Negotiating through INSPIRE©
This is a handout that you may find useful when using INSPIRE.
All the main steps and actions you will need are explained here. A more comprehensive
explanation is given on the individual INSPIRE pages. The example explains how INSPIRE
works and shows you what it can do. If you need any help send us an email;
you can do so directly from every INSPIRE page.
Have fun negotiating!
Content
- Introduction
- Getting started
- Using INSPIRE
1. Introduction
Participants in the negotiation are paired randomly and anonymously. Your partner may be from
your city, country or from far away: a different country, a different continent.
Please log in at least once in two days to check whether there has been
any activity. If you have provided an e-mail address, INSPIRE will send
you a note when your counterpart makes an offer, but it is better not to
rely on these e-mails; do log in frequently.
In brief, the negotiation involves a preparation step during which you
read the case description and clarify your preferences in terms of the
issues and options. You then proceed to an offer exchange step during
which you try to reach an agreement by exchanging offers and, if you like,
messages. If you reach and agreement, you can use the post-agreement step
to improve upon the agreement you reached. More information is available
from the system itself. A more detailed instruction sheet is also
provided.
Some negotiations have a deadline. Remember to complete your
negotiation by the deadline. After that you cannot continue to negotiate
and are only able to fill in the second questionnaire.
2. Getting started
Click on the Netscape icon. If required, type:
www.business.carleton.ca/inspire
A few comments about the World Wide Web and
Netscape:
Information appears in pages of text
or pictures
Every word or phrase that is in blue and
underlined is a link to another page; click on the word or phrase
and you will move to the associated page.
You can return to a previous page by clicking
the Back button or using the Go menu.
Menu item Go contains the names of the pages you visited recently. You can return to any page by selecting its name from this menu.
There is an example of a negotiation in which
all the main features of the INSPIRE system are mentioned. You can
read this example by choosing the first option on INSPIRE's
home page.
3. Using INSPIRE
©
- Identify yourself. On the INSPIRE home page, enter
the name of your negotiation and your user-name. Do not enter a
password.
- Read the main steps that you will follow during your negotiation. .
INSPIRE is full of information and will guide you through your
negotiation. All the steps mentioned below will be explained
in detail as you move through INSPIRE.
- Read the case ("Click here to read the
description").
After you are done reading, click on the button
"Done reading".
- Rate the issues.
Distribute 100 points among the four issues. The issue which,
for you, is the most important gets the most points; the least
important issue gets the smallest number of points. The points
for the four issues must total 100.
Remember if you make a mistake or change your
mind press
the button "Clear all entries" and start from
the beginning.
- Rate the options for each issue.
Distribute the assigned number of points among all the options of each
issue. Give the maximum number of points to the option that
you think is best and zero to the one which is the worst for you.
- Rate the packages.
A number of packages are displayed for you. Each package has a
rating. Check if you agree with the ratings. If you disagree
with the ratings of any of the packages change them in
the box on the right-hand side of the table. Please do not try
to manipulate these rankings as they are used for their own benefit.
From now on every offer (a package) which you want to consider
and present to your partner will show a rating based on your
preferences. Any offers sent to you by your
partner will also show a rating. Remember, this rating reflects
your and only your opinion. Your partner does not know your opinion
nor can he or she see your ratings.
- Fill out the pre-negotiation questionnaire.
- Make an offer to your partner using the menus in the offer-box.
You can also send messages to your partner using the message-box.
- You will then have to wait for your partner to respond to your
offer. If you don`t have an email account and did not give it to
us, then you need to come back later (say the next day) and login
to INSPIRE using the same negotiation name, user-name and
password. INSPIRE will show you whether your partner has sent you
a response.
Keep checking till you get a response.
If you like, you can continue to send messages or new offers to
your partner.
- At any point you may review the history of your negotiations.
The history page contains all the offers and messages that
you and your partner have exchanged as well as a graph indicating the
ratings of the exchanged offers. Note, that this graph presents
both yours and the your partner's offers but in terms of
your ratings only.
- When both you and your partner accept an offer, it is called
an "agreement". INSPIRE will tell you whether your
agreement is "optimal", or whether it is possible to improve
it and move towards a better agreement.
- If INSPIRE says you have reached the end of negotiation,
fill out the post-negotiation questionnaire. Otherwise you have
the choice of making more offers till you reach a better agreement,
or stopping at this point. In any case, fill out the
questionnaire when you reach the end of the negotiation.
- Please remember that you are negotiating with someone who may be far away
and in a different time zone. He or she may wait for your response or a
message; please do not make your partner wait too long.
Thank you!
