MG473      Half Unit
Negotiation Analysis

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

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Being a skillful negotiator is a core competence of effective managers in organisations today. This course introduces students to the essential concepts underlying effective negotiations and draws on both scholarly evidence and practical case exercises. The course curriculum covers essential negotiation foundations such as distributive and integrative bargaining (i.e., sometimes referred to as pie-slicing and pie-expanding approaches), two-party, team, and multi-party, multi-issue negotiations, as well as more advanced issues such as the impact of individual differences, emotions, cognitions and decision making, context and culture, ethical considerations, and change within organizations. Lecturers also highlight the importance of tactics, strategy, information sharing, trust building, influence and power in shaping the structure and outcomes of negotiations. As this course is designed as an experiential learning course (i.e., learning by doing), students will individually prepare their assigned roles in advance to class and engage in weekly, in-class negotiation simulation exercises to help them to apply and understand the concepts and develop their negotiation skills. Therefore, students will find this course interactive, requiring student participation and contribution to course discussions. Thus, students’ on-time, weekly course attendance is imperative for success in this interactive, experiential learning environment. Each week’s class generally comprises negotiation simulation exercise and/or group activity, as well as interactive negotiation simulation debrief, student discussion, and lecture content components. 

Because much of the learning comes from engaging in the weekly negotiation simulations, a significant portion of the grade in this course is related to in-class engagement as measured by the continuous assessment outlined below. 

30 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Over the course of the term, students will compile a weekly negotiation learning journal reflecting on their experience in the respective negotiation case exercises, their learning, their identified strengths and opportunities for growth, and their plan of goals and strategies to attain future personal development. Students will link their weekly analysis of the case exercises to the concepts and theories in the literature which have been taught in a given week, as well as throughout the course. Learning journals then form the foundation of the students’ later summative work on the essay. 

Students will also complete a formative essay, using the content of the negotiation learning journal as part of the foundation for the formative. The formative essay is a learning activity which supports students to prepare for the self-reflection component of the summative essay. 

The main text, covering most of the material in the course is: 

• Leigh Thompson, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, 7th edition Pearson, Harlow, 2020. 

Students will be expected to read the set of essential readings which are provided in the MG473 Reading List. This is carefully curated for focus and quality over quantity. 

The following texts are also recommended, as optional: 

• Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Penguin Books, New York, 2012.

• Roy Lewicki, David Saunders and Bruce Barry, Negotiation, McGraw-Hill, Boston, 2024. 

Essay (60%)

Continuous assessment (40%)

For detailed assessment information, including all deadlines and timings, please see the relevant course Moodle page. Assessment timings will be available at the start of each term.