MOR 569 ● Negotiation and Deal-Making ● Spring 2013
Instructor:Peter Carnevale
E-Mail:
URL:
Office/hours:Hoffman Hall (HOH) 620 / hours usually Friday mornings but by appointment
Time & Room:Thursday 6:30pm-9:30pm, JKP 112 (class # 033-16718D)
Course Scope and Mission
Negotiation guides all aspects of business, including who gets what (e.g., terms of employment such as salary and bonus) and who does what. In many ways, negotiation is about decision making andcommunication in strategic interaction, which refers to situations wherein two or more parties (individuals, groups, organizations) are dependent on one another for their outcomes: what each party decides to do can affect their own as well as the others’outcome.
This course is about the art and the science of negotiation: the science part is the application of economic and psychological theories developed tohelp understand negotiation processes and outcomes; the art part is about developing and sharpeningnegotiating skills by actually negotiating with others in class in simulated settings.(A simulation is like a wind tunnel in aeronautical engineering. It lets you test the shape of your wings before going out and trying to fly. It lets you experiment, and learn, in a low-cost, safe environment.)Mainly, this course is designed to improve your understanding of negotiation in a variety of settings – and your ability to negotiate.
Sometimes negotiation is about resolving a dispute: trust may be low, hostility high, communication bad. But moreoften than not, negotiation is about creating value, about an opportunity, a joint venture: for example, your personal employment contract, which is about building a relationship for a mutually beneficial arrangement. In either case, negotiation is about creating an agreement between two or more parties, about “deal-making.”
For the class, I’ve selected material from severalwell-known, very recent, practice-minded books on negotiation (Shell; Lewicki), in addition to the classic Getting to Yesby Fisher and Ury. The Thompson book is the focal text. The core concepts of these books are relevant to negotiation as practiced in a variety of settings including the broad spectrum of negotiation problems faced by managers and professionals who negotiate in domains as diverse as marketing, real estate, consulting, entrepreneurship, mergers and acquisitions, and all areas of leadership. This course covers negotiations in the daily life of the manager.
This course is designed to complement the skills learned in other courses at Marshall. A basic premise of the course is that while analytical skills are vital to the discovery of optimal solutions to problems, businesspeople need a broad array of negotiation skills to get those solutions accepted and implemented.
I hope that you will, from this course, do the following:
- appreciate and value negotiation: recognize negotiation situations, recognize strategies and tactics used by people in negotiation and, most of all,learn to not leave value on the table.
- gain a broad intellectual understanding of a set of central concepts in negotiation, concepts that are the building blocks to systematically understand and evaluate negotiation process and outcome; that is, fluency in negotiation language (e.g., “Reservation Point,” “Lose-Lose,” “BATNA,” “Logrolling,” “Pareto Optimal,” “Formula-Detail,” “Low-Ball,” “Framing,” etc.)
- have confidence in your ability to negotiate effectively to create value.
- learn to learn from experience in negotiation (your own as well as other’s experiences), including learning to evaluate the costs and benefits of alternative actions and how to manage the negotiation process.
Course Format
The course is built around a series of negotiation exercises and discussions about the exercises. Many of the exercises require some preparation in advance. You are expected to be fully prepared for these exercises prior to class and to participate in the discussions about the exercises. While some class time will be provided when team preparation is required, you may occasionally need to meet outside of class, either face to face or online.
Course Materials
These are required:
- Gawande, A. (2010). The checklist manifesto – How to get things right. New York:Metropolitan Books. ISBN: 0805091742
- Thompson, L. (2012). The mind and heart of the negotiator, 5th edition. Boston: Pearson.
- [R] Readings: articles and handouts,negotiation exercise materials: some distributed in class, some sent to you via email, some available on a website, others download from Blackboard.
Communication
Check our course blackboard website regularly for announcements, assignments, readings, class notes, and all important class related information, etc: blackboard.usc.edu. I use it extensively in the course.
Individual Consultation
I am happy to meet with you to discuss your own negotiations, or your progress or problems with the course materials and assignments. Indeed, I want to meet with you. If you would like to meet, please contact me in advance via email to arrange a mutually convenient time. I am available via email most days.
Course Grade Elements
Source of Points / Points Possible1. Participation / 25% / 250
2. Midterm Quiz / 20% / 200
3. Final Exam / Finals Week (25%) / 250
4. Team Project: / Team Presentation (10%) / 100
Team Paper (20%) / 200
Total / 1000
1.Participation (25%)
This is for preparation and completing the negotiation exercises, and contribution to in-class discussions. An important part of this is turning in the Negotiation Plan and Analysis Sheet during each class, by the time indicated in class. This sheet is about the negotiation exercise conducted during that class, or about a movie, or something about negotiation in class. Every class you turn one in, or make a comment in class, you can earn points: 250 participation points for the semester, spread evenly over the semester (up to about 20 points per class).
Preparation involves having completed any assigned readings for that day; completion involves doing the negotiation, the negotiation plan/analysis sheet, and the case debrief. Since I try to observe as many negotiations as possible, I really like to see that you are prepared. It harms your negotiation partner’s experience as well as your own if you are not. During your negotiations, I will be walking around and watching and listening to you negotiate.
You can have ELC (Experiential Learning Center, JKP 3rd Floor) video parts of your negotiation, and I am happy to meet with you to give feedback on parts of the video. About a week advance notice on the video taping is requested
When negotiating, you must follow all the instructions that are provided for your case role. However, you do havefreedom to be creative in how you interpret this information and the kinds of strategies you employ, provided that they do not contradict any of the explicit instructions or fundamentally alter the negotiation’s structure.
Participation in class discussions involves active participation that contributes to the class.Active participation means asking questions, answering questions, making observations, commenting on other students’ comments, or challenging a view.Participation is also business professionalism. Professionalism – in word and in behavior – is a critical part of any business situation. Here, it includes: 1. On-time arrival for class; 2. In-class comments that are cordial, constructive; 3. On-time completion of tasks; 4. Respect for the norms of the class.
Important Policy Note:This course has a policy:You must provide 24-hr prior notice to the instructor if you must miss a class and / or a negotiation.If you do not provide such notice, your negotiating partner for the day may be left without someone to negotiate, and your fellow students can end up being inconvenienced.If you miss a negotiation without prior notice to the instructor, you will not get participation points for that class.If you miss a class but give prior notice, I’ll arrange for another way for you to get participation points (I’ll do this twice; more than that means no participation points for that class). This means that you do not need to provide a reason for not being in class. Notify me of your absence at least 24 hours before the start of class so I can make the adjustments to the exercises.
2. Midterm Quiz (20%)
This will occur on Week 9, March 9. There will be an in-class part and a take-home part due, that will be distributed a couple of weeks prior (see announcement on Blackboard). This may include your personal evaluation of the agreements achieved in one of the in-class negotiation exercises.
3.Final Exam (25%)
There will be a take-home exam at the end of the semester.The exam will cover the concepts discussed in class, as well as the readings, and will ask you to analyze a negotiation(s) and/or a deal(s) as well as evaluate the class books.This will be distributed prior to the end of the semester so you will have lots of time for it, and it will be due at the time of the officially scheduled final during finals week.
4.Team Project: Paper and Presentation (30%)
A team project and teampaper is required, along with a class presentation of it at the end of the semester.The paper should contain focused, thoughtful, and insightful analysis, including a couple of pages necessary to describe the situation or setting.The target length for the paper is 20 pages of 12 point, double-spaced text.The optimal team size will be based on the number of students enrolled in the class, so it will be determined soon after the semester starts.
For the project, analyze a real-world negotiations or agreements. This must be something current (or within the past 1 year). You need to obtain my approval of the agreements and coordinate so that no 2 teams do the same one. Papers usually take a couple pages to set up and describe the situation. Such papers then concentrate on analysis. There is the basic who, what, where, when, and why. What kind of agreement was it? What were the parties’ interests, what went wrong/well, why? What could have been done differently? How was the process linked to the outcome?
There will be a handout that provides greater detail on the project; you may negotiate a format with me.Please turn in a paragraph of your topic for approval and feedback by Week 7.
(10%)Team Presentation.Grading of the presentation will focus on the clarity, style, and overall effectiveness of your presentation for conveying the learning points of your project.
(20%)Team Paper.Grading of the paper will focus on your ability to use concepts from class to analyze a negotiation and agreement, as described above, and offer thoughtful insights that can help readers understand the case in question.I expect all members to contribute equally to the team project and paper. The highest possible individual grade is the team project grade. If you contribute less than other team members, your individual grade will be lower than the team grade. At the end of the semester, you will have the opportunity to evaluate the performance of your team members, and I will consult those evaluations in determining your individual grades for the team project.
Course Grading
Grades for the class will be assigned according to the percentage distribution outlined above. At any time during the semester you may inquire about your points to date, and I will tell you how you are doing. At the end of the semester, I look very closely at students that are close to any cutoff between two grade categories, and try to find a way to boost any such students into the higher category. Because I reserve this flexibility, you will not be able to ask me questions like "what score do I need to get on the final project to get the following grade?" This is not something to worry about, it is designed to help you.
In the event of a grading dispute - the procedure is as follows: (1) Think about why you believe your grade should have been different. (2) Write down the reasons why you believe your grade should be changed. (3) Send me the written explanation via e-mail, and I will respond to it as quickly and fairly as possible.
One final note: I will not accept 'retroactive excuses' by students. By this I mean students bringing up ameliorating circumstances to justify their poor performance at the end of the semester. If there are unique or unusual circumstances that prevent you from doing as well as you normally might, whatever it may be, you must inform me immediately.I make no guarantees as to what is acceptable and what is not, but I encourage you to communicate any problems to me.
Academic Integrity Policy
The Marshall School is committed to upholding the University’s Academic Integrity code as detailed in the SCampus Guide. It is the policy of the Marshall School to report all violations of the code. Any serious violation or pattern of violations of the Academic Integrity Code will result in the student’s expulsion from the degree program. It is particularly important that you are aware of and avoid plagiarism, cheating on exams, fabricating data for a project, submitting a paper to more than one professor, or submitting a paper authored by anyone other than yourself.
Above and beyond the general campus guidelines for academic integrity, the following behaviors are regarded as cheating in this class: reading negotiation counterparts’ confidential information prior to negotiating, sharing “point” values to be obtained for any negotiation prior to the official class conclusion of the simulation, looking up any of our negotiation exercises on the internet or gathering any outside information on the exercises, and information-seeking or intelligence-gathering designed to give you access to information that you are not intended to have in the exercises. If you have doubts about any of these practices, confer with me.
Resources on academic dishonesty can be found on the Student Judicial Affairs Web site ( The “Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism” addresses issues of paraphrasing, quotations, and citation in written assignments, drawing heavily upon materials used in the university’s writing program. “Understanding and avoiding academic dishonesty” addresses more general issues of academic integrity, including guidelines for adhering to standards concerning examinations and unauthorized collaboration. The “2012-2013 SCampus” ( contains the university’s student conduct code.
Disabilities Policy. Students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP when adequate documentation is filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is open Monday-Friday, 8:30-5:00. The office is in Student Union 301 and their phone number is (213) 740-0776.
COURSE OUTLINE (subject to change; please monitor the Blackboard Site for changes)
Every class will have a negotiation exercise that will be announced and distributed in class. In some cases, every student may be required to know 1 week ahead of class what that exercise will be, and their role, and this will be announced in class when this occurs.
Week 1.Jan. 17Introduction to Negotiationand the Course
Introductions, overview of the class, history of the domain.
Introduction to strategies and tactics; some basic concepts.
Week 2. Jan. 24Putting things in context
Read:Gawande, A. (2010). The checklist manifesto...
Thompson, Chapter 1 Negotiation: The Mind and the Heart 1
Thompson, Chapter 2 Preparation: What to Do Before Negotiation 12
Week 3.Jan. 31Value Claiming vs. Value Creating
Read:Thompson,Chapter 3 Distributive Negotiation: Slicing the Pie 40
Week 4.Feb. 7Integrative Bargaining: Value Creating
Read:Thompson,Chapter 4 Win-Win Negotiation: Expanding the Pie 74
- Thompson, Appendix 1 Are You a Rational Person? 338
Week 5.Feb. 14Strategies and tactics of negotiation
Read:Thompson,Chapter 5 Developing a Negotiating Style 96
Week 6.Feb. 21Power, persuasion, influence
Read:Thompson, Chapter 6 Establishing Trust and Building a Relationship 128
- Video: Canadian UAW/GM Strike
Week 7.Feb. 28Ethics in Negotiation
Read:Thompson,Chapter 7 Power, Persuasion, and Ethics 159
- [R] Shell, G. R. (2006). Chapter 11: Ethics.
- [R] Christie (1970) The Machiavellis among us.
- Turn in Team Project Topic
Week 8.Mar. 7Creativity
Read:Thompson,Chapter 8 Creativity and Problem Solving in Negotiations 183
- [R] Carnevale (2006). Creativity in the outcomes of conflict.
- [R] Lewicki (2010) Negotiation: The art of win-win negotiations
Week 9.Mar. 14Team Negotiation
Read:Thompson, Chapter 9 Multiple Parties, Coalitions, and Teams 21
Midterm Quiz (about 1 hour)
Week 10. Mar. 28Cross-Cultural Negotiations
Read:Thompson, Chapter 10 Cross-Cultural Negotiation 258
Week 11.April 4Negotiating in a tough situation
- [R] Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Harnessing the science of persuasion. Harvard Business Review, 79, 72-79
- Video: Hostage negotiations
Week 12.Apr. 11Claiming and Creating Value, Revisited
Read:Thompson,Chapter 11 Tacit Negotiations and Social Dilemmas 292
Video: American Dream
Week 13.Apr. 18Technology in Negotiation
Read:Thompson, Chapter 12 Negotiating via Information Technology 319
Thompson, Appendix 2 Nonverbal Communication and Lie Detection 358
Week 14.Apr. 25Mediating Deals and Disputes; The Job offer.
Read:Thompson,Appendix 3 Third-Party Intervention 367
Thompson, Appendix 4 Negotiating a Job Offer 375
Week 15.May 2Team Presentationsin Class
May 6: Deadline for turning in Team Paper, via email.
During Finals Week,The Final Exam will be due via email.
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