Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 236
The other negotiation is inside
Walton and McKersie show why bargaining messages can claim value, create value, reshape the relationship, and manage internal constituencies at the same time
Premise
A labor negotiation is never only the visible conversation across the table. A proposal can affect the division of scarce value, reveal a possible joint gain, alter the relationship between the parties, and change what each negotiator can sell internally. The same sentence may therefore perform several functions for several audiences at once.
Walton and McKersie’s Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations gives executives a way to distinguish those functions. It prevents one-dimensional interpretations in which a hostile statement proves cooperation is impossible, or a cooperative move proves distributive conflict has disappeared. Negotiation is a social interaction system, not one contest conducted through one channel.
What the model is: Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
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What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.