The Case:

This summer, you, Cambria Weeks, want to get a job as a newspaper reporter in your small Oklahoma town because you’re hoping to study journalism in college next year. You have already interviewed, and you received an email from the editor today saying she would like to hire you! All factors of your job will be exactly the same as the other reporters at the paper, and nothing can be changed about the nature of your contract. You have two weeks to respond to this offer.

Your only problem is that the editor says the job pays 9 dollars per hour. You’ve been offered another job as a lifeguard at a private beach. Lifeguarding pays 10.75 dollars per hour. You would rather have the reporting job, but money is your priority since you start college in just a year. You’ll have to turn down the newspaper if they can’t pay you as well as the lifeguarding job or better. You really wish you could get paid 13 dollars per hour like your friend Rose who moved to D.C. last year and now does small reporting jobs for a local paper there.

You plan to negotiate with the newspaper for more money because you’d love to work there!

ZOPA : Zone of Possible Agreement

BATNA : Best alternative to a negotiated agreement

Aspiration Value : The Aspiration Value is defined as the outcome with the highest value at which a negotiator places some nonneglible likelihood that the value will be accepted by the opponent (White & Neale, 1994)

Reservation Value : The least favorable point at which one will accept a negotiated agreement