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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.

With the controversy surrounding Larry Summers' comments about innate differences between men and women as a backdrop, examines whether and when gender differences exist in the competitive negotiation arena. Reviews research that documents the impact of negotiators' beliefs and motivations on performance, focusing on gender stereotypes and their message regarding women's inability to perform on a par with their male counterparts in business dealings. Documents the distinct performance impact of stereotypes that operate below the threshold of consciousness versus stereotypes that are out in the open, and specifically explores gender stereotypes in the context of the broader issue of bargaining power. Such stereotypes affect both objective and subjective power at the bargaining table. After providing insights into the way that gender stereotypes operate, identifies strategies for mitigating their potentially harmful effects and instead uses them to encourage performance gains.

This is a shortened version of The Coca-Cola Company (A): The Rise and Fall of M. Douglas Ivester, HBS case #9-800-355. It eliminates some background detail and the financial data and exhibits. As with the original case, it chronicles the appointment of Douglas Ivester as CEO of Coca-Cola and the missteps that led to his dismissal.

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.

Gokhan Hotamisligil is a star researcher at Harvard School of Public Health who has made groundbreaking discoveries linking fat cells, inflammation, and diabetes. He now wants to form a company to commercialize these discoveries. At the same time, Isaac Kohlberg, the head of Harvard's Office of Technology Development (OTD) is eager to improve Harvard's record in commercializing science. Describes the negotiations between Hotamisligil, OTD, the new company, and the School of Public Health to establish appropriate licensing and sponsored research agreements.

Flayton Electronics is showing up as a common point of purchase for a large number of fraudulent credit card transactions. It's not clear how responsible the company and its less than airtight systems are for the apparent data breach. Law enforcement wants Flayton to stay mute for now, but customers have come to respect this firm for its straight talk and square deals. A hard-earned reputation is at stake, and the path to preserving it is difficult to see. Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0709A and R0709Z. James E. Lee, of ChoicePoint, offers lessons from his firm's experience with a large-scale fraud scheme. He advises early and frank external and internal communications, elimination of security weaknesses, and development of a brand-restoration strategy. Bill Boni, of Motorola, stresses prevention: comprehensive risk management for data, full compliance with payment card industry standards, and putting digital experts on staff. For the inadequately prepared Flayton, he suggests consulting an established model response plan and making preservation of the firm's reputation its top priority. John Philip Coghlan, formerly of Visa USA, discusses the often-divergent positions of data-breach stakeholders and puts customers' interests first. Swift disclosure by Flayton, he argues, would empower consumers to protect themselves against further fraud and might even enhance the company's reputation for honesty. Jay Foley, of the Identity Theft Resource Center, recommends that Flayton emphasize quality of communication over speed of delivery. More broadly, he advocates cautious management to prevent data thefts, which are proliferating and could have long-term consequences.

Negotiators often fail to achieve results because they channel too much effort into selling their own position and too little into understanding the other party's perspective. To get the best deal--or, sometimes, any deal at all--negotiators need to think like detectives, digging for information about why the other side wants what it does. This investigative approach entails a mind-set and a methodology, say Harvard Business School professors Malhotra and Bazerman. Inaccurate assumptions about the other side's motivations can lead negotiators to propose solutions to the wrong problems, needlessly give away value, or derail deals altogether. Consider, for example, the pharmaceutical company that deadlocked with a supplier over the issue of exclusivity in an ingredient purchase. Believing it was a ploy to raise the price, the drug maker upped its offer--unsuccessfully. In fact, the supplier was balking because a relative's company needed a small amount of the ingredient to make a local product. Once the real motivation surfaced, a compromise quickly followed. Understanding the other side's motives and goals is the first principle of investigative negotiation. The second is to figure out what constraints the other party faces. Often when your counterpart's behavior appears unreasonable, his hands are tied somehow, and you can reach agreement by helping overcome those limitations. The third is to view onerous demands as a window into what the other party prizes most--and use that information to create opportunities. The fourth is to look for common ground; even fierce competitors may have complementary interests that lead to creative agreements. Finally, if a deal appears lost, stay at the table and keep trying to learn more. Even if you don't win, you can gain insights into a customer's future needs, the interests of similar customers, or the strategies of competitors.

Flayton Electronics is showing up as a common point of purchase for a large number of fraudulent credit card transactions. It's not clear how responsible the company and its less than airtight systems are for the apparent data breach. Law enforcement wants Flayton to stay mute for now, but customers have come to respect this firm for its straight talk and square deals. A hard-earned reputation is at stake, and the path to preserving it is difficult to see. Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0709A and R0709Z. James E. Lee, of ChoicePoint, offers lessons from his firm's experience with a large-scale fraud scheme. He advises early and frank external and internal communications, elimination of security weaknesses, and development of a brand-restoration strategy. Bill Boni, of Motorola, stresses prevention: comprehensive risk management for data, full compliance with payment card industry standards, and putting digital experts on staff. For the inadequately prepared Flayton, he suggests consulting an established model response plan and making preservation of the firm's reputation its top priority. John Philip Coghlan, formerly of Visa USA, discusses the often-divergent positions of data-breach stakeholders and puts customers' interests first. Swift disclosure by Flayton, he argues, would empower consumers to protect themselves against further fraud and might even enhance the company's reputation for honesty. Jay Foley, of the Identity Theft Resource Center, recommends that Flayton emphasize quality of communication over speed of delivery. More broadly, he advocates cautious management to prevent data thefts, which are proliferating and could have long-term consequences.

Flayton Electronics is showing up as a common point of purchase for a large number of fraudulent credit card transactions. It's not clear how responsible the company and its less than airtight systems are for the apparent data breach. Law enforcement wants Flayton to stay mute for now, but customers have come to respect this firm for its straight talk and square deals. A hard-earned reputation is at stake, and the path to preserving it is difficult to see. Four experts comment on this fictional case study in R0709A and R0709Z. James E. Lee, of ChoicePoint, offers lessons from his firm's experience with a large-scale fraud scheme. He advises early and frank external and internal communications, elimination of security weaknesses, and development of a brand-restoration strategy. Bill Boni, of Motorola, stresses prevention: comprehensive risk management for data, full compliance with payment card industry standards, and putting digital experts on staff. For the inadequately prepared Flayton, he suggests consulting an established model response plan and making preservation of the firm's reputation its top priority. John Philip Coghlan, formerly of Visa USA, discusses the often-divergent positions of data-breach stakeholders and puts customers' interests first. Swift disclosure by Flayton, he argues, would empower consumers to protect themselves against further fraud and might even enhance the company's reputation for honesty. Jay Foley, of the Identity Theft Resource Center, recommends that Flayton emphasize quality of communication over speed of delivery. More broadly, he advocates cautious management to prevent data thefts, which are proliferating and could have long-term consequences.

In negotiation, correctly identifying your counterpart's strategy is vital. Only then can you constructively influence their behavior--or adapt appropriately to what they are doing. This case--and its related computer-based exercise (Negotiation Strategy Simulation)--illuminate how through a thoughtful process of probing and testing, a negotiator may determine whether the other party tends to be cooperative or competitive. The material also demonstrates how the benefit of such learning must be weighed against the possible costs of being provocative.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Numerous studies confirm that few people can make it through a typical day without lying. So it should not be surprising that falsehoods and deception are widespread in business negotiations as well. The unspoken, and perhaps unconscious, thought is that if everyone lies, why is it so bad? Examines legal and ethical views of lying, noting that while courts often hold parties to the truth of their representations, negotiators have many ways to mislead the opposing side. For example, negotiating tactics such as nondisclosure and evasion are rarely considered illegal. Indeed, it is often possible to avoid liability by using misleading behaviors that make no representations but which seem to. In light of the moral and legal ambiguity of lying, offers suggestions for how to detect lies and how to protect oneself against bargaining deception, including: establishing negotiating ground rules before the discussions begin; asking the same question in different ways; asking questions to which you already know the answer; including written claims in the final agreement; and using contingent agreements, an escrow agent, or a performance bond.

Scenario-planning tools are getting better, and companies are using them more effectively to prepare for an uncertain future, according to the latest results from Bain & Company's ongoing 14-year survey of corporate tool use.

Of all the risks of doing business in China, the greatest is the threat posed by environmental degradation. And yet it's barely discussed in corporate boardrooms. This is a serious mistake. Multinationals may be more concerned with intellectual property rights violations, corruption, and potential political instability, but the Chinese government, NGOs, and the Chinese press have been focused squarely on the country's energy shortages, soil erosion, lack of water, and pollution problems, which are so severe they might constrain GDP growth. What's more, the Chinese expect the international community to take the lead in environmental protection. If that doesn't happen, multinationals face clear risks to their operations, their workers' health, and their reputations. In factoring environmental issues into their China strategies, foreign firms need to be both defensive, taking steps to reduce harm, and proactive, investing in environmental protection efforts. Coca-Cola, for example, installed state-of-the-art bottling plants in China that operate with no net loss of water resources. Mattel increased the safety of its Barbie-manufacturing process to protect workers' health. With its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, GE is shrinking its environmental footprint in China; more proactively, GE is working closely with the Chinese government and scientists to develop clean coal, water purification, and water reuse technologies. In considering the value of such efforts, companies can not only factor in reduced risk but also increased opportunity, as they use innovations designed for the Chinese market in the rest of the world. The bottom line: How well multinationals address environmental issues in China will affect their fortunes in one of the most important economies in the world.

While wine tourism in the United States was booming, the majority of consumers who tasted a Cabernet Sauvignon in one of Napa Valley's tasting rooms were not permitted to ship the wine directly to their home. In 2002, direct-to-consumer shipping was either banned or overly cumbersome in 37 states. W. Reed Foster, president of the Coalition for Free Trade, was determined to remove these obstacles. Would he be able to free the grapes?