Distributive bargaining involves negotiating over fixed resources.
Part 1, on fundamentals, contains chapters on the nature of negotiation,
distributive bargaining, integrative negotiation, and closing deals.
The dynamic of their
distributive bargaining often focuses on how much money one party will agree to pay to the other and how little money the other party will agree to accept.
(94) Other negotiation scholars have noted that people tend to negotiate in a value-creating way only when they have the expectation that strictly
distributive bargaining will cost too much, or that value-creating negotiation will be more likely than
distributive bargaining to produce a desirable result.
A
distributive bargaining situation is a competitive where goals of one party and the attainment of those goals are in fundamental and direct conflict with the goals of the other party.
A theoretical framework for understanding negotiations, developed by Walton and McKersie, (1) presents four circumstances that account for most negotiation behavior: (1)
distributive bargaining; (2) integrative bargaining; (3) attitudinal structuring; and (4) intra-organizational bargaining.
Nash (1950) established the idea that under
distributive bargaining conditions, where each party attempts to maximize their own interests in the negotiation (Pruitt 1983), and with both parties knowing each other's preferences, rational behavior by negotiators would lead them to equally share the gains of negotiation.
1990 "Reframing integrative and
distributive bargaining: A process perspective." In M.
Still, we know comparatively little about the relative distribution of highly integrative, traditional, and highly
distributive bargaining processes - in small or large firms.
Walton and McKersie are perhaps best known for the four subprocesses they identified:
distributive bargaining, integrarive bargaining, attitudinal structuring, and intraparty bargaining, each of which exists in a dynamic relationship with the others.
Distributive bargaining occurs only at the top and is reserved for issues not resolvable in integrated bargaining, including those issues that have been bargained unsuccessfully at lower levels.