This course is available on the MSc in International Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, MSc in International Management, MSc in Management, MSc in Management (CEMS MIM), MSc in Management and Human Resources, MSc in Management and Strategy, MSc in Management, Information Systems and Innovation, MSc in Management, Organisations and Governance and MSc in Public Management and Governance. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Also available as an option to students on the MPhil/PhD in Management: Employment Relations and Organisational Behaviour.

This course adopts an interdisciplinary perspective to analyse negotiations, covering ideas from economics, decision sciences and psychology. The course examines cognitive psychological, game theoretic and decision analytic approaches to the analysis of negotiations. These approaches highlight the importance of interests, information, strategy and power in defining the structure and outcomes of inter-dependent interactions. Prescriptive as well as descriptive findings from research in negotiations will be discussed throughout the course. The first part covers the basics of distributive bargaining and the importance of pre-negotiation information in the division of a fixed negotiation surplus. The second part introduces the concept of integrative bargaining. In these situations, the size of the negotiation surplus is variable. This creates challenges and opportunities that are different from those found in distributive negotiations. The third part covers some very basic game theoretic models of strategic interaction. The final part of the course concentrates on psychological mechanisms that can powerfully shape negotiation behaviour and outcomes.

10 hours of lectures and 20 hours of seminars in the MT.

Students, individually or in groups, will be asked to make presentations and participate in negotiation exercises.

The main text, covering most of the material in the course is: Leigh Thompson The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, 5th edn, Pearson, 2012. The following are also useful: Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Penguin Books, 1981; Howard Raiffa, The Art and Science of Negotiation, Harvard University Press, 1982; Max Bazerman & Margaret Neale, Negotiating Rationally, Free Press 1992. Students will be expected to read widely in appropriate journals, and a list of references will be provided at the start of the course.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the main exam period.

Students on the MSc in Management (CEMS MIM) programme will be assessed by a formal two-hour examination (100%) at the end of Michaelmas term.