Here is a list offering a broad overview of negotiation case studies from the recent past along with analysis of each bargaining scenario:
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Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
negotiation case study
What is a Negotiation Case Study?
To help students and professionals learn from highly skilled negotiators, an in-depth negotiation case study can teach valuable lessons.
A negotiation case study can introduce participants to new negotiation and dispute resolution tools, techniques, and strategies. But not just any negotiation is worthy of being a case study.
For teaching negotiation purposes, field-based, actual cases are the most effective. They require students to face tough decisions based on imperfect information and uncertain circumstances-exactly as is the case in reality. And there’s no shortage of real-life examples to learn from.
One negotiation case study demonstrates the power of coalitions to achieve win-win negotiations at the bargaining table. Another examines the power of sincerity in both negotiation and dispute resolution. You can find case studies that follow well-known events, such as negotiations between the NFL players and league owners. Alternatively, some case studies examine negotiations between families and business partners you probably aren’t familiar with.
But not every negotiation comes to a tidy conclusion. Sometimes negotiators care so much about the issues at stake that they mistake compromise for surrender. Sometimes they’re so confident things will go their way they don’t try hard enough.
For example, one negotiation case study from a few years ago looks at the Boston Red Sox’s spectacularly botched opening offer in renegotiations with star pitcher, Jon Lester. The negotiation serves as a reminder of the importance of crafting opening offers with care. By tossing out a random, lowball number ($70 million over four years), the Sox offended Lester and ultimately drove him into the arms of the Chicago Cubs and their six-year, $155 million deal.
Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
The following items are tagged negotiation case study:
Negotiation Training: How Harvard Negotiation Exercises, Negotiation Cases and Good Negotiation Coaching Can Make You a Better Negotiator
Discover how to refine your negotiation skills with this free special report, Negotiation Training: How Harvard Negotiation Exercises, Negotiation Cases and Good Negotiation Coaching Can Make You a Better Negotiator, from Harvard Law School.
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Conflict Negotiation Strategies: When Do Employees Choose to Negotiate?
How does the desire to negotiate stack up against other workplace decision-making procedures? Negotiation seems to be the preferred decision-making mechanism when employees are seeking individually tailored solutions.
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For NFL Players, a Win-Win Negotiation Contract Only in Retrospect?
How did the NFL Players association and team owners come to an eventual win-win negotiated agreement? In this article we explore the strategies each side used to get to an integrative solution even if that was not the ultimate goal.
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A Top International Negotiation Case Study in Business: The Microsoft-Nokia Deal
Let’s look at the international negotiation case study of Microsoft’s decision to purchase Finnish mobile phone company Nokia’s mobile device business for $9.5 billion. The deal, which closed in 2014, quickly proved disastrous: Microsoft wrote off nearly all of the deal’s value and laid off thousands of workers in July 2015. Although there were many … Read More
Dispute Resolution on Facebook: Using a Negotiation Approach to Resolve a Conflict
For several years, Facebook has been working with social scientists to bring traditional methods of dispute resolution to cyberspace. The site has begun to offer users tools to resolve disputes with one another over offensive or upsetting posts, including insults and photos.
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Arbitration vs Mediation: The Definition of Mediation as a Problem Solving Process
Mediation is often thought of as a last step to adjudicate disputes. In this article, professor Lawrence Susskind spells out the hidden advantages of using mediation early in the process to solve problems and reach voluntary compliance agreements.
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How to Control Your Emotions in Conflict Resolution
To guard against acting irrationally or in ways that can harm you, authors of Beyond Reason: Using Emotions As You Negotiate Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro advise you to take your emotional temperature during a negotiation. Specifically, try to gauge whether your emotions are manageable, starting to heat up, or threatening to boil over.
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Negotiation Mistakes: Apple TV’s Botched Expansion Deals
Apple isn’t used to making negotiation mistakes. The company has often found success by charging headfirst into unfamiliar industries, from book publishing to music to mobile phones, and disrupting its long-standing business models. In the early 2000s, for example, the company’s cofounder, Steve Jobs, pressured music labels to switch from selling $15 CDs to selling … Read More
A Business Negotiation Case Study: Ending the NHL Lockout
How can negotiators overcome impasse and achieve win-win negotiated agreements at the bargaining table? This example illustrates the power of expanding the focus of the negotiations by looking for tradeoffs.
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Leadership Skills in Negotiation: How to Negotiate Equity Incentives with Senior Management
How can you use your leadership skills in negotiation to divide the pie of resources with those that helped you grow it in the first place? In this negotiation case study, Kevin Mohan, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School examines how executives can expand the pie while helping those who contribute claim equitable value.
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Dispute Resolution for India and Bangladesh
Sometimes in international negotiation, disputes are left to fester for years, even decades, until parties decide there is something to be gained from reaching agreement. In an example of a cross cultural negotiation case study, the nations of Bangladesh and India seized on an opportunity to push the “restart” button on their bumpy relationship by … Read Dispute Resolution for India and Bangladesh
How to Overcome Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
Imagine that you’re the American representative of a U.S. food company, and you’re hoping to procure a new ingredient for several of your products from a German company. A representative from the company is flying in to meet with you. Do you expect your German counterpart to behave differently than the Americans you typically deal … Read How to Overcome Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
Win Win Negotiations: Can’t Beat Them? Join a Coalition.
This negotiation case study demonstrates the power of coalitions to achieve objectives at the bargaining table. How can negotiators cooperate with bargaining counterparts to create value for both sides? Here is the strategy used by Wyoming ranchers to achieve just that.
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Ethics in Negotiation: Avoid Complicity in Wrongdoing
When we think about our own ethics in negotiation, we tend to focus on the ethical and legal lines we may be at risk of crossing through our actions. We often fail to consider how we could end up enabling the unethical and even illegal behavior of our negotiation counterparts and partners.
More broadly, we have … Read More
When Negotiation Mistakes Compound over Time
When we think of our worst negotiation mistakes, they tend to be recent blunders. But what about negotiation mistakes whose repercussions accumulate over years, even decades? A failed negotiation case study from 1976 shows how carelessly negotiated deals can lead to long-term headaches and losses.
A Short Season
In 1974, brothers Ozzie and Daniel Silna, Latvian immigrant … Read When Negotiation Mistakes Compound over Time
A Win Win Negotiation Case Study Using Mind Mapping Negotiation Skills
A win win negotiation case study using mind mapping to discover your counterpart’s interests for collaborative, integrative negotiations can occur.
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Negotiation Case Study: Sincerity’s Power in Negotiation
Most of us have had the experience of delivering an apology that fell on deaf ears. When apologies fail to achieve their aims, poor delivery is usually to blame. The importance of sincerity in such a situation cannot be overstated, because if the recipient thinks your apology is less than sincere, she is unlikely to … Read More
A Crisis Negotiations Case Study: Chen Guangcheng, the United States, China, and Diplomatic Negotiations
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s indirect approach to diplomatic negotiations with the People’s Republic of China over political dissdent Chen Guangcheng demonstrates the power of adaptability at the bargaining table, especially when dealing with a counterpart from a different culture or who may speak a different language.
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Best-In-Class Negotiation Case Studies
What’s one of the best ways to teach the art and science of negotiation? Case studies and articles that spark lively discussion or facilitate self-reflection. Based on real-world examples, these teaching resources are designed to help students envision how to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom and beyond.
The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) at … Read Best-In-Class Negotiation Case Studies
Top International Negotiation Examples: Apple’s Apology in China
In one of the top examples of international negotiation in April 2013, Apple CEO Timothy D. Cook made the unusual move of apologizing to Chinese customers for his company’s warranty policy and promised to make amends, the New York Times reports.
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Negotiation Case Studies: Teach By Example
There are good negotiators and there are great ones.
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 … Read Negotiation Case Studies: Teach By Example
Negotiate a Deal that Lasts
When trying to negotiate a deal with a potential business partner, you need to come up with a plan for ensuring the two sides will mesh rather than clash. Facebook’s leaders and WhatsApp’s founders appeared to skip that vital step when negotiating the social media giant’s purchase of the text-messaging app in 2014—an oversight that … Read Negotiate a Deal that Lasts
Best-In-Class Negotiation Case Studies You Can Use to Train
What’s one of the best ways to teach the art and science of conflict resolution? With negotiation case studies that spark lively discussion or facilitate self-reflection. Based on real-world examples, these teaching resources are designed to help students envision how to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom and beyond.
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Learn How to Detect Lies in Negotiation
Whether we like it or not, negotiators often lie. Researchers have found that while most of us are generally aware of this fact, few of us are adept at detecting actual lies in negotiation.
In two studies, Maurice E. Schweitzer and Rachel Croson of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania move beyond the challenge … Read Learn How to Detect Lies in Negotiation
Modest Goals Gave Hope to Syria Peace talks
In international negotiations and other complex multiparty negotiations, should you set ambitious goals right from the start or begin with more modest ones?
Aiming high can lead to dramatic payoffs if you succeed, but the difficulty of orchestrating complicated international negotiations can increase the risk of impasse. By contrast, starting with more modest goals may suggest … Read Modest Goals Gave Hope to Syria Peace talks
Negotiation Skills for Resolving International Conflicts
What are the essential skills a negotiator needs to resolve conflicts abroad? How do international conflicts differ from domestic conflicts? What issues specific to bargaining across borders emerges in intercultural negotiations? In this article we explore ways in which negotiators can develop bargaining skills to overcome any barriers to communication they may encounter in negotiations … Read More