Teaching for Implementation: Designing Negotiation Curricula to Maximize Long-Term Learning

Most negotiation students — and their instructors — aspire to develop negotiation skills that they can transfer to real-world contexts beyond the classroom. Instructors can maximize the likelihood of long-term learning through transfer-oriented curriculum design. Curriculum design elements likely to support lasting and flexible learning include (1) articulation of clear, performance-oriented goals; (2) careful selection of a range of learning activities tailored toward those goals, including activities that promote schema development and adjustment, activities that promote behavioral skill development, and activities that reinforce explicit theoretical understanding; (3) provision of multiple opportunities for constructive feedback from a variety of sources; and (4) the facilitation of self-reflection and metacognition.     

Negotiating for Money: Adding a Dose of Reality to Classroom Negotiations

Negotiation and conflict management courses have become increasingly common in business schools around the world. Frequently, these courses employ role plays and simulations to encourage students to try new strategies, tactics, techniques, and behaviors. While these simulations generally are designed to elicit realistic negotiation dynamics, they often lack the full emotional tension inherent in actual negotiations. One possible reason for this reduced tension is that no tangible resources, such as money, are at stake. This article describes an experiment in which MBA students paid a player's fee at the beginning of a negotiation course, and in which each negotiation exercise had an actual dollar value at risk. The article reports some results from this experiment and offers suggestions for instructors who might seek to add a player's fee to their own courses. In general, most students found the experience valuable, as it provided performance benchmarks while focusing their attention more sharply on risks and returns.     

Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process

The Bosnian War (1992–1995) was one of the most brutal conflicts in Europe since the end of World War II. Thirty‐four cease‐fires failed to produce peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina until the late American diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, brokered one that set the stage for a series of negotiations—starting in the Balkans and ending in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton peace process finally terminated the Bosnian War. The interplay of military intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and diplomacy by the United States was remarkable. This article highlights thirteen conflict resolution lessons or “Holbrookeisms” that can be learned from the Dayton peace process. Some aspects of Holbrooke's approach toward the peace process helped him to successfully mediate an end to the Bosnian War, while others contributed toward some of the existing cleavages in today's Bosnian society.     

Transplanting Active Learning Abroad: Creating a Stimulating Negotiation Pedagogy Across Cultural Divides

For all of the ongoing attention paid by international relations scholars to reevaluating and improving their pedagogy, the effort to engage classes in new and productive ways can be exceptionally challenging when a western professor travels to a non-western society to teach advanced students. Professor Michael Fowler here explores the use of active-learning techniques in teaching international negotiation and conflict resolution abroad. Drawing especially on the author's experiences in working with officials in Laos and Vietnam, the article provides guidance for fashioning an effective active-learning course abroad, while referencing useful literature on negotiation teaching and scholarship. It assumes that certain readers will not be familiar with active-learning methods, but might want to incorporate them into future courses, and that others will be well-versed in this pedagogy, but will be looking to apply their customary techniques to the new circumstances of teaching advanced students abroad. This article includes material of interest to both groups.     

BABO Negotiating: Enhancing Students’ Perspective‐Taking Skills

Negotiation educators recognize that collaborative problem‐solving is a critical negotiation skill. Negotiation outcomes are often better when negotiators take a collaborative approach to the process, and they are better able to do this when they are able to take the perspective of the person with whom they are negotiating. Over the years, I have developed several techniques to help my students improve their collaboration and perspective‐taking skills. One of these techniques is to use collaborative terminology (BABO = both are better off) rather than more competitive language (win‐win). In this article, I describe the strategies I employ in my negotiation class to increase students’ perspective‐taking capacities and discuss how this focus enhances their ability to negotiate collaboratively.     

Political Learning as a Catalyst of Moderation: Lessons from Democratic Consolidation in Greece

Utilizing over 100 interviews conducted with Greek political and military elites, this article offers a refinement of the process of political learning, believed to contribute to democratic consolidation by modifying individuals' beliefs about political goals and the best means to achieve them. Using the Greek case as an empirical test, this study confirms the democratization literature's claim that elites learn from singular catastrophic events. It offers a refinement, however, of specific lessons and the related behavioural change. Moving beyond the main conclusions of that literature, the article argues that learning can arise in a variety of ways and from varied experiences. Inductive trial-and-error learning stimulated by success can also play a key role as can slow and cumulative learning, which results from the accumulation of both positive and negative lessons, and can proceed in a two-step process of instrumental learning first, followed by more principled learning later. Learning thus sometimes takes a tangled course: elites take tentative steps, implement small policy changes, observe the effects of their actions, and learn from them as lessons accumulate, interact and slowly reinforce each other. Finally, learning does not always guarantee moderation and the adoption of democratic attitudes, tactics, and policies. As the article illustrates, the political learning process is often best characterized as highly contingent and complex.     

Oslo and Its Aftermath: Lessons Learned from Track Two Diplomacy

Since the collapse of the Oslo peace process and the violence that followed, many scholars have reflected upon the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Most of this analysis has focused on official negotiations without considering the substantial role that unofficial peace efforts have played in peacebuilding, both prior to and after Oslo. This article, in contrast, seeks to better understand the application of “track two” diplomacy to the Israeli–Palestinian case. It reports on a self‐reflection effort by numerous Israeli–Palestinian peace practitioners to better understand what has worked, what has not, and how new initiatives could be more effectively organized and carried out in the future. The research presented is based on an inventory of seventy‐nine track two projects that occurred between Israelis and Palestinians between 1992 and 2004, personal interviews with many of those who organized and oversaw these projects, and two focus group meetings that brought together a total of forty practitioners. In this article, we seek to better understand two issues: (1) how track two initiatives have changed in scope, organization, and intent; and (2) how track two practitioners have sought to disseminate their work beyond the participants of those initiatives. Our findings present an overall picture of the Israeli–Palestinian second track practice and identify a number of trends and common types of practice. Among the trends we have identified are the following: during the peace process years, more track two initiatives were undertaken with elite/professional participants than with representatives of the grassroots, but in the subsequent decade‐and‐a‐half, Israeli–Palestinian grassroots, track two initiatives gradually replaced senior‐level track two exchanges; most of the grassroots initiatives we studied were relationship focused, whereas those involving elite participants are outcome focused; the track two community subscribes to a set of theoretical propositions about which conditions and contexts facilitate the transmission of track two insights and ideas to the political process, but these propositions have yet to be validated; and track two specialists do little strategic planning about ways to most effectively transfer track two insights and ideas to the political process. Our research also identified four distinct, but not mutually exclusive, approaches to practice: the psychological, the constructivist, the capacity building, and the realistic interest.     

Transcending the Classroom: A Practical Guide to Remote Role Plays in Teaching International Negotiation

This article discusses the pedagogical value of using remote role plays in cross‐cultural negotiations between two classes taught simultaneously at different and geographically distant institutions. We argue that remote role‐play simulations provide valuable teaching and learning experiences, and are particularly helpful for managing issues associated with outside‐group negotiation and cultural differences, the prenegotiation stage, electronic negotiations and distorted communication, and one‐shot settings in which the negotiator lacks previous knowledge of the partner. The article begins with a discussion of some critical limitations of “traditional” in‐class role plays, followed by a practical guide to remote role plays and a report of our experiences with them. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of remote role plays as a teaching tool for international negotiation classes and the key lessons for the participating students.     

Negotiating the Marcellus: The Role of Information in Building Trust in Extractive Deals

New technology has expanded the opportunities for energy companies within the United States, often bringing them into populated communities and requiring them to negotiate deals with landowners. This case study focuses on how one group of landowners in northeastern Pennsylvania creatively reimagined the process of negotiating in a natural gas deal. They used collective bargaining for leverage, and the Internet and social media to level the informational playing field. These techniques allowed them to develop trust within the group and ultimately with one company, as they sought to protect their environment and enhance their financial gain.     

Linking Experiential and Classroom Education: Lessons Learned from The American University–Amnesty International USA Summer Institute on Human Rights

How can internships and other forms of experiential or service learning be designed to best accomplish academic goals? This article explores the benefits and pitfalls of experiential education by looking at the relevant scholarly literature and at students' and faculty members' experience with the American University–Amnesty International USA Summer Institute on Human Rights. Overall, faculty and students report that internships, when integrated with traditional classroom learning, greatly enhance learning overall. The article suggests strategies for structuring internships to enrich students' learning.     

Neutralizing Unethical Negotiating Tactics: An Empirical Investigation of Approach Selection and Effectiveness

Negotiation is integral to business success, and information is the lifeblood of the negotiation process. When invalid information is disseminated via manipulation or deceit, one or more parties can suffer. Nonetheless, many studies have shown that the use of questionable or unethical tactics is commonplace. This article reports on a study of twelve behaviors that can neutralize a counterpart's tendencies to employ questionable or unethical tactics, improving the chances for an integrative (win–win) outcome. The results suggest that while nearly two thirds of participants employed neutralizing behaviors, they used many of these behaviors later in the negotiation process than anticipated and simultaneously alongside questionable or unethical tactics. While we found some evidence that the twelve neutralizing behaviors were viewed differently from questionable or unethical tactics, the expected attenuating effects were not found. The implications of these findings, including opportunities for future research, are discussed.     

Beyond Frogs and Scorpions: A Risk‐Based Framework for Understanding Negotiating Counterparts' Ethical Motivations

Managing the flow of valid information is one of the biggest challenges that negotiators face. The high incidence of questionable or unethical negotiating tactics has been well documented, but ways of dealing with the deceptive practices of a counterpart have received comparatively little attention. In this article, we suggest that, in addition to avoidance and confrontation, negotiators typically attempt to manage the unethical tendencies of their counterparts through twelve neutralizing approaches. These approaches are based on four types of perceived risk that counterparts often consider when deciding whether to use ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics: risks to immediate or short‐term goals/tasks; risks to immediate or short‐term relationship(s); risks to future or long‐term goals/tasks; and, risks to future or long‐term relationships. By applying expectancy theory, resource dependency theory, social identity theory, and social network theory to this framework, we have developed propositions related to these twelve neutralizing approaches. We also discuss the opportunities and challenges related to evaluating these propositions in future research.     

美国少年历史小说题材创作

历史小说是美国少年小说的一个重要类型。自20世纪30年代以后,反映少年生活的历史小说在美国不断问世,并于60、70年代进入繁荣阶段。本文旨在通过梳理美国少年历史小说的发展脉络,探讨其潮流及特点,如发展阶段、文化内涵、审美价值观等,说明其文学成就与影响,同时加深我国对美国少年历史小说的了解和研究。     

Culture and Negotiation: The Pedagogical Dispute Regarding Cross-Cultural Simulations

This article examines one especially challenging aspect of active-learning international studies courses—the use of cross-cultural simulations. What is the significance of culture for negotiation? What difficulties might cross-cultural negotiations pose, and how might negotiators work with cultural differences to achieve successful outcomes? Is it possible to model the effects of cultures on negotiators in a classroom role-play? What are the advantages to using cross-cultural simulations, and what difficulties do they entail? How might an instructor make best use of materials that focus on cultural issues and their effect on negotiation? When teaching students of different cultures by active-learning methods, what ought an instructor to bear in mind? What cross-cultural simulations are available, and what readings might be assigned to accompany them?     

The Disruptive and Transformative Potential of Hypertext in the Classroom: Implications for Active Learning

This article describes a further extension of a strategy to move from a teacher-oriented to a student-oriented learning environment through the use of 'collaborative hypertext.' Students were trained in the use of MidasWeb, a Web-based environment for the organization, storage, and retrieval of hypertext documents and images. Over the course of the term students worked in teams to construct their MidasWeb sites by developing the underlying conceptual frameworks for their subject areas and uploading documents. The results of questionnaire surveys of the students suggest that the MidasWeb exercise did achieve our objective of disrupting the traditional relationship between teacher and student to create a more student-centered environment. The more students became involved in the exercise the more they felt empowered with respect to the subject matter of the course and took responsibility for deriving meaning from the information they had obtained. In addition, the experience encouraged them to think about the subject matter across interdisciplinary lines. Because the MidasWeb exercise was structured as a group activity, the effectiveness of the team coordinators had an impact on the success of the teams as well as the nature of the learning experience of the individuals involved. Although the MidasWeb exercise was a successful application of digital technology to classroom learning, it was not a resounding success, because the impact on the students in the course was not uniform. While a substantial majority of them found MidasWeb to be very involving and moved toward student-centered learning, approximately one third of them, especially students who were uncomfortable with computer technology, did not benefit fully from the exercise. This suggests that in the future more time should be spent on training, and that MidasWeb needs to be made more user friendly for unsophisticated users.     

The Structure of Negotiation: Lessons from El Salvador for Contemporary Conflict Resolution

During more than a decade of violent conflict (1980–1992) involving the military, rebel forces, and paramilitary "death squads," El Salvador suffered some 75,000 casualties, mostly civilians. After three years of negotiations, the government and the largest rebel group signed a historic comprehensive peace accord that brought an end to the war and instituted wide-reaching political and social reforms. This agreement, and the peace process that produced it, has been widely hailed as a successful example of a negotiated end to civil war. In order to understand the conditions that led to the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords ending the war, this article tests ripeness theory in the context of the Salvadoran peace process.
This article affirms the validity of theories of ripeness and the mutually hurting stalemate as structural explanations for the initiation of dialogue and notes the role of "indicators of ripeness" in forcing the parties to recognize a hurting stalemate that may already exist. It also proposes several hypothesized explanations for the effectiveness of the Salvadoran negotiations themselves. These explanations include the presence of strong, empowered policy entrepreneurs on both sides with the political will and capability to make credible commitments; the combination of internal and external pressure for a negotiated solution that raised the cost of defection; and the active involvement, based on consent of both parties, of a neutral, empowered, and credible mediator who provided both technical assistance and vigilance to move the process forward. After analyzing the Salvadoran case through this theoretical lens, the article applies the same concepts to contemporary conflict cases such as Iraq and Colombia, discussing how the lessons learned in El Salvador do and do not provide instructive guidance for managing civil conflicts today.     

Negotiating a democratic order in South Africa: Learning from mediation and industrial relations

Labor law reform in South Africa unintentionally precipitated the rapid growth of a powerful black trade union movement and institutionalized collective bargaining in the 1980s. Despite the political crisis, the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa helped to disseminate the culture and practice of negotiated order, developed in industrial relations, to the broader society and national politics. As a result of the negotiated transition, the new democratic order is characterized by inclusive, consensus-building policy-making processes.He is also a doctoral degree candidate in industrial relations at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.     

Mega-Simulations in Negotiation Teaching: Extraordinary Investments with Extraordinary Benefits

A mega-simulation is a complex-negotiations teaching exercise involving complicated issues and challenging conditions that is undertaken by three or more teams of students. In this article, I draw on two decades of teaching with mega-simulations in international business negotiation courses to discuss potential learning goals for this type of experiential exercise, effective ways to organize the experience, challenges for the instructor, and the distinctive educational benefits that justify the substantial investment of time and resources required to implement these mega-simulations. These simulations can help students to develop greater sophistication in basic negotiation skills, become more extensively exposed to complex skill sets, and develop a deeper understanding of negotiation subject matter and complex processes than they would by conducting standard role plays. Mega-simulations offer major opportunities for students to move to advanced levels of negotiation skill not just in international business, but in diplomacy, law, engineering, and a host of other professional arenas.     

Assessment Procedures for Skills‐Based MBA Courses Adapted from the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training Corps Leadership Development Program

Measuring student progress toward the achievement of learning outcomes in negotiation skills courses is a difficult task. Measuring the effectiveness of the delivery of course instruction can be equally challenging. This article proposes some answers to these questions: How can student performance in skills such as negotiation, leadership, and teamwork (sometimes referred to as “soft skills”) be effectively measured and accurately evaluated? What standards can be used to determine whether student performance is superior, adequate, or inferior? How can teaching effectiveness be evaluated to determine whether students are receiving the instruction necessary to achieve the course learning objectives? This article describes how the authors collaborated on an adaptation of the assessment processes used in the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadet Leadership Development Program for use in an MBA course on negotiation skills. We report on a pilot effort that has demonstrated that the ROTC‐style leadership assessment process can be successfully adapted for use in a graduate course on negotiation and that it provides useful means for evaluating both individual student performance and overall course effectiveness. While our work involved a negotiation course, we suggest that the process could be adapted for use in other skills‐oriented courses such as leadership.