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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on dyadic negotiations in which negotiators have asymmetric best alternatives to the negotiated agreement (BATNAs). The article sets out to contribute to this domain, arguing that it is important to consider negotiators' knowledge of their opponents' BATNAs. The study uses a job negotiation simulation and examined the effects of the knowledge of opponents' BATNAs on agreement efficiency (indexed by joint outcome) and negotiators' abilities to claim values (bargaining strength). In a 2 x 2 experiment, findings indicated that strong negotiators' knowledge of opponents' BATNAs increases their bargaining strength but hinders their efficiency; weak negotiators' knowledge alone reduces their bargaining strength but increases efficiency; and the detrimental impact of strong negotiators' knowledge on efficiency outweighs the benefit of weak negotiators' knowledge. The impact of knowledge on efficiency depends on which party has access to it. Paradoxically, weakness leads to efficiency and strength can lead to "winning" an impoverished prize.
Keywords: Negotiation, Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA), Power Asymmetry, Knowledge
INTRODUCTION
The use of Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) is among the basis of negotiations. A BATNA indicates what a negotiator could get if he or she failed to reach an agreement (Fisher & Ury, 1981). It is seldom the case that both parties in a negotiation have equal BATNAs. In most bargaining situations, negotiators' BATNAs are different in quality and attractiveness. Moreover, negotiators commonly do not know what their opponents' position is. To assume that negotiators have equal BATNAs and complete knowledge about negotiation situations entails a significant loss of generality. It is not surprising, therefore, that the study of negotiation behaviour has since the 1990s examined the effects of power-asymmetries (or BATNA-asymmetries) on negotiated outcomes (Anderson & Thompson, 2004; Brett, Pinkley, & Jackofsky, 1996; Giebels, De Dreu, & Van De Vliert, 2000; Kim & Fragale, 2005; Kray, Reb, Galinsky, & Thompson, 2004; Magee, Galinsky, & Gruenfeld, 2007; Mannix & Neale, 1993; Pinkley, 1995; Pinkley, Neale, & Bennett, 1994; Roloff & Dailey, 1987; Van Kleef, De Dreu, Pietroni, & Manstead, 2006; Wei & Luo, 2012; Wolfe & McGinn, 2005) and how knowledge of the opponents' situation shapes negotiations (Brodt, 1994; Handgraaf, van Dijk, Riel, Henk, & De Dreu, 2008; Pietroni, Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Pagliaro,...