SUMMARY
LECTURES
Lecture 1: Boardroom dynamics
Lecture 2: Power play and executive hubris
Lecture 3: Distributive negotiations
Lecture 4: Integrative negotiations
Lecture 5: Multistakeholder negotiations and serious gaming
Lecture 6: Negotiations: Ethics and fairness
ARTICLES
Lecture 1: Boardroom Dynamics: Theories and Perspectives
• Hambrick, D. C. (2007). Upper echelons theory: An update. Academy of Management Review,
32(2), 334–343.
• Hillman, A. J., Withers, M. C., & Collins, B. J. (2009). Resource dependence theory: A review.
Journal of Management, 35(6), 1404–1427.
• Roberts, J., McNulty, T., & Stiles, P. (2005). Beyond agency conceptions of the work of the non
executive director: Creating accountability in the boardroom. British Journal of Management,
16(1), 5–26.
Lecture 2: Power Play and Executive Hubris
• DeCelles, K. A., DeRue, D. S., Margolis, J. D., & Ceranic, T. L. (2012). Does power corrupt or
enable? When and why power facilitates self-interested behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology,
97, 681-689.
• Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Gruenfeld, D. H., Whitson, J. A., & Liljenquist, K. A. (2008). Power
reduces the press of the situation: Implications for creativity, conformity, and dissonance. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1450-1466.
• Petit, V., & Bollaert, H. (2012). Flying too close to the sun? Hubris among CEOs and how to
prevent it. Journal of Business Ethics, 108(3), 265-283.
Lecture 3: Distributive Negotiations
• Thompson, L. L., Wang, J., & Gunia, B. C. (2010). Negotiation. Annual Review of Psychology,
61(1), 491–515.
Lecture 4-6: Integrative Negotiations, Ethics and fairness
• Fisher, R., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (2012). Getting to Yes: Negotiating an agreement without giving
in. London, UK: Random House Business Books. ISBN 9781847940933 [BOOK]
Tutorial 2 –Paper Presentations: Organizational Politics and Governance.
• Sun, S. (2022). Is political skill always beneficial? Why and when politically skilled employees
become targets of coworker social undermining. Organization Science, 33(3), 1142–1162.
• Gabrielsson, J., & Huse, M. (2004). Context, behavior, and evolution: Challenges in research on
boards and governance. International Studies of Management & Organization, 34(2), 11–36.
• Hambrick, D. C., Werder, A. v., & Zajac, E. J. (2008). New directions in corporate governance
research. Organization Science, 19(3), 381–385.
• Tziner, A., Drory, A., & Reizer, A. (2024). Could positive political skills work to the benefit of work
performance? Is it possible? Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 40(2), 91–104.
Tutorial 4 – Paper Presentations: On Becoming an Effective Negotiator.
• Haselhuhn, M. P. (2015). Support theory in negotiation: How unpacking aspirations and
alternatives can improve negotiation performance. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 28(1),
1–13
• Gelfland M.J. et al. (2015). Culture and getting to yes: The linguistic signature of creative
agreements in the United States and Egypt. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36, 967-989.
• Baarveld, M., Smit, M. & Dewulf, G. (2015) Negotiation processes in urban redevelopment
projects: Dealing with conflicts by balancing integrative and distributive approaches. Planning
Theory & Practice, 16(3), 363– 384.
• Schuster, D., & Mossig, I. (2024). Multistakeholder initiatives and sustainability? A governance
analysis using the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO) as a case study.
Environmental Management. Advance online publication.
GETTING TO YES
,I THE PROBLEM
1. DON'T BARGAIN OVER POSITIONS
II THE METHOD
2. SEPARATE THE PEOPLE FROM THE PROBLEM
3. FOCUS ON INTERESTS, NOT POSITIONS
4. INVENT OPTIONS FOR MUTUAL GAIN
5. INSIST ON USING OBJECTIVE CRITERIA
III YES, BUT
6. WHAT IF THEY ARE MORE POWERFUL?
7. WHAT IF THEY WON'T PLAY?
8. WHAT IF THEY USE DIRTY TRICKS?
IV IN CONCLUSION
V TEN QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK ABOUT GETTING TO YES
,Lecture 1 - Boardroom dynamics
Cultural arrangement model
Procedural justice--> to make your change be perceived as fair
Look at the sets of agreement, what it's codified.
But people feel differently, they have an affective system, agreements, on
the other hand, are easier to articulate then feelings, but less embodied.
Liminal space is where change unfolds.
BASIC BOARD STRUCTURES
• Two-tier board model
◦ The management board (the executive board): in charge of
decision management and daily control.
◦ The supervisory board: monitor and control what the management
board is doing, they have a say in remuneration, in the CEO,
they meet regularly but they are distant from the daily life of
the organization.
• One-tier board model
◦ The board of directors: executives and non executives sit together,
so everyone is involved, less of an information asymmetry, but
thy are less independent.
AGENCY THEORY (Eisenhardt, 1989)
Is used to understand the relationship between an agent (e.g., corporate
manager, the executives) and a principal (e.g., shareholder, represented
by the non executives that have to control and monitor the executives).
An information-asymmetry between the two leads to principle-agent
problem.
Main psychological assumptions:
1. Everyone is assumed to act in their own interest, motivated by self-
interested opportunism (challenged by stewardship theory).
2. Homo economicus, someone that acts consistently rationally.
3. Takes all sources of information (limitless) into consideration before
making a decision (challenged by upper echelons theory).
But emotions and rationality cannot actually be devided so strictly, it is not
possible.
BEYOND AGENCY CONCEPTIONS (Roberts, McNulty & Stiles, 2005)
Accountability > monitoring and compliance
Accountability is about creating a healthy balance between trust and
distrust, and creating open dialogue. Such accountability is in practice
achieved through a wide variety of behaviours, such as challenging,
questioning, probing, discussing, testing, informing, debating, exploring
and encouraging.
An alternative theory is, for example, stewardship theory, that debates the
assumption of homo economicus in agency theory.
STEWARDSHIP THEORY
, It assumes that managers, left on their own, will act as responsible
stewards of the assets they control. Stewardship thoerists assume that
given a choice between self-serving behavior and pro-organizational
behavior, a steward will place higher value on cooperation than defection.
Consistent rationality assumption is debated by the upper echelons
theory.
Agency theory and stewardship theory go from one extreme to another,
like a pendulum swinging.
As it can be seen as a reaction to the overreliance on agency conceptions
of what constitutes "good governance". In particular the underlying
assumption of a homo economicus who constantly acts out of self
interested is placed in doubt. Yet too many examples abound of CEO's
indeed acting out of self-interest.
UPPER ECHELONS THEORY
If we have a board consisting of people in tech, we could assume that they
would put more resources in R&D, and that this would reflect in the
performance.
Bounded rationality is a concept proposed by Herbert Simon that
challenges the notion of human rationality as implied by the concept of
homo economicus. Rationality is bounded because there are limits to our
thinking capacity, available information, and time (Simon, 1982). “If we
want to understand why organizations do the things they do, or why they
perform the way they do, we must consider the biases and dispositions of
their most powerful actors — their top executives.” (Hambrick, 2007, p.
334)
Critique:
• It glorifies corporate elites. (To which Hambrick responded:
As for the criticism that upper echelons theory somehow glorifies elites,
nothing
could be farther from the truth. The upper echelons perspective is entirely
based on
the premise that executives are humanly finite—susceptible to fatigue,
boredom,
jealousy, cognitive biases, social preening, and selfishness—just like the
rest of us.
In fact, upper echelons theory pokes holes in the myth, prevalent among
many
management scholars (especially those in strategic management), that
executives
are capable of, and committed to, technoeconomic optimization. Let me
put it this
way: when I speak to executive audiences about upper echelons studies
on such
LECTURES
Lecture 1: Boardroom dynamics
Lecture 2: Power play and executive hubris
Lecture 3: Distributive negotiations
Lecture 4: Integrative negotiations
Lecture 5: Multistakeholder negotiations and serious gaming
Lecture 6: Negotiations: Ethics and fairness
ARTICLES
Lecture 1: Boardroom Dynamics: Theories and Perspectives
• Hambrick, D. C. (2007). Upper echelons theory: An update. Academy of Management Review,
32(2), 334–343.
• Hillman, A. J., Withers, M. C., & Collins, B. J. (2009). Resource dependence theory: A review.
Journal of Management, 35(6), 1404–1427.
• Roberts, J., McNulty, T., & Stiles, P. (2005). Beyond agency conceptions of the work of the non
executive director: Creating accountability in the boardroom. British Journal of Management,
16(1), 5–26.
Lecture 2: Power Play and Executive Hubris
• DeCelles, K. A., DeRue, D. S., Margolis, J. D., & Ceranic, T. L. (2012). Does power corrupt or
enable? When and why power facilitates self-interested behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology,
97, 681-689.
• Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Gruenfeld, D. H., Whitson, J. A., & Liljenquist, K. A. (2008). Power
reduces the press of the situation: Implications for creativity, conformity, and dissonance. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1450-1466.
• Petit, V., & Bollaert, H. (2012). Flying too close to the sun? Hubris among CEOs and how to
prevent it. Journal of Business Ethics, 108(3), 265-283.
Lecture 3: Distributive Negotiations
• Thompson, L. L., Wang, J., & Gunia, B. C. (2010). Negotiation. Annual Review of Psychology,
61(1), 491–515.
Lecture 4-6: Integrative Negotiations, Ethics and fairness
• Fisher, R., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (2012). Getting to Yes: Negotiating an agreement without giving
in. London, UK: Random House Business Books. ISBN 9781847940933 [BOOK]
Tutorial 2 –Paper Presentations: Organizational Politics and Governance.
• Sun, S. (2022). Is political skill always beneficial? Why and when politically skilled employees
become targets of coworker social undermining. Organization Science, 33(3), 1142–1162.
• Gabrielsson, J., & Huse, M. (2004). Context, behavior, and evolution: Challenges in research on
boards and governance. International Studies of Management & Organization, 34(2), 11–36.
• Hambrick, D. C., Werder, A. v., & Zajac, E. J. (2008). New directions in corporate governance
research. Organization Science, 19(3), 381–385.
• Tziner, A., Drory, A., & Reizer, A. (2024). Could positive political skills work to the benefit of work
performance? Is it possible? Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 40(2), 91–104.
Tutorial 4 – Paper Presentations: On Becoming an Effective Negotiator.
• Haselhuhn, M. P. (2015). Support theory in negotiation: How unpacking aspirations and
alternatives can improve negotiation performance. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 28(1),
1–13
• Gelfland M.J. et al. (2015). Culture and getting to yes: The linguistic signature of creative
agreements in the United States and Egypt. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36, 967-989.
• Baarveld, M., Smit, M. & Dewulf, G. (2015) Negotiation processes in urban redevelopment
projects: Dealing with conflicts by balancing integrative and distributive approaches. Planning
Theory & Practice, 16(3), 363– 384.
• Schuster, D., & Mossig, I. (2024). Multistakeholder initiatives and sustainability? A governance
analysis using the German Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (GISCO) as a case study.
Environmental Management. Advance online publication.
GETTING TO YES
,I THE PROBLEM
1. DON'T BARGAIN OVER POSITIONS
II THE METHOD
2. SEPARATE THE PEOPLE FROM THE PROBLEM
3. FOCUS ON INTERESTS, NOT POSITIONS
4. INVENT OPTIONS FOR MUTUAL GAIN
5. INSIST ON USING OBJECTIVE CRITERIA
III YES, BUT
6. WHAT IF THEY ARE MORE POWERFUL?
7. WHAT IF THEY WON'T PLAY?
8. WHAT IF THEY USE DIRTY TRICKS?
IV IN CONCLUSION
V TEN QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK ABOUT GETTING TO YES
,Lecture 1 - Boardroom dynamics
Cultural arrangement model
Procedural justice--> to make your change be perceived as fair
Look at the sets of agreement, what it's codified.
But people feel differently, they have an affective system, agreements, on
the other hand, are easier to articulate then feelings, but less embodied.
Liminal space is where change unfolds.
BASIC BOARD STRUCTURES
• Two-tier board model
◦ The management board (the executive board): in charge of
decision management and daily control.
◦ The supervisory board: monitor and control what the management
board is doing, they have a say in remuneration, in the CEO,
they meet regularly but they are distant from the daily life of
the organization.
• One-tier board model
◦ The board of directors: executives and non executives sit together,
so everyone is involved, less of an information asymmetry, but
thy are less independent.
AGENCY THEORY (Eisenhardt, 1989)
Is used to understand the relationship between an agent (e.g., corporate
manager, the executives) and a principal (e.g., shareholder, represented
by the non executives that have to control and monitor the executives).
An information-asymmetry between the two leads to principle-agent
problem.
Main psychological assumptions:
1. Everyone is assumed to act in their own interest, motivated by self-
interested opportunism (challenged by stewardship theory).
2. Homo economicus, someone that acts consistently rationally.
3. Takes all sources of information (limitless) into consideration before
making a decision (challenged by upper echelons theory).
But emotions and rationality cannot actually be devided so strictly, it is not
possible.
BEYOND AGENCY CONCEPTIONS (Roberts, McNulty & Stiles, 2005)
Accountability > monitoring and compliance
Accountability is about creating a healthy balance between trust and
distrust, and creating open dialogue. Such accountability is in practice
achieved through a wide variety of behaviours, such as challenging,
questioning, probing, discussing, testing, informing, debating, exploring
and encouraging.
An alternative theory is, for example, stewardship theory, that debates the
assumption of homo economicus in agency theory.
STEWARDSHIP THEORY
, It assumes that managers, left on their own, will act as responsible
stewards of the assets they control. Stewardship thoerists assume that
given a choice between self-serving behavior and pro-organizational
behavior, a steward will place higher value on cooperation than defection.
Consistent rationality assumption is debated by the upper echelons
theory.
Agency theory and stewardship theory go from one extreme to another,
like a pendulum swinging.
As it can be seen as a reaction to the overreliance on agency conceptions
of what constitutes "good governance". In particular the underlying
assumption of a homo economicus who constantly acts out of self
interested is placed in doubt. Yet too many examples abound of CEO's
indeed acting out of self-interest.
UPPER ECHELONS THEORY
If we have a board consisting of people in tech, we could assume that they
would put more resources in R&D, and that this would reflect in the
performance.
Bounded rationality is a concept proposed by Herbert Simon that
challenges the notion of human rationality as implied by the concept of
homo economicus. Rationality is bounded because there are limits to our
thinking capacity, available information, and time (Simon, 1982). “If we
want to understand why organizations do the things they do, or why they
perform the way they do, we must consider the biases and dispositions of
their most powerful actors — their top executives.” (Hambrick, 2007, p.
334)
Critique:
• It glorifies corporate elites. (To which Hambrick responded:
As for the criticism that upper echelons theory somehow glorifies elites,
nothing
could be farther from the truth. The upper echelons perspective is entirely
based on
the premise that executives are humanly finite—susceptible to fatigue,
boredom,
jealousy, cognitive biases, social preening, and selfishness—just like the
rest of us.
In fact, upper echelons theory pokes holes in the myth, prevalent among
many
management scholars (especially those in strategic management), that
executives
are capable of, and committed to, technoeconomic optimization. Let me
put it this
way: when I speak to executive audiences about upper echelons studies
on such
