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CS Professional · Arbitration, Mediation and Conciliation · Negotiation Skills and Communication

Ravi and Meera, two directors of a closely held firm, negotiate the buyout of Meera's stake. Ravi says, 'Whatever I gain, you lose, so the price must be split on a fixed pie.' Which negotiation approach does this reflect?

This is distributive bargaining. Ravi treats the price as a fixed pie in which any gain for him is an equal loss for Meera. Integrative or principled approaches instead seek shared interests and expanded value rather than a win-lose split.

  1. AIntegrative bargaining, which expands value through shared interests
  2. BDistributive bargaining, which treats the issue as a fixed pie where one side's gain is the other's lossCorrect
  3. CPrincipled negotiation, which separates people from the problem
  4. DCollaborative problem-solving based on multiple trade-offs

Explanation

Seeing a fixed resource where one party's gain equals the other's loss is the hallmark of distributive (win-lose) bargaining. Integrative bargaining looks for options that enlarge the pie, which Ravi is not doing.

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