個案總覽

CEO Bill Nichol must somehow negotiate a surprise ultimatum from Walmart, his largest customer, about his largest and most profitable product line: "We're dropping it." Among its hosiery products, the Kentucky Derby Hosiery Co. produces and sells a branded line of infant socks to Walmart under an expensive license from another manufacturer, subject to unconditional, multi-year sales minimums and significant forward financial obligations. Taking out long-term bank loans, his firm has purchased modern, high-speed machinery to manufacture this line. Yet his Walmart contracts run only one year at a time. Without the Walmart volume and profit on these branded infant socks, Kentucky Derby Hosiery Co. faces financial distress. In a generally bleak North American textile environment, Nichol ponders the most promising negotiating strategy and tactics to rescue this product line.

This case describes the multi-prong negotiating approach that Bill Nichol, Kentucky Derby Hosiery Co. CEO, took to deal with an ultimatum from his largest customer, as well as the outcome of this process. It concludes with a number of Nichol's observations about supplier-retailer negotiations.

To deliver 5-6 major new Chinese joint ventures annually, Hong Kong China Gas executives began extracting cross-border negotiating lessons from their 80 existing Chinese JVs. Chairman Alfred Chan and CEO Peter Wong knew that HKGC's growth strategy required significant mainland expansion through negotiating joint-ventures to run gas and water distribution systems in diverse urban and rural locations throughout mainland China--often in the face of entrenched local interests who could have blocking power. Discussions with HKGC's negotiation teams revealed an increasingly sophisticated negotiating approach from target identification and party mapping, to "social mapping" and building guanxi, to creative deal design and tactics, in order to most effectively work out issues of equity, management control, territory, and exclusivity.

Through stalled joint venture talks between Pennsylvania-based Wyoff Corp. and Jinan-based China-LuQuan, strategic and cross-cultural negotiation challenges are explored both from American and Chinese perspectives. Wyoff, a leading US chemical company, has been seeking ways to secure the company's foothold in China's emerging market since the late 90s. When approached by China-LuQuan in 2000, a major Chinese state-owned chemical producer, for a joint-venture opportunity to make a popular chemical catalyst in China, Wyoff, leveraging its superior technology, demanded one-sided terms and played hardball, ruining both the deal and the relationship with China-LuQuan. Seven years later in 2007, Wyoff faced market pressure to again seek a joint venture with China-LuQuan on two other types of products. Both parties had to overcome past distrust to work things out on a series of strategic issues: investment, product slate, marketing, technology, management organization, staffing, etc. In the negotiations, cross-cultural themes (e.g., trust, relationships, communication, time, face, etc.) and different negotiation styles created challenges along with the business and strategic issues. The (A) case sets up the negotiations, highlights issue impasses, explores cross-cultural frictions, and poses tactical challenges. The (B) case describes the strategies, tactics, and results of these negotiations.

Six different business disputes, all in the shadow of pending litigation, are described. Students are asked to recommend the appropriate method of dispute resolution (mediation, arbitration, mini-trial, etc.) for each one, depending on the circumstances, especially to assess likely barriers to unassisted negotiation.

Through stalled joint venture talks between Pennsylvania-based Wyoff Corp. and Jina-based China-LuQuan, strategic and cross-cultural negotiation challenges are explored both from American and Chinese perspectives. Wyoff, a leading US chemical company has been seeking ways to secure the company's foothold in China's emerging market since the late 90s. When approached by China-LuQuan in 2000, a major Chinese state-owned chemical producer for a joint-venture opportunity to make a popular chemical catalyst in China, Wyoff, Leveraging its superior technology, demanded one-sided terms and played hardball, ruining both the deal and the relationship with China-LuQuan. Seven years later in 2007, Wyoff faced market pressure to again seek a joint venture with China-LuQuan on two other types of products. Both parties had to overcome past distrust to work things out on a series of strategic issues: investment, product slate, marketing, technology, management, organization, staffing, etc. In the negotiations, cross-cultural themes (e.g. trust, relationships, communication, time, autonomy, face, etc.) and different negotiation styles created challenges along with the business and strategic issues. The (A) case sets up the negotiations, highlights issue impasses, explores cross-cultural frictions, and poses tactical challenges. The (B) case describes the strategies, tactics, and results of these negotiations.

To buy a desirable Martha's Vineyard property, Robert and Sally Franklin must craft a bidding strategy informed by their assessment of their competitor. The "A" case sets up the situation and bidding history to date, describes how they assessed their valuations and probabilistic views, and leaves them with a key decision. The B case describes their choice as well as the twists and turns leading to the conclusion.

To buy a desirable Martha's Vineyard property, Robert and Sally Franklin must craft a bidding strategy informed by their assessment of their competitor. The "A" case sets up the situation and bidding history to date, describes how they assessed their valuations and probabilistic views, and leaves them with a key decision. The B case describes their choice as well as the twists and turns leading to the conclusion.

In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell the Elcer Products Division to one of four potential buyers (industrial, financial, U.S., German). This case contains confidential information for the Pearl Equity Partners management role. Challenges include how to set up and implement the most promising sale process, come up with the right deal, and choose the best tactical approach given each party's role and objectives. This negotiation exercise draws on and illustrates the "3-D Negotiation" logic of Lax and Sebenius.

In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell the Elcer Products Division to one of four potential buyers (industrial, financial, U.S., German). This case contains confidential information for the US Industrial ElectroCeramics (US-IND) management role. Challenges include how to set up and implement the most promising sale process, come up with the right deal, and choose the best tactical approach given each party's role and objectives. This negotiation exercise draws on and illustrates the "3-D Negotiation" logic of Lax and Sebenius.

In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell the Elcer Products Division to one of four potential buyers (industrial, financial, U.S., German). This case contains confidential information for the Euro Elektrische Keramische Vorrichtungen, GmbH (Euro EKV) management role. Challenges include how to set up and implement the most promising sale process, come up with the right deal, and choose the best tactical approach given each party's role and objectives. This negotiation exercise draws on and illustrates the "3-D Negotiation" logic of Lax and Sebenius.

In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell the Elcer Products Division to one of four potential buyers (industrial, financial, U.S., German). This case contains confidential information for the TNDA Corporation management role. Challenges include how to set up and implement the most promising sale process, come up with the right deal, and choose the best tactical approach given each party's role and objectives. This negotiation exercise draws on and illustrates the "3-D Negotiation" logic of Lax and Sebenius.

In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell Elcer Products Division to one of four potential buyers (industrial, financial, U.S., German). This case contains confidential information for the RubyFibre Enterprises management role. Challenges include how to set up and implement the most promising sales process, come up with the right deal, and choose the best tactical approach given each party's role and objectives. This negotiation exercise draws on and illustrates the "3-D Negotiation" logic of Lax and Sebenius.

In a six-party negotiation exercise, the TNDA Corp. plans to sell Elcer Products Division to one of four potential buyers (industrial, financial, U.S., German). This case contains confidential information for the Elcer Divisional management role. Challenges include how to set up and implement the most promising sales process, come up with the right deal, and choose the best tactical approach given each party's role and objectives. This negotiation exercise draws on and illustrates the "3-D Negotiation" logic of Lax and Sebenius.

Important transformation at Goldman Sachs, where one of the authors was Chairman, required analysis, political leadership, and management in order to fundamentally shift the strategy, people, and culture on a sustainable basis. After describing the actions needed to move a reluctant Goldman Sachs into junk bonds, private equity, and toward a genuinely global presence, broader lessons are drawn about the tools and tactics for transforming organizations.

Describes the hardball tactics facing Peter Welz, who seeks to negotiate a make-or-break contract with a vastly larger potential client. Welz's counterpart team is led by Preston Spitzer, a notoriously tough player who fully understands his side's massive advantages in the process. With the economic fate of Welz's newly public smaller firm in the balance, Welz and his team must figure out how to handle some very tough tactics by Spitzer and his minions aimed at extracting lopsided contract concessions. These tactics include demeaning remarks, repeated threats to opt for a competitor, misrepresentations, repudiation of previously agreed provisions, last-minute demands, divide-and-conquer moves, and a waiting game that exploits the smaller firm's evidently urgent need for a closure. The (A) case sets up the negotiations and poses an immediate tactical challenge in the context of the overall process. The (B) case describes the strategies, tactics, and results of these negotiations, along with Welz's broader insights into a more productive approach to the common challenge of dealing with very hard bargainers.

An abstract is not available for this product.

Supplements the (A) case.

Describes several internal and external negotiations in the 1980s that led to a significant and growing partnership between Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Wal-Mart. From the perspective of Lou Pritchett, P&G's Vice President of Sales and Customer Development, the unfolding negotiations are described, starting with a canoe trip Pritchett took with Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Provides insight into various negotiating situations as well as key lessons learned from early efforts to help P&G and Wal-Mart forge a more integrated supplier-retailer partnership.

Describes the retailer-supplier negotiations of Tom Muccio, one of the earlier Procter & Gamble (P&G) employees to be based in Bentonville, Arkansas, in negotiating the early operational components of the supplier-retailer partnership between P&G and Wal-Mart in the late 1980s. Provides background on the supplier-retailer relationship and negotiation barriers encountered when executing operational components of the partnership.