Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, Second Edition, The

Chapter 11. Tacit Negotiations and Social Dilemmas

Several members of a well-respected, decentralized research and development (R&D) department in an organization needed laboratory space. The department decided that each organizational member should develop and maintain his or her own laboratory space so as to allow for specialization and reduce bureaucratic control and overhead. Each year, members made a laboratory facilities request that was considered by a committee. The committee was charged with the task of allocating research space on a yearly basis. External funding was the primary criterion that determined allocations: The greater one's external funding, the more laboratory resources were granted.

The committee began to encounter a problem ...