What happens in negotiations between two individuals who care little about each other’s outcomes? Suppose an engineer and an industrial designer are arguing over the design of a car bumper. The designer only cares about whether the bumper matches the style of the vehicle; the engineer is concerned only about how the bumper connects to the front. After describing the trouble he’s having with the existing design, the engineer presents a solution that the designer deems “ugly.” The designer threatens to involve her boss if the engineer doesn’t revert back to the prior design.
business negotiation
Negotiations in business can be for a range of items, including but not limited to: employee compensation, business acquisitions, vendor pricing and sales, real estate leases, and the fulfillment of contract obligations.
The following items are tagged business negotiation.
Who’s Watching? How Onlookers Affect Team Talks in Business Negotiations
Your boss, turning to you and a coworker near the end of your team’s weekly meeting, says, “So, which one of you wants to present our proposal in San Francisco next week?”
Resolving the First-Offer Dilemma in Business Negotiations
Should you make the first offer? Few questions related to negotiation have yield more academic attention and debate among practitioners.
Deals
Deals
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL (2267)
WINTER 2013
Instructor:
Guhan Subramanian
This advanced negotiation course examines complex corporate deals. Many of the class sessions will be structured around recent or ongoing deals, selected for the complex issues of law and business that they raise. Student teams will research and analyze these transactions in order
Trying to Forgive and Move Forward
In business negotiations, when a counterpart apologizes for harming or offending you, should you forgive and move forward? What if doing so seems impossible?
In a chapter in The Negotiator’s Fieldbook (American Bar Association, 2006), Ellen Waldman and Frederic Luskin write that forgiveness isn’t an essential component of negotiation; you may be able to get to
Sellers: Stay out of legal hot water
When it comes to business negotiations, you probably understand the importance of being as principled as possible to protect your reputation and ward off legal trouble. You probably expect your counterparts to follow the straight and narrow as well. Yet negotiators often have only a fuzzy grasp of which claims and strategies are legal and
Alain Lempereur, PON Executive Committee
Alain Lempereur is the Alan B. Slifka Professor at Brandeis University, and the director of the Masters’ Programs in Coexistence and Conflict at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he was also a visiting professor. His current research is devoted to responsible negotiation.
Four tips for negotiating in China
Adapted from “During the Gold Rush: Negotiating in China,” by Ray Friedman (professor, Vanderbilt University), first published in the Negotiation newsletter, February 2007.
China is a vast, rapidly changing country bursting with economic opportunity for locals and foreigners alike. Since market reforms began in 1979, real GDP growth has averaged 9% annually; the Chinese economy is
August 2011
What type of hard bargainer are you facing?
Navigate multiparty talks
Cope with an opening offer
Consider an apology
Dear Negotiation Coach: Negotiate the gender gap
July 2011
Time for a Contract Renewal? Lessons from Mad Men
Deal with their pride
Improve your job flexibility
Negotiate family business disputes
Dear Negotiation Coach: Deal effectively with foreign supplies
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