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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Planning for Cyber Defense of Critical Urban Infrastructure

Lara SanPietro   •  09/02/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

negotiation skills

Save Fairport: Planning for Social Cyber Defense of Critical Urban Infrastructure

Cybersecurity for critical urban infrastructure is a major public safety issue for cities. Cyber-attacks can cause major physical damage, as well as sow chaos and undermine public faith in government. Cyber criminals constantly develop new types of malware, which may not be detectable by … Learn More About This Program

Learn from the Best with the Great Negotiator Case Studies

Lara SanPietro   •  08/25/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Great Negotiator

No one can provide perspective on conflict resolution like experts who have been involved in some of the world’s most complex negotiations. Since 2001, the Program on Negotiation (PON) has bestowed the Great Negotiator Award upon distinguished leaders whose lifelong accomplishments in the fields of negotiation and dispute resolution have had compelling and lasting results. The … Learn More About This Program

Check Out the All-In-One Curriculum Packages – Available for Some of Our Most Popular Simulations

Lara SanPietro   •  08/19/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

price

Introducing a new way to go in-depth when teaching the most important negotiation concepts and to measure learning outcomes.
If you are new to teaching negotiation or are looking to go in-depth on teaching key concepts, the All-In-One Curriculum Package will provide you with everything you need. The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center has created All-In-One Curriculum … Learn More About This Program

Teaching Contract Negotiation: Using the Mutual Gains Approach

Lara SanPietro   •  08/11/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

anchoring effect

How do you use the mutual gains approach in contract negotiations?
In contract negotiations, parties can often resort to positional bargaining instead of using the mutual gains approach. Teaching students to generate creative options in contract negotiations can help them avoid positional bargaining and achieve more beneficial and sustainable agreements. The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) … Learn More About This Program

Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes

Lara SanPietro   •  07/14/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

conflict resolution

How Do Parties in Conflict Negotiate Core Beliefs?
Identity and values-based disputes are particularly challenging to resolve, as identities are naturally inflexible and values are typically much less elastic than interest-based issues. In conventional interest-based negotiation, parties often do give up one thing in exchange for getting something they want more. This is often not possible … Read Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes

New Simulation: International Business Acquisition Negotiated Online

Lara SanPietro   •  07/08/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Ren the Robot

New from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC), Ren the Robot is a one-and-a-half hour, two-party, multi-issue negotiation between a Tokyo-based robotics company, Grubotics, and a U.S.-based tech company, Delivered, over a potential acquisition deal. It is designed to be conducted using online video conferencing. The use of online video conference technology highlights the conveniences … Learn More About This Program

Download Your Next Mediation Video

Lara SanPietro   •  05/12/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Negotiation Videos

Use Video Examples to Teach Your Students to Become Better Mediators
Parties engaged in disputes are often unable to reconcile their differences alone, or fail to reach outcomes that are adequate for everyone. Mediators can add a great deal of value by helping parties to efficiently and effectively examine the issues at hand, take the interests … Read Download Your Next Mediation Video

Managing Emotions in Negotiation: Teaching Students to Turn Emotions into an Opportunity for Mutual Gain

Lara SanPietro   •  05/11/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

bad news in negotiation

How do you move from an emotionally charged moment in a negotiation to a mutually beneficial agreement? In negotiations of all types, whether buying a house or negotiating a company acquisition, emotions naturally manifest. Left unaddressed, emotions can derail a negotiation and make agreement seem impossible. … Learn More About This Program

The Value of Using Scorable Simulations in Negotiation Training

Lara SanPietro   •  04/28/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

At a Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) faculty pedagogy seminar, members of the PON faculty and negotiation community gathered to hear Gordon Kaufman (MIT Morris A. Adelman Professor of Management, Emeritus) speak about how he uses quantifiable data to plot student-learning trajectories. The conversation focused on the ongoing debate within the negotiation pedagogy community regarding the way … Learn More About This Program

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