Sharpening Your Skills: Successful Negotiation

 
 
Can you out-negotiate Wal-Mart? Can women overcome gender stereotypes to win equitable pay? Recent research from Harvard Business School looks at important factors to consider before sitting down at the bargaining table.
 
 
by Staff

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills.

Questions To Be Answered:

  • How is negotiation evolving?
  • How important are opening talks in determining a negotiation's outcome?
  • Can you win against a non-negotiable partner?
  • How can women negotiate past gender stereotypes?

How Is Negotiation Evolving?

The New Deal: Negotiauctions

Whether negotiating to purchase a company or a house, dealmaking is becoming more complex. Harvard Business School professor Guhan Subramanian sees a new form arising, part negotiation, part auction. Call it the negotiauction. Here's how to play the game.

How Important Are Opening Talks In Determining A Negotiation's Outcome?

Walking the Talk in Multiparty Bargaining: An Experimental Investigation

At the onset of negotiation in multiparty talks, the dominant logic in discussions—be it fairness or competition—strongly influences the equality of payoffs even in complex, full-information multiparty bargaining. Research in this working paper by HBS professor Kathleen L. McGinn and coauthors Katherine L. Milkman and Markus Nöth add critical insights to our understanding of the role of communication in multiparty bargaining.

Can You Win Against A Non-negotiable Partner?

HBS Cases: Negotiating with Wal-Mart

What happens when you encounter a company with a great deal of power, like Wal-Mart, that is also the ultimate non-negotiable partner? A series of Harvard Business School cases by James Sebenius and Ellen Knebel explore successful deal-making strategies.

How Can Women Negotiate Past Gender Stereotypes?

Gender in Job Negotiations: A Two-Level Game

There remains a significant "unexplained" difference in male and female compensation that, according to research in the past several years, cannot be accounted for by gender differences in work commitment, education, and experience, or other considerations such as unionization. In this working paper, Hannah Riley Bowles and Kathleen L. McGinn review two bodies of literature on gender in negotiation. Key concepts include: