International Negotiation Issues - Coursework Example

International Negotiation INTRODUCTION: Generally, the negotiation literature provides lots of different strategies and ways to negotiate a good deal, but broadly, it agrees on three main approaches. These are the Hard approach or the Positional strategy, Soft or the Integrative strategy and the middle path or the Principled Strategy. The hard approach is positional in nature and very competitive. And the negotiators go for must win or win-lose strategy. This is also known as competitive negotiation. And the soft approach to negotiation is interest-based and cooperative negotiation. The rule here is to go for win-win situation. This is also known as collaborative negotiation. While the last one – the principled negotiation takes the middle path but is closer to soft rather than hard approach. This is also called the balanced negotiation. The negotiation experts have put together an eight-stage negotiation process as the general steps which are generally followed in any negotiations. Based on the best practices and best approaches to negotiation this eight stage process is particularly useful in complex, multi party and multi issue negotiations. Briefly they are : 1. Preparation: It is the key element of any negotiation. Without understanding and preparing for the core issues, one cannot hope to negotiate. 2. Openness: The successful negotiator must be prepared to listen to all sides and present his/her case appropriately. He should be open to new ideas and approaches. And a rigid closed approach is a strict no-no. 3. Arguing the case: Good negotiations are based on quantifiable and quality arguments. So, one must support any argument with suitable evidence. 4. Explore Possibilities: A good negotiator must remain open and receptive to newer options and try to explore new opportunities whenever required. 5. Send positive signals: The negotiator should always exhibit responsive ness and agreeable nature so that others perceive him as someone who can be trusted. 6. Package: Negotiators should assemble a package deal which should appeal to all parties. 7. Close the deal: After negotiations, reach final agreement with different parties. 8. Reliable: And once the deal is sealed, whatever has been agreed should be followed without any deviation. INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION: In international negotiation also, all the process steps as mentioned above and all the basic approaches apply except that on international scene – more negotiations are balanced and collaborative in nature than competitive. These negotiations involve more complex issues and are negotiated on a far larger scale with lots of stakeholders both visible and invisible. There are lots of conflicting interests within the same group and it can be very difficult to understand them especially in context of different cultures. Actually for international negotiations the preparation and understanding of the culture of the opposite party is a must as the cultural norms are the critical elements, which usually dictate the negotiating style. The actual success or failure of negotiations in international arena depend heavily on the basic understanding of the culture of the other country. This is the reason why international negotiations are considered very complex and involve many different issues as well. Moreover, these are not between any two or five individual persons but involve large delegations of high level personnel and subject matter experts. These delegations are generally well organized and every person has a specialized role to play such as cultural experts, linguists and subject specialists as well as a chief negotiator and support negotiators. MOUSE CASE STUDY: Background: In March 1994, Mouse Company – a US based and the world’s largest entertainment conglomerate and the French government entered into an agreement wherein the Mouse company was allowed to develop a Euromouse project in France. The development is taking place in four municipal towns of Bailly, Coupvray, Magny and Chessey. The project has become very controversial in France and has stirred up a national public debate. And it is worsened by the fact that the relations between the four municipalities and the Mouse company are anything but cordial. But the French government is partly responsible for this mess as it did not seek or took any of the concerned town mayors in confidence before signing the deal and infact, also earned profit by duping the farmers or the residents of these towns by buying their lands at normal prevailing rates and selling it mouse at double the price. The town mayors are also peeved by the fact that the national government did not share this profit with the town municipalities and consider this decision as being forced on them. Major issues : The Major issues involved here are -- 1. Non inclusion of the town municipalities in the deal between French government and the Mouse company. 2. Non sharing of profit made on selling of land by the government to Mouse company with the town municipalities. 3. Effect of start of development of project in the town areas such as increased burden on Mayors office because of increase in administration and all related services. 4. Public opinion forming against Mouse company as more and more people are getting inconvenienced due to lack of proper administration and reduction in facilities due to opening of the project. 5. Division of profits within the four towns as Chessey and Coupvray will get maximum profits. 6. Business Tax issues -- regarding the tax and the amount to be levied on Mouse. 7. Complimentary and voluntary reimbursement by mouse to all the four towns. This is being demanded by all the four mayors due to the increased administrative costs and major upheavals and disturbances to town people. Mouse exercise: The mouse exercise is a sort of simulation or role playing exercise which is undertaken to understand the complex issues involved in international negotiations. This case study is able to cover all the aspects of an international negotiation as it has all the elements represented here which could cause conflicts in any negotiation deals. The Principal stake holders are: French Government, Mouse Company, Mayor of Bailly, Mayor of Chessey, Mayor of Coupvray, Mayor of Magny and Representative of SAN – a central body via which all the towns voice their concerns. The exercise was designed to focus on three major areas of negotiation – a. Agenda Setting – Since it is a multi- party meeting and lots of issues are involved, setting up of agenda for the meeting itself is going to cause problems. b. Cultural aspects and challenges involved due to different US and French cultures. c. Inter group and intra group conflicts and issues which could easily cause a breakdown in communications and lead to fall of the project. Simulation and Role playing: To sort out all the issues amicably – the SAN group which is a consortium As is clear from the situation and major issues, there are some similar issues for all the four mayors and some specific issues which are different from each other as well. This is besides the fact that they are a part of French delegation – thereby signifying dissimilar interests within the same delegation. This is especially a challenging meeting for the Mouse company representative as he has to deal with not only the collective French delegation but also the underlying clash of interests between the four mayors. It would be very interesting to see how he manages this conflict. Thus as mentioned earlier during the introduction -- there are lots of conflicting interests within the same group and it can be very difficult to understand them especially in context of different cultures. Since Mouse company is US based – the French government and the public are wary of them and their tactics. They are assumed to be arrogant and money minded with little or no respect for family and family ties which are an intrinsic part of French culture. My Role in the Simulation: I played the role of a mouse representative in the simulation exercise. As mentioned before, this was going to be a very tough and challenging task. As a Mouse company representative , I had to deal with cross cultural impact and differences in negotiating styles and methods along with the visible and invisible agendas of the four mayors of the main municipalities where the project was going on. And then there is the SAN representative who needs to be figured out. This is because as a member of SAN – he is more allied to the town mayors than to the national government and is more responsible for the welfare of towns and their citizens. Though the SAN has publicly denounced our Mouse project, they still do not approve of the constant squabbling of the town mayors. Thus this delegation member could be the tough nut to crack. The Mouse company expects the representative of French government to be more amiable and helpful to our cause as the government has invested quite a lot of money and prestige in this project. The four town mayors are the major opposers and my main agenda is to stop them from publicly complain about Mouse project. But there are underlying tensions and conflicts between these four mayors and it is too early to say whether this will work in our favor or not. Expectations from the meeting : I expected the meeting to be confrontational with all the four mayors against our Mouse company. The French government executive should support us but there are some cultural issues which they might raise as well. Regarding the SAN representative – we are not too sure and expect him to be the trading horse who would cast his vote depending upon the tide or the flow of things. Preparation: Since this is a very important meeting both financially as well as for maintaining a clean public image, the preparation has be at the minutest level. The first thing to tackle would be the cultural differences between us. Since I have been to France before for a month – I know the French language and can talk and discuss matters quite comfortably in it. But I need to study the French way of talking and respecting people. The French are very family oriented and do not use first names until and unless they are very close to each other. This is quite opposite to US way where using first names is a show of friendliness. Thus I will need to address them in their proper titles as French are very fond of their hierarchy and using titles show that they are being respected. The other important thing to note would be the fact that all four town were principally agricultural and with this project – their traditional way of life has been disturbed and this is not to the liking of people, mayors as well as the government. My strategy would be to show the French that we appreciate their cultural way of life and would be willing to help them maintain it by helping them to build their community centers and other such places. Moreover, I would also focus on the tremendous alternate and viable and better work opportunities now available to the people because of the presence of the Mouse project. I will need to show them that their economies would benefit more financially because of our project. The third issue would be the Tax issue. Of course, I expect some sort of tax being imposed on Mouse company by the Municipal towns – but I need to keep it down below 1%. I hope to take the support of French government executive in this matter and expect him to help me in keeping the percentage down. My strategy would be to link this with the voluntary down payments to be made to the four towns in lieu of administrative and financial difficulties they are facing due to the development of Mouse project. I am planning to use the mayors of towns of Magny and Bailly to invisibly support Mouse on this as they are not going to realize much financial gain from the Europroject and the Tax imposed on us. Whatever tax would be imposed – major share will be taken by towns of Chessey and Coupvray. And I do not foresee – equal sharing of this money by these towns with Bailly and Magny. So, by increasing/decreasing the one time funds with respect to decrease/increase in percentage of tax levied – I hope to keep them divided. And the other item on agenda which is division of tax share within the towns – I would try to keep out of it since Mouse cannot be seen to be favoring one town over other. Our position would be that the towns and the national government should sort it out amongst themselves and we will treat it as an internal matter of the French government and its people. Behavior of the Group : In the meeting, the groups and individuals behaved as expected. The French government official was supportive of our Mouse company and supported us in our endeavor to provide down payments to all the four towns on account of inconvenience caused to them. The SAN representative was a bit of enigma as he changed his position frequently and sometimes supported us and sometimes was more supportive of the four town mayors. The Town mayors were as usual critical of our project and keen to get as much money out of us as possible. Skills and Lessons Learnt: I was quite friendly with other members to start with and tried to use their way of greetings and style to get comfortable with them. This probably resulted in them interpreting my friendliness as my weakness to appease everyone. Though I was able to control this later, it did put me on a backfoot for a while. I still need to learn more regarding French style of negotiation. Another thing which was important was to be myself without being too friendly or too aloof. The critical thing was to maintain balance both individual conversations as well as during meetings. CONCLUSION: Thus overall, the exercise was able to bring out my skills as a negotiator and I learnt that though I lacked expertise in handling cultural issues, I was able to make up using my interpersonal skills and effective communication and by maintaining one-on-one relationships with all the members. I was also able to play on the insecurities between the four mayors and work it to my advantage by linking the voluntary payment with the tax levied on Mouse company. By this strategy, I kept them divided on financial grounds and was thus able to secure less tax for the company. The San representative and the Government official was tamed by providing them low cost benefits such as lower priced tickets for local residents and preference to local residents for new vacancies etc. Similar sops were offered to town mayors as well with offers to bring delegations to the Mouse worlds in US. Thus it was a great leaning experience and helped me gain more meaningful insight into the world of international negotiations. References: Fink and Stewart, 1995, The Mouse exercise, Harvard Law School Read More