negotiator

The following items are tagged negotiator.

The Dictator Game: Justifying Selfishness in Negotiation

Posted by & filed under Meeting Facilitation.

In a recent study of selfishness in negotiation, Fei Song of York University and C. Brian Cadsby and Tristan Morris of the University of Guelph had participants play the “dictator game,” adapted from experimental economics literature. In this game, Party A is given a sum of money to allocate between himself and Party B. Because Party B has no power, Party A’s allocation goes into effect without debate. The dictator game captures the essence of negotiations in contexts with an extreme power differential.

A Cash-Out Transaction: Cox Communications

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

On August 2, 2004, Barbara Cox Anthony and Ann Cox Chambers, two sisters who together owned 73% of Cox Communications, announced that they wanted to cash out the minority shareholders of their company. Their initial offer was $32 per share, or a 14% premium to the preannouncement trading price of approximately $28 per share.

Power Failure

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

In 1992 as part of efforts to privatize its energy sector, the Indian government chose energy-trading firm Enron, in conjunction with General Electric and the Bechtel Corporation, to build the world’s largest electricity-generating plant in Maharashtra, one of the poorest states in India. Possessing significant financial, intellectual, and reputational capital, Enron had to have been a formidable opponent in those initial negotiations. Enron was then on top of the business world, with sky-high stock prices and a reputation for innovation and growth.

Grant Strother (HLS 2012) Wins Conflict Prevention and Resolution Award for Best Original Student Article

Posted by & filed under Conflict Resolution.

Recent Harvard Law School Graduate Grant Strother ’12 was selected to receive The International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR) Outstanding Original Student Article Award for his paper, “Resolving Cultural Property Disputes in the Shadow of the Law.” This award recognizes a student article or paper that is focused on events or issues in the field of ADR.

March 2013

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Monthly Archives.

- Learn from the Deficit-reduction Talks – The United States didn’t go over the fiscal cliff, but few Americans liked the deal that was forged to avoid it. We look at what went wrong—and right—to show you how you can do better in your own negotiations.
- To Understand Other Negotiators, Consider the Context – Negotiators are often counseled to engage in perspective taking and empathetic understanding to achieve better results. Yet new research shows that the two very different skills have different payoffs in negotiation.
- Dear Negotiation Coach: Deal with a Crowded Table – Should you limit the number of people in the room during mediation of a high-stakes dispute? Our Negotiation Coach for February, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School professor Guhan Subramanian, suggests strength can be found in fewer numbers of participants.

Self-Analysis and Negotiation

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

“Separate the people from the problem,” advises the best-selling negotiation text Getting to Yes. That’s certainly good counsel when tempers flare and bargaining descends into ego battles, but it’s a mistake to ignore the psychological crosscurrents in negotiation. Unless they are addressed, a deal may never be reached.

Taking an Outside View

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Cognitive biases affect even smart and highly educated negotiators. Unfortunately, awareness of our biases is not enough to prevent their having a negative impact on our next negotiation.