The Team Negotiation Challenge: Defining and Managing the Internal Challenges of Negotiating Teams

Abstract

Negotiation teams are widely used to negotiate on behalf of organizations, yet relatively little is known about how they overcome the challenges posed by within team dynamics to create a sound across-the-table team bargaining strategy. This paper presents a two phase analysis of accounts of negotiating team experiences collected from 45 executives. In the first phase we present a qualitative categorization of negotiating team challenges and management strategies. In the second phase we demonstrate that the match between challenges and management strategies and the quality of team process largely depends on how teams manage within team dynamics. Teams are more likely to be able to implement management strategies that match the challenges they face when teams also engage in substantive debates about negotiating team goals; teams are less likely to implement strategies that match team challenges when teams also engage in personality conflicts. Thus, substantive conflict helps rationalize team processes, while personality conflict undermines the development of appropriate team management strategies if not addressed appropriately.