Entrepreneurial Negotiations: Are We Getting Carried Away About Win-Win?

Just about any reading or training on negotiation will espouse that parties engaged in a negotiation will benefit if they take a collaborative, rather than competitive, approach. This perspective was maybe most popularized by Fisher and Ury’s (1981) “best seller” entitled Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In . Collaborative negotiation describes negotiation practices that strive to create value for both sides, and allows negotiators to find an agreement that is mutually beneficial. Approaching negotiations in this manner has been found to result in more optimal outcomes for both parties (Galinsky, Leonardelli, Okhuysen, & Mussweiler, 2005), and is recommended as a way to find resolutions to complex situations (Isen, 2001). Those recommendation notwithstanding, there are also potential risks to approaching negotiations collaboratively. Specifically, if one party is open and trusting, which is a necessity in collaborative negotiation and can lead to better joint outcomes (Pinkley, 1995), it leaves that party vulnerable to be taken advantage of if the opposing party does not reciprocate. Because entrepreneurs and small business owners engage in vast amounts and varieties of negotiations, we are compelled to determine how they tend to approach negotiation activities.