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Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizational Behavior and Theory

Alternatives

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Full-Text Articles in Business

Power And Negotiation: Review Of Current Evidence And Future Directions, Michael Schaerer, Laurel Teo, Nikhil Madan, Roderick I. Swaab Jun 2020

Power And Negotiation: Review Of Current Evidence And Future Directions, Michael Schaerer, Laurel Teo, Nikhil Madan, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This review synthesizes the impact of power on individual and joint negotiation performance. Although power generally has positive effects on negotiators’ individual performance (value claiming), recent work suggests that more power is not always beneficial. Taking a dyadic perspective, we also find mixed evidence for how power affects joint performance (value creation); some studies show that equal-power dyads create more value than unequal-power dyads, but others find the opposite. We identify the source of power, power distribution, and competitiveness as critical moderators of this relationship. Finally, we suggest that future research should move beyond studying alternatives in dyadic deal-making, identify …


When You Don’T Have An Alternative In A Negotiation, Try Imagining One, Michael Schaerer, Martin Schweinsberg, Roderick I. Swaab Apr 2018

When You Don’T Have An Alternative In A Negotiation, Try Imagining One, Michael Schaerer, Martin Schweinsberg, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Conventional wisdom suggests that negotiators need alternatives to succeed. Alternatives give negotiators the confidence to negotiate offers more ambitiously, to push for more optimal outcomes, and to walk away from the table when needed. But negotiators often have no alternative at all. For example, a recent survey by GMAC suggests that the average MBA graduate only has a single job offer to choose from, suggesting that many MBAs have to negotiate their job offer without an alternative to fall back on.


Imaginary Alternatives: The Impact Of Mental Simulation On Powerless Negotiators, Michael Schaerer, Martin Schweinsberg, Roderick I. Swaab Jan 2018

Imaginary Alternatives: The Impact Of Mental Simulation On Powerless Negotiators, Michael Schaerer, Martin Schweinsberg, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The present research demonstrates that negotiators can act powerfully without having power.Researchers and practitioners advise people to obtain strong alternatives prior to negotiating toenhance their power. However, alternatives are not always readily available, often forcingnegotiators to negotiate without much, or any, power. Building on research suggesting thatsubjective feelings of power and objective outcomes are disconnected and that mental simulationcan increase individuals’ aspirations, we hypothesized that the mental imagery of a strongalternative could provide similar psychological benefits to having an actual alternative. Ourstudies demonstrate that imagining strong alternatives causes individuals to negotiate moreambitiously and provides them with a distributive advantage: negotiators …


Having Too Many Options Can Make You A Worse Negotiator, Michael Schaerer, David D. Loschelder, Roderick I. Swaab May 2017

Having Too Many Options Can Make You A Worse Negotiator, Michael Schaerer, David D. Loschelder, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The conventional wisdom about negotiating — whether for a job salary or the price of a house — is that you’re better positioned to get what you want when you have more offers to leverage. For example, the more job offers an MBA graduate has, the better positioned they are to get a good deal with a recruiter. If you’re considering multiple options, your counterpart may feel pressured to make a better offer to keep you at the negotiation table. As our research shows, however, having alternative offers does not always help you. In a series of experiments, we found …


Bargaining Zone Distortion In Negotiations: The Elusive Power Of Multiple Alternatives, Michael Schaerer, David D. Loschelder, Roderick I. Swaab Nov 2016

Bargaining Zone Distortion In Negotiations: The Elusive Power Of Multiple Alternatives, Michael Schaerer, David D. Loschelder, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We challenge the assumption that having multiple alternatives is always better than a single alternative by showing that negotiators who have additional alternatives ironically exhibit downward-biased perceptions of their own and their opponent’s reservation price, make lower demands, and achieve worse outcomes in distributive negotiations. Five studies demonstrate that the apparent benefits of multiple alternatives are elusive because multiple alternatives led to less ambitious first offers (Studies 1–2) and less profitable agreements (Study 3). This distributive disadvantage emerged because negotiators’ perception of the bargaining zone was more distorted when they had additional (less attractive) alternatives than when they only had …


Anchors Weigh More Than Power: Why Absolute Powerlessness Liberates Negotiators To Achieve Better Outcomes, Michael Schaerer, Roderick I. Swaab, Adam D. Galinsky Feb 2015

Anchors Weigh More Than Power: Why Absolute Powerlessness Liberates Negotiators To Achieve Better Outcomes, Michael Schaerer, Roderick I. Swaab, Adam D. Galinsky

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The current research shows that having no power can be better than having a little power. Negotiators prefer having some power (weak negotiation alternatives) to having no power (no alternatives). We challenge this belief that having any alternative is beneficial by demonstrating that weak alternatives create low anchors that reduce the value of first offers. In contrast, having no alternatives is liberating because there is no anchor to weigh down first offers. In our experiments, negotiators with no alternatives felt less powerful but made higher first offers and secured superior outcomes compared with negotiators who had weak alternatives. We established …