Lens: What Is Negotiation Strategy?
The IBM-Lenovo deal, announced in 2004, appeared to be a “win” for both companies. IBM shed a relatively low-margin business for access to China’s ballooning services market. Lenovo paid $1.75 billion but won access to a global brand, distribution system, and managerial talent pool (Spooner & Kanellos, 2004).
Thus, the deal appeared to create substantial gains for both parties (Hamm, Roberts, & Lee, 2005).The individual and joint gains that negotiators achieve or fail to achieve depend largely on the negotiation strategies that they deploy.2 A negotiation strategy is a set of goal-driven behaviors applied, consciously or unconsciously, by negotiators (Weingart, Thompson, Bazerman, & Carroll, 1990). The outcome lens is our term for the classic negotiation research that considers the effectiveness of different strategies for achieving individual versus joint gains. Scholars have offered several frameworks that conceptualize the negotiation strategy-outcome link in terms of underlying goals. These frameworks are competitive versus cooperative processes, distributive versus integrative processes, concern for self versus others, and claiming versus creating value. Though not always couched in the language of strategy, each theoretical perspective helps deepen our understanding of negotiation strategy.