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Defining Bargaining and Negotiation
the general area of conflict management is concerned with the way that interdependent people manage the opposition of goals, aims, and valuesthrough communication. Communication plays an active role in shaping how people experience and work through conflict, a task that is very challenging given people’s interdependence where oneparty can interfere with the other achieving a goal.1 Within the last 25 years, a great deal of attention has been given to the methods we can use to manage conflict including bargain- ing ornegotiation, mediation, and arbitration.
Bargaining and negotiation have been defined as forms of conflict management that involve two or more parties, who have a conflict of needs anddesires that choose to negotiate through a give and take process involving proposals and counterproposals to search for a mutually acceptable agreement. While some theorists and researchersdistinguish between bargaining and negotiation, saying that the former is a competitive activity between parties and the latter is a cooperative process, the two terms will be used interchangeably.2Bargaining and negotiation differ from mediation and arbitration. Both mediation and arbitration empha- size the importance of an impartial third-party to help manage the conflict. Mediationutilizes a third- party neutral, called a mediator, who facilitates the two parties to talk and generate a mutually acceptable agreement, but who has no decision power. Arbitration is similarto a legal hearing where both parties present information regarding their position to a third-party neutral, an arbitrator, who then makes a deci- sion regarding the best way to manage theconflict. Bargaining and negotiation do not rely on third parties to facilitate the process and make decisions; rather, the process and agreements are generated by the parties in conflict.3