Teaching Negotiation

Teaching negotiation includes instructional areas such as deal setup and design, dispute resolution systems, arbitration, mediation, and meeting facilitation as well as the use of interactive role-play exercises, books, videos, training materials and role-play simulations designed around a specific negotiation skill or concept. The Program on Negotiation’s educational resource center, known as the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC), develops a wide-range of role-play simulations—including the popular Sally Soprano negotiation case study—interactive teaching exercises, books, videos, and scholarly papers devoted to the application of teaching negotiation and training effective negotiators.

Materials in the TNRC cover negotiation-related issues in areas ranging from climate change to ethics. Many of the themes are substantive (e.g., environmental negotiations or business negotiations), some target specific sectors (e.g., health care industry), or address particular contexts (e.g., cross-cultural negotiation skills) while others are more process oriented (e.g., facilitation).

The most popular simulation topics include:

  • Environmental
  • Real Estate
  • Workplace
  • Public Policy
  • Teaching in Law
  • Water Management Simulations

In addition, once a year, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School selects an outstanding individual who embodies what it means to be a truly great negotiator. To earn the Great Negotiator Award, the honoree must be a distinguished leader whose lifelong accomplishments in the field of dispute resolution and negotiation have had compelling and lasting results.

To help students and professionals learn valuable lessons from these highly skilled negotiators, PON’s Great Negotiator Case Study Series features in-depth studies such as Stuart Eizenstat: Negotiating the Final Accounts of World War II and Lakhdar Brahimi: Negotiating a New Government for Afghanistan.

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Teaching Critical Leadership Skills

Lara SanPietro   •  12/15/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

ethical leadership and Effective Leadership as portrayed by people standing on a rock with their fists in the air Participative Leadership

Running a multinational corporation, starting a small business, or leading a diplomatic mission all require critical leadership skills. Being an effective leader necessitates negotiating both within your organization and with external partners. In Real Leaders Negotiate, author Jeswald Salacuse explains that leaders can increase their effectiveness by using negotiation in each of the three phases … Read Teaching Critical Leadership Skills

Labor Relations: Negotiating Collective Bargaining Agreements

Lara SanPietro   •  12/10/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Contract bargaining in labor relations is one of the most complex areas of negotiation and dispute resolution. There are rarely clear cut or mutually agreed upon notions of what a fair salary and benefits package would be, so employers and workers, either individually or collectively, often find themselves at odds. Furthermore, contract bargaining in a … Learn More About This Program

New International Negotiation Simulations: Teaching International Negotiation with Current Global Dynamics

Lara SanPietro   •  12/02/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

international negotiation

With the spread of a global pandemic, climate crisis, and the war on terror, resolving international conflicts has become increasingly complex. Training to address these difficult global conflicts must also reflect the modern issues and dynamics that face the international community. The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) has several new international negotiation simulations that reflect … Learn More About This Program

Expand Your Curriculum with 17 Newly Translated Simulations

Riley Scheuritzel   •  11/24/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Expand Your Curriculum with 17 Newly Translated Simulations
The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) is pleased to announce the expansion of our translated simulation collection. The TNRC offers a variety of negotiation simulations translated into over 30 languages. Now available, however, are 17 new versions of some of our most popular simulations in Spanish, Mandarin … Learn More About This Program

Asynchronous Learning: Negotiation Exercises to Keep Students Engaged Outside the Classroom

Lara SanPietro   •  11/18/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

dispute system design

Asynchronous role-play simulations teach valuable negotiation skills outside of a typical class format.
Asynchronous learning is a term used to describe education, instruction, or learning that does not occur in the same time or place. Asynchronous learning uses resources that facilitate knowledge sharing outside the constraints of time and place among a group of people. Using … Learn More About This Program

Teaching Mediation: Exercises to Help Students Acquire Mediation Skills

Lara SanPietro   •  11/11/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Mediation Hire a Mediator

Often, disputing parties are unable achieve satisfactory or sustainable outcomes on their own through direct negotiation, and require the assistance of a mediator or facilitator. Mediators can help parties involved in a dispute through examining the issues at hand, uncovering the parties’ underlying interests, and identifying creative solutions. To act as mediator requires a great … Learn More About This Program

Teaching the Fundamentals: The Best Introductory Negotiation Role Play Simulations

Lara SanPietro   •  11/03/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Introductory Negotiation

Introductory negotiation courses are taught in law and business schools around the world, but are also increasingly taught to undergraduates and in all types of corporate settings. No matter the context, though, the basic elements of negotiation are roughly similar. Teaching interest-based negotiation, the Zone of Possible Agreement (ZOPA), the Best Alternative to a Negotiated … Learn More About This Program

Teach Your Students to Negotiate Climate Change

Lara SanPietro   •  10/27/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

How Can Communities Negotiate Climate Change Risks?
With ocean temperatures rising and hurricanes growing more frequent and severe, the impacts of climate change are dramatically affecting many communities. The severe flooding brought on by repeated storms has forced the impacted communities to confront a range of public health risks, as well as evaluations of drainage and … Read Teach Your Students to Negotiate Climate Change

High Stakes Negotiations in the Healthcare Industry

Lara SanPietro   •  10/21/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

healthcare

Teach Your Students to Negotiate One of the Most Critical Global Industries
With the COVID-19 pandemic devastating communities around the world, the acute importance of the healthcare industry to community welfare has become even more apparent. Healthcare is one of the biggest economies in the world, with billions of dollars spent on treatments and associated research. … Learn More About This Program

Negotiating with Colleagues: Training for Collaborative Human Resources Negotiations

Lara SanPietro   •  10/14/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

human resources negotiations

Human resources representatives are often involved in a wide array of internal company negotiations, including one-on-one disputes between colleagues as well as inter-department budgeting and overall staffing plans. To deftly handle this wide array of negotiations, human resources representatives must balance the various stakeholder concerns, financial assessments, and competing interests with fairness, consideration for relationships, … Learn More About This Program

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