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We investigate the dynamics of competitive repositioning of firms in the deregulated U.S. airline industry (1979–1995) in terms of a firm's target market, strategic posture, and resource endowment relative to other firms in the industry. We suggest that, despite strong inertia in competitive positions, the direction of repositioning responds to external and internal alignment considerations. For external alignment, we examined how firms changed their competitive positioning to mimic the positions of similar, successful firms, and to differentiate themselves when experiencing intense rivalry. For internal alignment, we examined how firms changed their position in each dimension to align with the other dimensions of positioning. This internal alignment led to convergent positioning moves for firms with similar resource endowments and strategic postures, and divergent moves for firms with similar target markets and strategic postures. The evidence suggests that repositioning moves in terms of target markets and resource endowments are more sensitive to external and internal alignment considerations, but that changes in strategic posture are subject to very high inertia and do not appear to respond well to alignment considerations.

This study aims to investigate when integrative tactics are more effective in generating higher joint outcomes in an integrative negotiation. The authors test whether, first, the moral identity of the negotiators and, second, the concurrent use of distributive tactics increase the effectiveness of integrative tactics on joint outcomes.

Two weeks prior to the experiment, moral identity was measured using SIMI. Participants were classified into three groups: high, medium, and low SIMI. Two participants from the same group played a modified version of the Towers Market negotiation exercise. Distributive and integrative tactics were measured.

Results show that negotiators with high moral identity achieve higher joint outcomes in an integrative negotiation by using integrative tactics more effectively. In addition, the positive effects of integrative tactics on joint outcomes increase as the two negotiators employ distributive tactics along with integrative tactics rather than integrative tactics alone.

Results support the firm‐flexibility rule and dual‐concern model of negotiation. In addition, the results of this study are consistent with the argument of the differentiation‐before‐integration principle.

Contradictory to the assumption that negotiators should not use distributive tactics to increase joint outcome, negotiators can increase joint outcome when they use distributive tactics along with integrative tactics. In addition, this study shows that negotiators with high morality do a better job in an integrative negotiation not because they adopt integrative tactics more frequently, but because they use them more effectively, especially when coupled with negotiators with a similar level of morality.

In the spring of 1995, the Electronics Bureau of Shanghai [Shanghai Dianziju] changed its name to “Shanghai Electronics State-Owned Asset Management Company” [Shanghai dianzi guoyou zichan jingying gongsi]. As one official in the former Bureau explained, it had changed its name and its function: It was no longer set up to “govern” or “manage” [guan] Shanghai's electronics sector; instead it was now an asset management company whose function was to manage the assets of the firms that it owned.¹ At the time, the transformation seemed purely cosmetic. Calling itself an asset management company instead of a government bureau was one thing, but actually acting like an asset management company was quite another. Would firms under this former Bureau be any more productive as a result of the change? Would the work-life experiences of the people actually working in these firms change at all as a result?