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Week 3 Case Study Pacific Oil Company Essay

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The case study on Pacific Oil Company shows from beginning to end the role of power in the outcome of a negotiation. From the beginning, the problem that Pacific Oil Company faced as it reopened negotiations with Reliant Chemical Company was that they did not assert the power necessary to really end up with the outcome of the negotiation they were hoping for. The case study points out several factors that Pacific Oil Company is trying to achieve in the contract negotiations with Reliant Chemical company: the change to a surplus of VCM in the market, the possibility of Pacific Oil needing a supply of their own of VCM to produce their own PVC, and the start-up of several other companies in the production of VCM (Lewiski, n.d.). These …show more content…

It would seem that the types of negotiators each of our characters took on also had a fair part in the way the negotiations played out. Bhand (2010) discusses the four types of negotiators. I don’t believe we see all four of the negotiation types displayed in this negotiation, but rather that Fontaine and Gaudin share the same negotiation technique while Hauptmann, and Zinnser take on very different methods to the negotiating. Let’s start with Fontaine and Gaudin. From the first visit between Gaudin and Hauptmann in December to the combined visit of Fontaine and Gaudin in March, Lewiski (n.d.) points out the factors of the established relationship between Pacific Oil and Reliant Chemical, and the thought of Fontaine and Gaudin that the negotiations will be without any real problems. This thought process, and the way it continues to drive the negotiation going forward falls into Bhand’s definition of a negotiator low on task orientation but high on relationship orientation. “They have a mindset that if the relationship with the other negotiator is ‘good’ then it will be easy to negotiate…rarely disagreeing with the other party, they want to please the other party by agreeing to most demands” (2010). This behavior is displayed over and over again with Fontaine and Gaudin in that they do not disagree with any of the Reliant Chemical demands outright, but rather they

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