This unit is designed to provide students with the basic understanding and skills needed to negotiate effectively in the international business environment. The first segment focuses both on general negotiation theory and specific strategic methodologies useful in the rapidly shifting environment of international business. Particular emphasis is given to the range of diverse communication and negotiation techniques required to meet the cross-cultural challenges of contemporary regional and global markets. The second segment is designed to provide students with some of the advanced skills needed to negotiate effectively in today’s international business environment. It further develops strategic themes introduced in the first segment, and aims to help students identify and respond to unprincipled tactics, while gaining confidence in employing principled tactics when negotiating with particularly uncooperative or hostile parties in difficult environments.
The unit is structured to mix discursive survey of theory with highly interactive individual role play and group workshops for action learning through negotiation case studies and simulations. Selected negotiation sessions during the second segment will be videotaped, and time will be spent with each student group evaluating and critiquing negotiation performances.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In 2nd ed., by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton (Penguin, 1991)
Getting Ready to Negotiate: The Getting to Yes Workbook, by Roger Fisher and Danny Ertel (Penguin, 1995)
Supplementary Readings [SR] (photocopy packet of edited materials prepared for this unit)
Assessment will be based on aggregation of points for
Unit Segment #1
Click here to read negotiation project descriptions. You will sign up to participate in one of these group projects.
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Unit Segment #2
Click here to read negotiation project descriptions. You will sign up to participate in one of these individual projects.
You are responsible to read the assigned materials before each scheduled discussion session. Come on time and be prepared both to discuss and to put into practice the insights from these assigned readings. You are likewise expected to attend each of the 10 sessions during the six days the unit is scheduled to meet. Unexcused absences have a negative impact not only on your ability to absorb the material, but keeps you from participating with and learning from your peers. Participation in the workshop sessions are essential to successful completion of the unit.
There will be two formal projects, a negotiation presentation (group project) and review session (individual project) which require your participation in group and individual workshops. The two parts of each separate project comprise two principal stages of a single, extended negotiation simulation, and thereby provide students the opportunity to put into practice the range of negotiation theories and strategies covered in our readings and discussion sessions.
You will be assigned to represent key actor(s) for one party in separate hypothetical or reconstructed actual international business negotiation. [Detailed information for each setting and the parties involved will be provided.]
The first group project session will require you to develop a group negotiating position, to begin preparation of negotiation workshop forms, and to conclude a preliminary meeting with the other negotiating party. The second group project session will require you to revise and complete your negotiation workshop forms, and conclude a final meeting with the other negotiating party. I will take into account group member feedback when assigning marks for substantive participation for the two group project sessions.
The first individual project session will require you to develop an individual negotiating position, to begin preparation of negotiation workshop forms, and to conclude a preliminary meeting with the other negotiating parties. The second individual project session will require you to revise and complete your negotiation workshop forms, and conclude a final meeting with the other negotiating parties. Selected portions of your individual negotiations will be videotaped. I will then be meeting with you individually and in small groups to give you feedback on your overall performance.
The concluding sessions at the end of each segment will be devoted to each group/individual explaining, either to the assembled class or in small group conference, how the group/individual approached the negotiations, along with your detailed evaluation of key turning points in the negotiation sessions. [A checklist of matters for elaboration will be provided.] The other negotiating party(-ies), the class at large, and the instructor will then have opportunity to evaluate your overall performance, and to ask questions and make comments about your negotiation strategies and style, and the outcome of the negotiations. I will take peer evaluations seriously into account when assigning a mark for this last assessment item.
An Internet discussion forum, other recommended readings, and a negotiation software package (trial version) will be made available on my Web site. Details and passwords will be provided during the first class session of the Unit.
Contents Page to Supplementary Reading Materials
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