It’s hard to imagine a situation in which negotiating counterparts would choose to sacrifice hundreds of millions of dollars rather than reach agreement. But this is the choice that New York City and its teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), made in January when they declared impasse on a new teacher evaluation system.
Satisfied employees, satisfied customers?
In a new study, Shu-Cheng Steve Chi of the National Taiwan University and his colleagues find that the degree to which salespeople enjoy their work has a significant impact on customer satisfaction with the outcome of sales negotiations.
The study examined negotiations over the price of eyewear between salespeople and customers at the … Read More 
On March 2, 2013, the Harvard Negotiation Law Review held their 2013 Symposium, entitled “Ideas and Impact: Roger Fisher’s Legacy.” This event celebrated Professor Fisher, co-founder of the Harvard Negotiation Project and the Program on Negotiation. Professor Fisher passed away last summer.
During the day-long event, distinguished panelists explored current trends and opportunities for aspiring scholars … Read More
The Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowships are designed to encourage young scholars from the social sciences and professional disciplines to pursue theoretical, empirical, and/or applied research in negotiation and dispute resolution. Consistent with the PON goal of fostering the development of the next generation of scholars, this program provides support for one year of … Read More
On March 4th, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School hosted a panel discussion entitled: “Negotiations by Other Means: Track II, Unilateral Action, Robust Third Party Role and Islands of Coordination in the New Middle East.”
The panel featured three veterans of high profile Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy: Ambassador Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center for … Read More
On November 1, 2012, Professor Kerri Johnson from the University of California, Los Angeles, delivered a talk at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her lecture, entitled “Social Perceptions at the Crossroads: Why Sex (Still) Impacts the Perception and Evaluation of Other Status-Linked Identities,” was part of a year-long research seminar co-sponsored by the Program on Negotiation … Read More
Complexity Personified: International Standards Negotiations from a Microsoft Manager’s Perspective
On April 3, 2013, the Program on Negotiation hosted Jason Matusow, General Manager of International Standards at Microsoft, for a lunch seminar. His talk, titled “Complexity Personified: International Standards Negotiations from a Microsoft Manager’s Perspective,” covered the myriad of challenges that can arise when managing both … Read More
Car salespeople truly understand how to use modest concessions to extract much larger ones.
First, they spend a long time legitimating the sticker price and suggesting that it’s not only fair, but nonnegotiable. … Read Wheelers and Dealers?
On Saturday, April 20th more than a hundred people came out to Harvard to attend the PON co-sponsored conference “Confronting Evil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.” Held just six days after the bombings at the Boston Marathon, and one day after many area residents were asked to “shelter in place” by the police during their search for the … Read More
Imagine that your counterpart has placed a draft on the table. Here are three approaches to consider in response. … Read Coping with the Other Side’s Draft
In the early days of his tenure, a chairman spends too much time reviewing the details of his proposed policy with his staff and not enough time sounding out council members to drum up support for his reforms.
The chairman’s missteps lead us to the first rule of coalition building: think carefully about how and when … Read Anticipating Coalitional Behavior
Negotiations become especially complex when agents are involved on two or more sides.
In the course, of their research, Robert Mnookin and Lawrence Susskind discovered that many negotiators often mistakenly assume that an agent representing the other side … Read More
