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Why do people in a business negotiation settle for less than each of them could and should receive? Two rational players face off in an economic game. Each pursues interests as conventional theory dictates, but all too often, the result is suboptimal. Why do they fail to capture what Dr. Young calls the cooperative surplus? Dr. Young proposes that the root of the problem lies in the philosophical assumptions underlying decision and game theory. The common understanding of economic rationality is fundamentally flawed, he says. It assumes that rational players are always self-interested and that they will make decisions on the basis of consequences. Arguing that no theory of economic rationality developed from this foundation can lead to the desired prescriptive results, Dr. Young maintains that a successful prescriptive theory of rationality must start from a different premise: the notion of actors as autonomous agents who act over and above their inclinations to express their identity.Dr. Young advances his own notion of economic rationality, then seeks to establish rules by which rational economic players can jointly create a common base for business negotiation. The results of bargaining will then be in equilibrium, and a solution optimal to both sides can be reached. Already praised by philosophers in Europe for its innovative vision and practicality, this book is a must for business executives and attorneys engaged in business negotiations, as well as for their colleagues with similar interests in the academic community.
Because negotiation is a very important topic, ranging from everyday life interactions, to complex business and political deal-making, there is an enormous amount of books on the topic. But this book offers an extremely unique analysis that I have not experienced in any other book.Books on negotiation are broadly split into two major categories: the "normative" approach to negotiation, which draws on mathematical game-theory, and the "pragmatic" approach, which builds on studies in psychology, management studies and real-life experience. On one hand, normative models based on game-theory are elegant and rigorous, but fail to capture and solve a vast amount of real-world negotiations, due to the oversimplification of the complex mental processes that drive negotiators. On the other hand, pragmatic approaches seem to be ad-hoc, lacking rigour in the analysis of issues, and largely consumer-oriented (Of course, there are exceptions, based on solid empirical studies, such as those coming out of the Harvard Program Negotiation).What this book offers, however, is the best attempt I have seen to achieve both rigorous normative validity as well as pragmatic prescriptive advice. Mark Young digs as deep as the most fundamental philosophical traditions that underlie the current common conception of rationality (that of utility maximisation), and builds, buttom-up, a new theory of "considered" economic rationality, which forms the basis of his theory of business negotiation. Hence, the book represents a very interesting and unique grounding of negotiation in philosophy, reaching a normatively valid account of negotiation, both descriptive and prescriptive, without falling into the trap of oversimplification that the elegance of mathematical game-theory leads people to.I recommend this book to any serious negotiator or researcher on negotiation, both normative and pragmatic. I recommend the book particularly to game-theorists, since it would give them very interesting insights about the limitations of game-theory that might eventually lead to a paradigm shift in the study of strategic interaction.
