Negotiations in Wickford Station Case: Deirdre O'Brien's BATNA and Integrative Agreements, Exams of Business Management and Analysis

Download Negotiations in Wickford Station Case: Deirdre O'Brien's BATNA and Integrative Agreements and more Exams Business Management and Analysis in PDF only on Docsity! Autumn Examinations 2008 Exam Code(s) 3BC1, 3CL1, 4BC2, 4BC3, 4BC4, 4BC5, 4CL2, 4BF1 Exam(s) 3rd Year B.Comm., 4th year B.Comm. International (French) 4th year B.Comm. International (German) 4th year B.Comm. International (Spanish) 4th year B.Comm. International (Italian), 3rd Year B. Corporate Law 4th year B. Corporate Law International 4th Year B.Sc. (Business Information Systems) Module Code(s) MG 309 Module(s) BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS Paper No. Repeat Paper Yes External Examiner(s) Professor Geoffrey Wood Internal Examiner(s) Prof. Hugh Scullion Dr. Deirdre Curran Dr. Mary Quinn Mr. Jim Redmond Instructions: Answer Question 1 (obligatory) and one other question. Question 1 is worth 50% of total course marks; the other question is worth 25%; assignment is worth 25%. Use separate answer books for each question. Duration 2 hours No. of Pages 7, including (this) cover page Department(s) Management Course Co-ordinator(s) Dr. Mary Quinn Requirements: MCQ No Handout No Statistical/ Log Tables No Cambridge Tables No Graph Paper No Log Graph Paper No Other Materials No Question 1. Read the General Brief and Deirdre O’Brien’s confidential brief in the Wickford Station case. Answer all the following: a) Write your initial description of this negotiating situation: explain whether single issue or multiple-issue, simple or complex currency, once-off or ongoing relationship. b) What is Deirdre O’Brien’s BATNA? How well does it meet her interests, in your view? c) What do you think is the Railway Company’s BATNA? How well do you estimate it meets their interests? d) Drawing on your knowledge of negotiations, do you see any possibilities for creating mutual gain in this case? Explain why or why not. e) Are there any distributive aspects to this negotiating situation? Identify it or them. f) Drawing on concepts you have learned during this course, other than those drawn on in answering parts (a) to (e) above, describe how you would approach this negotiation if acting for Deirdre O’Brien, and why. 2. In his paper “Achieving Integrative Agreements” (1983), Pruitt discusses a number of techniques which a negotiator can use to try to achieve integrative agreements. Identify and explain three of these techniques. As part of your explanation, you should discuss the factors that would influence the selection of which technique to use. 3. In “Go to the Balcony”, Ury (1993) has some advice for negotiators. What does Ury mean by going “to the balcony”? In what kinds of situations does Ury advise that a negotiator should “go to the balcony” and why? 2 up commuting by road. So I've been thinking: how about persuading the Rail Company to open a station at Wickford?” Mark stared. “Are you serious? I thought only governments or the railway company built railway stations”. Deirdre smiled. “That used to be the case once. But a number of building firms have paid for new stations they’ve built in recent years, and it has worked well.” “Nice idea. That would increase the value of your houses all right. Will the Railway people agree to it?” “I've had preliminary discussions with them. The main line to Dublin already runs by Wickford, only about ten minutes from the town centre by car.” “And right beside your land bank,” smiled Mark. “What did they want in return?” “Basically for my company to foot the bill for the building cost. Mind you, they started off by saying they had pretty good passenger traffic already and were more interested in developing freight. But I think that was just a negotiating tactic. Then they went rabbiting on about facilities they would require in a new station - a waiting room and a ticket office, customer and staff toilets and all that. I'm not too worried about that stuff. I mean, last year we built a regional airport so I'm sure we can design and build a railway station.” “Yeah, you'd be hard to beat at that. What happened next?” “I went on the offensive and said I'd want a guaranteed express service to and from Wickford morning and evening. No stopping at the four stations in between – they add 12 minutes onto the journey time, not to mention increased crowding in the carriages. So then they changed tack and said they might not have enough engines and carriages to provide what would be a dedicated service for Wickford.” Mark snorted. “That's nonsense! Everyone knows they're getting new diesel railcars courtesy of the EU. They'll have more carriages than they’ll know what to do with.” 5 “I felt that too. They wanted to know our projections for passenger traffic and whether we had done any market research.” “You should get a professional market research company to do a survey. We used a good one to help us work out our optimal opening times in the DIY business. If the Rail company is seriously interested, they should pick up half the cost of the survey. They'll need to know if it's going to be worth their while to open a new station. That's reasonable.” “Yeah, a market survey is a good idea!” Deirdre paused. “The biggest snag will be the parking spaces. They want parking for a thousand cars right next door to the station so commuters can park and ride. Well, I'm not using prime building land for a car park! Especially when the people from my own land bank can walk it. So I'm going to propose a drop-off lane at the station entrance where drivers can let off their loved ones and meet them again. We can make it on two levels if they insist on it, like we did at the airport. I've also thought about leasing the fields around the old seminary for a Park and Ride facility. The monks aren't ready to sell yet but I can lease the land for ten years with an option to buy. It would make a grand car park and we could run a shuttle bus over and back to the station.” “You'll need a number of buses and a shift system for the drivers. Who is going to pay for that?” “We'll charge a nominal fee for the first year until people have got used to using it.” “Will the Rail Company agree to that? Having ready access to parking will be essential to them getting a sufficient number of passengers.” “I'll have to persuade them. The more passengers they have, the more they can convince the Government and the EU the investment in the new carriages was worthwhile. And it's better for the environment than people using cars.” Mark grinned. “Yes, you always were a dedicated environmentalist.” 6 7 Deirdre returned the grin. “Well, if being green is good for business I can't help that, can I?” “Sounds good to me. Any other problems?” Deirdre smiled again. “Well, the Rail Company's opening position was that they wanted us to be responsible for maintaining the station for ten years. That's not on, once I hand it over they must assume responsibility for it. I'm not going spending money cleaning off the graffiti that will doubtless appear on the walls. They can have the usual guarantees against structural defects. After that they're on their own.” “Suppose they pull the plug on their schedules after the first year and discontinue stopping at Wickford?” “Fair point. I'll need to get a guarantee from them for, say, five years service. By that stage I should have the houses sold and the residents can do their own lobbying.” “When are you planning to meet them again?” “We’ve a meeting arranged for next Wednesday, 10.00 a.m. I’ll have a bit more thinking to do before that.” Mark smiled slyly. “I suppose you'll be needing lots of building materials. Keep the money in the family.” Deirdre smiled her sweetest. “You can tender the same as everyone else, little brother!” © Leo Smyth & Mary Quinn, 2008