Negotiation in international contexts (2235.YR.014865.1)

General information

Type:	OPT	Curs:	1	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	1 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 1	Katharina Schmid	Dirección de Personas y Organización	ENG

We are constantly faced with situations in which we are required to, but also have the opportunity to, negotiate - whether we are agreeing the terms of an employment offer, raising funds from investors, resolving a conflict between team members, or forging deals with suppliers.
This ?Negotiation Skills' seminar will help you become a more skilled negotiator by offering vital insights into negotiation analysis and identifying successful strategies for navigating various negotiation challenges that you will likely encounter in the future. The course is set against the backdrop of leading negotiations in global, international contexts, to help you hone your negotiation skills with people whose backgrounds, perspectives, values and expectations differ from your own.
At its core, this course will introduce you to a negotiation framework that highlights the importance of approaching negotiations in an analytical manner - ranging from analyzing, preparing and planning to executing negotiations and finalizing agreements. The course will further help you develop a negotiation toolkit that includes practical strategies for reaching optimal agreements and for maximizing individual but also joint gains.

The course will encourage you to become a better negotiator by teaching you how to:
- Identify strategies for reaching agreements that create maximum value, as well as strategies to help you claim an appropriate share of the value created.
- Avoid common mistakes and prevent you from running into barriers to agreement, particularly those that underlie key psychological biases of human judgment, decision making and information processing.
- Leverage psychological influence and persuasion to optimize value creation.
- Obtain optimal results in a range of competitive environments, including high stakes settings, when negotiating uncertain or complex issues and when leading multiparty negotiations.
- Deal with difficult negotiation situations characterized by differences in power, unethical behavior or when faced with conflicts that turn emotional.
- Approach negotiations in global, international contexts.

1. To introduce you to a comprehensive negotiation framework that will facilitate analyzing, preparing for and leading negotiations effectively in a range of contexts.
2. To obtain insights into effective negotiation strategies, to help you become skilled at joint problem solving in a range of settings and involving individuals from different backgrounds.
3. To gain in-depth knowledge into the complex nature of human judgment and information processing, as well as key drivers of psychological influence and their impact on negotiation outcomes.
4. To maximize your leadership potential, by helping you lead negotiations effectively and resolve conflicts successfully.

1. Session 1. Negotiation Fundamentals This first session will provide a general introduction to the course and an introduction to basic negotiation analysis. Taking the premise that negotiation success is a function not only of what happens at the `bargaining table¿, but also ¿ critically - of what happens away from it, i.e., before, and after, you interact with your negotiation partner(s), this session lays the foundations for approaching negotiations in an analytic manner. The class exercises will focus on single-issue negotiations

2. Session 2. Claiming value This session will focus on distributive bargaining strategies in which we can claim maximum value in a negotiation (i.e., strategies for `dividing the pie¿). We will look at the dynamics of distributive negotiations, what helps and what hinders value claiming and identify solutions for getting as much as possible of what you want, in a sustainable manner. The class exercises will focus on multi-issue negotiations.

3. Session 3. Creating Value In this session we will approach negotiations from a value creation perspective. We will thus discuss integrative strategies that help you create joint gains but also to identify ways in which you can claim a fair and optimal share of the value that is created. The class exercises will focus on complex multi-issue negotiations.

4. Session 4. Multiparty Negotiations While the previous sessions will have dealt with bilateral, two-party negotiations, this session of the course focuses on multiparty settings, i.e., when negotiating several people. Such negotiation settings entail additional layers of complexity as they not only entail additional players and information complexity, but also require successfully navigating group dynamics that can get in the way of reaching optimal agreements. The class exercise will focus on multi-party negotiations.

This is a 'hands-on' course in which you will have the chance to develop, practice and sharpen your negotiation skills. To optimize both individual and classroom learning, the course is heavily based on interactive, experiential methodologies such as negotiation role plays and simulations, which are further complemented by class discussions, brief lectures and team presentations to summarize key learning outcomes. Taken together, this will provide you with practical insights and applied expertise to help you approach various negotiation challenges in a competent, confident and informed manner.

Most sessions are split into approx. 50% experiential activities, in which you will take part in negotiation role-play exercises and simulations, and approx. 50% of activities following a more traditional classroom format, in which we will discuss the outcomes of these experiential exercises and draw analogies to real-life negotiation settings.
The workload distribution is divided into approx. 70% in-class activities and approx. 30% autonomous individual work.

In order to maximize the learning experience during class sessions, you will be required to take an active role in shaping your own learning process throughout the course. You will thus not only be required to engage actively during class sessions, but also to prepare by completing assigned cases, readings and assignments, as well as continuously reflecting upon your negotiation skills after the negotiation exercises. Further details are provided below (see ?Assessment').

The success of this course rests on the participation in role plays, most of which will be completed within class sessions. For these you will be allocated a role in advance, and you will be paired, or teamed up, with one or more of your classmates.

ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN

The following reading constitutes the core reading for the course and is relevant for the entirety of the course.

Core Reading:
Bazerman et al. (2017) Negotiation. Harvard Business Press.


Additional background readings will be provided in the sessions and posted on Moodle.

Group	Teacher	Department
Year 1	Katharina Schmid	Dirección de Personas y Organización