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 cases

What are Negotiation Cases? 

Negotiation cases and case studies give us the opportunity to learn from real-life negotiations with some of the top talents in the field.

Negotiation cases can introduce students to new negotiation and dispute resolution tools, techniques, and strategies. They require participants 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. 

For example, we can look at international negotiation cases such as the Iran Nuclear Deal. When the United States and five other world powers announced an interim agreement to temporarily freeze Iran’s nuclear program, the six-month accord, which eventually led to a full-scale agreement in 2015, was designed to give international negotiators time to negotiate a more comprehensive pact that would remove the threat of Iran producing nuclear weapons. 

In other negotiation cases, we see examples of ways to boost your bargaining power at times when your position seems hopelessly weak. Wyoming farmers learned how to gain leverage and improve their results by banding together in a coalition with other relatively weak parties. As a member of a coalition, they could harness the resources needed to negotiate land leasing rights with wind developers as a group, and divide the profits.

Royalties from a wind project could potentially generate hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for a rancher—a gold mine for those who are struggling to stay afloat. 

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.

We will send you a download link to your copy of the report and notify you by email when we post new business negotiation advice and information.

The following items are tagged negotiation cases:

Political Negotiation and Beyond: How (and How Not) to Make Threats

Posted by & filed under International Negotiation.

What do you do when the other party won’t give you what you want in negotiation? If you’re U.S. president Donald Trump, there’s one tactic you’ll employ almost every time: Make a threat. Trump is the only president in U.S. history to rely so heavily on threats in political negotiation and beyond, according to Gettysburg College … Read More

Teaching Negotiation: The Art of Case Study Writing

Posted by & filed under Teaching Negotiation.

Jim Sebenius, the Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, addressed these questions in his presentation at the NP@PON Faculty Dinner Seminar on October 7, 2010. His article, “Developing Negotiation Case Studies,” began as a memo to a novice case writer about how to write … Read More