Primary Objectives
To provide students with basic skills in negotiation and conflict resolution
To critically re-examine existing views on negotiation
To present a cross-cultural perspective on international negotiations
Specific Objectives
To help students better understand how they negotiate (negotiation processes followed, negotiating behavior employed, implicit assumptions underlying both)
To present and assess negotiation based on joint-problem solving as stated in Roger Fisher’s “Getting to Yes” through exercises drawn from many different contexts
To enable students to review their negotiating skills, to broaden their repertoire, to practice unused / unusual ways of negotiating
To increase students’awareness of cross-cultural differences
Program
Unit 1 : The nature of conflict and Negotiation : Interdependence
Strategic Choice in Negotiation. The tension between cooperation and competition.
Readings : Excerpts from Robert Axelrod "The Evolution of Cooperation" and Lax and Sebenius "The Manager as a Negotiator".
Unit 2 : The Negotiation Process
How to evaluate offers, who should make the first offers, setting goals (high or reasonable goals ?), key questions to ask to break through impasses, when to walk away, making sure that commitments are effective and operational.
Unit 3 : Integrative tactics (Principled Bargaining)
Focus on interests, generate options for mutual gains, use objective standards of fairness to persuade, assess the alternatives to negotiation. How to make joint gains: exchanging information about priorities and preferences, trading off on issues, building on differences.
Readings : Excerpts from Fisher and Ury "Getting to Yes" and Lax and Sebenius "The Manager as a Negotiator"
Unit 4 : Separate the Substance from the Relationship
Building a working relationship with your oponent through active listening, correcting partisan perception, putting yourself in the other party’s shoes, saving face, knowing what to do when emotions run high. Readings : Excerpts from Fisher and Ury "Getting to Yes"
Unit 5 : Distributive tactics
Positional Bargaining : The Negotiation Dance. The Art of Anchoring. Working on the other party’s perception of the bargaining range. Tactics based on coercion, manipulation, deception, stone walling.
Unit 6 : Project Tutorials
Unit 7 : Project Tutorials
Unit 8 : Project Tutorials
Unit 9 : Negotiation Breakdowns
Psychological traps and cognitive biases in Negotiation : the fixed-pie assumption; the winner’s curse; the negotiator’s overconfidence; the non-rational escalation of conflict; the Dollar Auction Game. How to divide a fixed pie.
Readings : Excerpts from Bazerman and Neale "Negotiating Rationally"
Unit 10 : Interpersonal Communication Skills
Making communication a two-way process. How to improve your interpersonal skills and broaden your negotiation repertoire. What to do when the other party is being difficult. Some communication freezers. The impact of role / status on the negotiation style.
Readings : Excerpts from Fisher and Brown "Getting Together" and "Zimbardo"
Unit 11: Negotiation, Influence and Sales Techniques
6 compliance Principles : Reciprocation, Commitment and Consistency, Liking, Authority, Scarcity, Social Proof. Compliance-gaining tactics in the marketplace.
Readings : Excerpts from Ciladini "Influence : the Psychology of Persuasion"
Unit 12 : Third Party Intervention : Mediation
Negotiating through or with an agent. Mediating Disputes : The Negotiator as a Mediator.
Readings : Christopher Moore "How Mediation Works"
Unit 13 : Multilateral Negotiations
The use of alliances, caucusing and coalition building.
Readings : Lax and Sebenius "Thinking Coalitionally : Party Arithmetic, Process Opportunism, and Strategic Sequencing"
Unit 14 : International Negotiations
Increasingly, the economy is turning into a global marketplace, featuring cross-border transactions and international negotiations. Global deals are not the extension of domestic negotiations. They involve people with differing values, norms and culture. Cultural differences increase the difficulty of conducting international negotiations. As no assumptions about common values and objectives can be made, international negotiators have much to gain from cross-cultural insight and experience.
Unit 15 (final class):
Project Presentations & Class Evaluation
Assignments
Paper
Each student will be asked to write a paper on an aspect of Negotiation which he or she finds interesting. Students might develop an argument that goes beyond, qualifies or contradicts points made in the readings or the classroom. Such a paper should not exceed 10 pages and is due three weeks following the end of the seminar. This paper is to be done on a strictly individual basis.
Project
Students, in groups of 3-4, shall be assigned a well-known negotiation case drawn from international relations, business, or other field. Students will re-examine the negotiation on the basis of each of the analytical tools and concepts developed in the seminar. While basic materials on the subject will be provided by the professor, students may need to conduct additional research. Each group will have several preparation sessions with the professor and will have to work extensively outside of the class. At the end of the course, each group will have 45 minutes to present their case and analysis and direct a question-and-answer period. Oral presentations will be made before the class at the end of the seminar.
Course Environment
Classroom participation and interaction, not lectures, best define the Negotiation course. Students will be learning primarily from Negotiation exercises. Subsequent class discussion will consist of debriefings on the exercises through distributed materials and Fisher’s “Getting to Yes” (reminder: “Getting to Yes” is available in English namely at Brentanos, W.H. Smith or through SMD).
Evaluation
Final exam : 50%
Paper : 50%
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