They Say It’s About Dollars, But It’s Often About Emotion: How to Use Mediation To Restore Business Judgment To Business Disputes
Max Factor III
ABSTRACT: Business executives are supposed to be creatures of logic, carefully weighing costs and benefits. Yet some mediations fail even when there are several sensible alternatives, any of which would offer the disputants as good or a better a result than each of them would expect from other likely outcomes of the dispute.
Puzzling as their behavior may seem, business partners may sometimes reject settling a dispute, preferring instead to have a litigated result imposed upon them by a third party such as a Judge, Jury or Arbitrator. There are four common reasons for this seemingly illogical behavior. Each reason relates to very recognizable human emotions and perceptions.
