Course content
Course Description
Much managerial activity consists in bargaining, negotiation, and the resolution of disputes. Managers negotiate with superiors, peers, and subordinates, as well as with suppliers and customers, competitors and partners. Negotiation is a decision-making process through which two or more actors seek to reconcile conflicting interests. Effective negotiation can enhance outcomes for all parties. Ineffective negotiation, by contrast, typically produces poor outcomes for those who negotiate badly, may disadvantage others, and can sometimes prevent agreement even when a mutually beneficial settlement is available.
In a globalised world, international negotiation has become the operating norm. Globalisation has heightened both the costs and the benefits of interdependence for national governments, international firms, and non-governmental organisations. It is the management of this interdependence that makes negotiation indispensable. The capacity to act insightfully in complex environments is critical to successful international negotiation. Such insight, in turn, depends on managers’ ability to assess and appraise international negotiating situations accurately.
Course aim
The overall aims of the course are to strengthen students’ negotiating skills and to ground this development in a solid theoretical framework that clarifies the sources of effective and ineffective approaches to negotiation. We will apply core principles of negotiation theory to the appraisal of national and international negotiating situations. Subsequent discussions will concentrate on how these concepts and theories inform, shape, and improve practical negotiating behaviour.
See course description in course catalogue