Excerpt

Much of the negotiation literature appears to take for granted the notion that there exists a sharp separation between the "world of theory" and the "world of practice." This separation is implicit in phrases such as, "it works in theory but not in practice!"; those who can, do—those who can't write about it!"; or, "they can do it, but don't understand why or how they are doing it." The thesis of this column is that this conceptual separation between the worlds of theory and practice is a dangerous one with undesirable consequences for our understanding of conflict and its resolution.