International Business Negotiation: BATNA and Trained vs Untrained Negotiators

This article discusses the importance of negotiation in international business and focuses on the concept of BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiation Agreement). It compares the advantages of trained negotiators over untrained ones and provides examples of cultural differences that can impact negotiations. The article concludes with the importance of having a common goal and understanding the culture and background of the other party in order to have successful negotiations.

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International Business Negotiation

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Batna................................................................................................................................................3
Trained negotiators..........................................................................................................................4
Untrained negotiators.......................................................................................................................4
Evaluation and comparison between two groups use Batna............................................................5
Advantages......................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Negotiation is considered as the process of switch that gives the uppermost probability of
fulfilling the needs of both parties. It is required for the successful negotiation that there should
be proper analysis and evaluation of the commercial. International business is referred to cross-
border commerce as well as businesses transactions between companies. International business
negotiations have several features that differentiate them from negotiations in the domestic
market. It is more difficult to handle the bonding when more than one culture is involved. The
assignment is in favour of the statement “Negotiation is not a process retained only for the
accomplished representative, top salesperson, or passionate advocate for a prepared lobby; it is
something that everyone does, almost daily”.
The different aspects of negotiations will be focused under this report because it is the focus
substance for numerous researchers in the recent time. It is not the procedure that is followed by
experts, sales person and professionals. It can be seen that everyone, in day to day life, negotiate
with someone in some aspect of daily routine tasks. It is necessary to have the clear
understanding about the negotiation which basic meaning of this term is the communication that
takes place for general aims everyone has to complete in their daily life. Batna (Best Alternative
to a Negotiation Agreement) is the negotiation tool that would be described under this research.
The advantages and disadvantages of this negotiation tool will be highlighted for the aim of
making better understanding about the research.

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Batna
Fisher and Willian are introduced the concept of BATNA in the best-selling book of the year
“Getting to Yes” in 1981. The full form of BATNA is Best Alternative to a Negotiation
Agreement that is considered as the tool for negotiation in various terms. In the context of the
international business where various kinds of business and parties are encompassed in
negotiations, the role of these tools enhances the importance. BATNA shows that a negotiator
should have knowledge regarding the proposed negotiation and increase the negotiating power. It
is a better measure and flexible to permit the exploration of the imaginative solution. It is the
option to pull the focus of someone towards other option. BATNA dictates that how to be the
best negotiator by carrying a number of alternatives (Khakhar and Rammal, 2013).
Gomes, Oliveira, Carneiro, Novais, and Neves, (2014), affirmed that in the context of the
negotiation, there should be elaborated in the relation of the workflow rather than a game. There
are a number of situations which can be managed by negotiation and the major components of
negotiation are the personal situation, organizational situation, and the client situation. There is
the conception of the linkage theory that defines the connection of conciliation results with
effectively of the environment for the agreement. It expresses that even one single negotiation
can have more than one outcome. The success of BATNA is there when one has a number of
alternatives and have proper knowledge regarding the concept on which meeting is held (Manrai
and Manrai, 2010). There are various explanations given for the provision of various results of a
single negotiation that are relied on the variables included in the entire process.

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Trained negotiators
A trained negotiator involve a number of factors at the time of creating a BATNA in which they
analyze the situation and commence to focus on getting information of the other parties so that
they can make alternatives. The main focus of them is to recognize the best options and put it in
reserve as a fall-back at the time of the negotiation. It is dependent on the strengths and the
activities of the other parties that BATNA should be disclosed to the other parties or not
(Andrade, Novais, Carneiro, Zeleznikow and Neves, 2009). In case of having strong BATNA,
the negotiator may be benefitted to disclose it, as this would be helpful in preventing the other
parties from acting as if a feasible alternative did not remain (Peleckis, 2013). Even though, the
negotiator has not strong BATNA, in that case, a negotiator should not reveal BATNA,
especially if the other party shows they are over-anticipating their own BATNA as this will show
to be extra that must not be wasted by disclosure. A negotiator who has great knowledge about
the alternatives available to the other parties will be capable to create for a negotiation
(Thompson, Wang, and Gunia, 2010).
There is an example of Japan where the culture of the country is entirely different in comparison
to another country. The trained negotiator would gain knowledge regarding their perception of
the new business. Japan is the second largest economy, partner, market and competitor of the
world, after the US. The corporate culture of the Japanese companies is strong that is why this
country get success day by day (Cantwell, Dunning and Lundan, 2010). With regard to the
trained negotiator, it is required to have an understanding of each party’s culture and might also
need an understanding of each culture of the party and may also need an adaptation of the
strategy of the negotiation so it is consistent with the culture of the other party.

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Untrained negotiators
Untrained negotiators are those who do not have an idea about the culture and the trends of other
parties and without exploring any other alternative, they propose proposal of new business to
another party. The untrained negotiator does not consider any kind of culture and background
and without analyzing them they start to state what they want. It is required for being the best
negotiator to understand the weakness and strengths of both businesses in another country so that
in case of any conflicts one should be able to fill the weakness of others (Jones, 2010).
There are some islands such as Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China, which is considered
rich in oil which can give huge advantages to the economy of the country (Staff, 2016). Both are
in territorial disputes over uninhabited islands and it is apparent that the escalatory action will
enhance the tensions in the country and build risks of an incident. China commenced watching
the zone, and its planes apparently came within miles of Japanese airspace many times. Japan
responds to them by launching fighter jets. In the meantime, Vietnam and the Philippines
prepared their own argues to the sea. This type of argument over insufficient resources can be
principally difficult to resolve. Business negotiators facing this kind of source distribution may
be capable to evade clash by spending time thinking about the contribution of each party (Jain,
Wadhwa and Deshmukh, 2009).
Evaluation and comparison between two groups use Batna
In the comparison of both groups trained negotiator and untrained negotiator, it is apparent from
the above discussion and the examples that the trained negotiator is more advantageous for the
international business because they have a proper understanding about the culture and the

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background of another country. In the context of BATNA, trained employees keep a number of
alternatives with them so that they can keep their points in front of them (Reynolds, 2014). On
the other hand, in the context of an untrained negotiator, it can be stated that they do not have
proper planning before disclosing BATNA which demotivate them to do business in another
country. A negotiation encompasses the four Cs such as common interest, compromise, criteria
and conflicting interest. Common interest expresses the fact that each party in the process of the
negotiations shares desires something that the other party does (Spangler, 2012). It is cleared that
in both groups, it is required to have the common goal because without of them, there is no need
for negotiations. Negotiation is also known as the integrative bargaining and it shows to win-win
negotiations where the involvement of both parties can finish with equally advantageous or
attractive outcomes (Wang and Zionts, 2008). Trained negotiator in the context of BATNA can
be considered as the problem-solving approach where both parties have a great idea about how to
deal with the situation in a calm manner. On the other hand, untrained negotiators increase the
stress between parties which can be the reason of conflicts between parties. There are some key
significant to be taken into account in international negotiations with considering both sort of
groups. The role of the government in both groups should be understood, especially in the term
of its attitudes towards private entities, the perception of the host country government.
Advantages
The role of the culture on the image of the company is great as beliefs, customs, values, and
traditions are included in the culture that impact not only on the communication style but also the
negotiation. The culture expresses how people process and interpret information can influence
over the decisions of using strategies and tactics to pursue. BATNA is useful in giving strength
to the person to take alternative options so that one could keep the point for the purpose of

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getting the agreement on his contracts (Sebenius, 2017). It is most benefitted point because once
a negotiator gets aware about another culture and background of the company, it would become
easy for them to expect and understand the behavior that takes place in the environment of the
bargaining in which they can respond with full of confidence (Korobkin, 2014). Flourishing
communication across cultures is a precondition for worldwide cooperation and for supervision
people from other cultures.
There are different layers of the culture that depends on the natures of the business and the
culture of every country is different. There is an example of Mitsubishi and Chrysler where they
negotiating a joint venture in Japan some years ago and these procedures have taken many years
to be completed. The major reason in the case of Mitsubishi was that it has to take care of the
interests of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, associations of Japan, Government of Japan and
other competitors such as Toyota and Nissan.

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Conclusion
The negotiation is considered as the process in which everyone comes across through daily. It
can be concluded that it is the process which is used every day between individuals to resolve the
conflicts between the companies. The above-mentioned content shows that the process of
negotiation is applied to the different situation for the purpose of resolving the issue. The
discussion has been made on BATNA concept in negotiation that has proved to be enormously
useful. It has been found that with the help of the concept of BATNA one can increase the
bargaining power. There is a number of examples have been given in order to explain the
concept of negotiation in the relation of international business. A simply essential state for a
harmony to be equally satisfactory is that each side prefers the deal to its BATNA.

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References
Andrade, F., Novais, P., Carneiro, D., Zeleznikow, J. and Neves, J., 2009, November. Using
BATNAs and WATNAs in online dispute resolution. In JSAI International Symposium on
Artificial Intelligence (pp. 5-18). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Cantwell, J., Dunning, J.H. and Lundan, S.M., 2010. An evolutionary approach to understanding
international business activity: The co-evolution of MNEs and the institutional
environment. Journal of International Business Studies, 41(4), pp.567-586.
Gomes, M., Oliveira, T., Carneiro, D.,Novais, P. and Neves, J., 2014. Studying the effects of
stress on negotiation behavior. Cybernetics and Systems, 45(3), pp.279-291.
Jain, V., Wadhwa, S. and Deshmukh, S.G., 2009. Select supplier-related issues in modelling a
dynamic supply chain: potential, challenges and direction for future research. International
Journal of Production Research, 47(11), pp.3013-3039.
Jones, S., 2010. Negotiating authentic objects and authentic selves: beyond the deconstruction of
authenticity. Journal of Material Culture, 15(2), pp.181-203.
Khakhar, P. and Rammal, H.G., 2013. Culture and business networks: International business
negotiations with Arab managers. International Business Review, 22(3), pp.578-590.
Korobkin, R., 2014. Negotiation: Theory and strategy. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Manrai, L.A. and Manrai, A.K., 2010. The influence of culture in international business
negotiations: a new conceptual framework and managerial implications. Journal of
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Peleckis, K., 2013. International business negotiations: culture, dimensions,
context. International journal of business, humanities and technology, 3(7), pp.91-99.
Reynolds, J.W., 2014. Breaking BATNAs: Negotiation Lessons from Walter White. NML
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“No”. Negotiation Journal, 33(2), pp.89-99.
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