Advanced negotiation: what does a commercial dashboard conceal?
In Vevey, where global food businesses, corporate headquarters and Riviera SMEs shape the business environment, a negotiation can involve more than a price. The managerial question is specific: does a dashboard focused on commercial performance keep the ethical risks of negotiation sufficiently visible?
What the literature establishes
Maurice E. Schweitzer, Lisa D. Ordóñez and Bambi Douma (2004, Academy of Management Journal) demonstrated experimentally that unmet goals can encourage people to misrepresent their performance. In their experiments, this tendency emerged particularly when participants fell just short of the target. The finding concerns performance reporting, rather than the conduct of commercial negotiations directly.
When ethics disappears from the frame
Ann E. Tenbrunsel and David M. Messick (2004, Social Justice Research) propose a complementary mechanism: the fading of a decision's ethical dimension, or “ethical fading”. A situation may be interpreted as an exclusively economic problem without its moral implications receiving meaningful consideration. This theoretical article helps explain why performance-oriented language may leave certain questions outside the discussion; it does not measure that effect in Vevey businesses.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that commercial targets make negotiators dishonest. These studies support neither that general judgement nor predictions about individuals. The useful qualification is organisational: establishing that a target was met is not enough to establish that the means used were acceptable. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the data and dashboards do not tell us
An experimental performance-reporting task reproduces neither a long-term supplier relationship nor the overlapping responsibilities within an international group. Ethical fading serves here as an analytical framework, rather than an estimate of how frequently the phenomenon occurs in practice. Conversely, tracking only margins, prices and deadlines documents the commercial outcome, but not necessarily the commitments made to secure it.
A practical check in Vevey
As part of SHR's “Advanced Negotiation” programme, a proposed exercise for a purchasing or sales team in Vevey would be to review every agreement concluded over one month using a checklist separate from the commercial results. It would record material claims and their sources, commitments made and any exceptions to internal rules, followed by a review by someone not involved in the negotiation. The measure would be the proportion of agreements containing at least one unsupported material claim or unauthorised commitment, with the relevant files providing verifiable evidence. This rate does not measure dishonesty: it identifies issues to resolve before commercial performance is regarded as fully validated. To go further: explore the Advanced Negotiation training in Vevey in the canton of Vaud, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Advanced Negotiation in Vevey
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