Strategic Negotiations: A Theory of Change in Labor-Management Relations - Hardcover

Walton, Richard E; Mckersie, Robert B; Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Joel E

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0875845517 ISBN 13: 9780875845517

Publisher: Harvard Business School Press, 1994

Synopsis

Strategic Negotiations examines the current changes in labor-management relations. The authors identify and explain three key negotiating strategies: forcing change, fostering cooperative attitudes and solutions, and escaping the relationship. They illustrate how these strategies succeed or fail in real organizations by drawing on in-depth examples from 13 companies in 3 industries: pulp and paper, railroads, and auto supply. The resulting theory has broad implications for strategic negotiations in many settings.

About this title

Review:

"Strategic Negotiations makes a significant contribution to the literature on strategic choice (the explicit structuring by management and labor of business and bargaining strategies that use the economic and political environment as a framework to create bargaining power). The authors intentionally build upon previous work in A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations, but this book also is a successful application of the three-tiered collective bargaining theory first developed in The Transformation of American Industrial Relations. Although scholars have identified strategic initiatives in the collective bargaining relationship, recent research has continued to emphasize economic explanations. This book provides an alternative framework of analysis. . . . Strategic Negotiations provides abundant evidence, both theoretical and empirical, that the traditional concerns of industrial relations researchers are still relevant."--Industrial and Labor Relations Review

"This book is both an amalgam of and a valuable, although incremental, addition to widely accepted theories within the domain of labour-management relations and negotiations. . . It is a must read for anyone interested in industrial theory and negotiations."--Karen J. Bentham, Queen's University. The Journal of Industrial Relations, September 2001

From the Back Cover:

Strategic Negotiations identifies three fundamental negotiating strategies that are being used to effect changes in labor-management relations. The first, called forcing, involves making labor accept unwanted substantive terms while simultaneously reducing the union's influence in the workplace. This strategy carries severe risks, including uncontrolled escalation, defeat, and a legacy of intergroup distrust. In contrast, the second strategy of fostering emphasizes finding solutions to common problems and building trust and consensus between the parties. A major risk with fostering is that difficult problems may not be addressed for fear of straining the new relationship. The third strategy, escape, entails withdrawing from the negotiating relationship altogether by physically transferring operations to another location. Using detailed case studies of individual firms and entire industries to analyze the tactical advantages and risks of each approach, the authors ultimately recommend a mixed strategy of forcing and fostering. Part I of Strategic Negotiations reviews the contemporary labor-management landscape and presents the authors' theory about how the strategies are being used to reshape relationships between American management and labor. Part II offers case histories of thirteen companies drawn from the pulp and paper, auto supply, and railroad industries to illustrate that theory. Part III examines the case studies in greater depth to assess the influences on the negotiators and their ensuing strategic choices, and Part IV identifies the specific tactics companies use to implement their negotiating strategies. Throughout the book, the authors note evidence that explains whycertain negotiations were successful while others failed, and provide guidelines to help practitioners decide which strategy or combination of strategies is best for their situation. While labor and management must continue to attend to their different and often conflicting interests, each must give equal or greater attention to the parties' common interests to survive in today's competitive business arena. By establishing a clear framework for understanding how the U.S. labor market is evolving, Strategic Negotiations offers the parties a way to address both their differences and their expanding mutual interests.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0875845517
• ISBN 13: 9780875845517
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400