Course 2022-2023 a.y.

• Foundations of decision making. How to frame problems and objectives. Improving judgement under uncertainty. Alternative decision strategies and their selection.
• When to employ decision teams. Governing team decision making dynamics.
• When to negotiate. Types of conflict of interests and negotiation structures. Types of negotiation strategies. How to improve agreements.
• Power and fairness in negotiations.
• Organizational cultures in negotiations.
• Multi-party negotiations and coalition analysis.

• Distinguish effective and ineffective heuristics for decision making.
• Select a decision strategy appropriate to a problem.
• Recognize different negotiation structures.
• Select negotiation strategies appropriate to the negotiation structure.

• Develop personal skills in problem solving and negotiating.
• Evaluate strategies and behavior applied by other actors.
• Diagnose the key features and address the challenges of decision and negotiation situations.
• Devise appropriate behaviors and design superior solutions and agreements.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Online lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Exercises (exercises, database, software etc.)
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Individual assignments
• Group assignments
• Interactive class activities (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

Each session includes an experiment or simulation in which to experiment the strategies and behaviors topic of the session. Conceptualizations and models are reconstructed on the basis of the analysis of the empirical evidence generated by the experiments conducted in class, connected and compared with the available results of  social science research on those behaviors.  Real-life wrap up case studies are discussed for each part of the course.

The course is in presence, but it will be possible to connect from outside in a synchronous mode (listening at registrations after class will be ineffective due to many exercises and simulations that cannot be registered).

Evaluation – Attending mode

There is no ‘status’ of attending student, but an attending ‘grade’ that is formed during the course, through the following Assignments:

- Case analysis Assignments - Written wrap up case analyses : up to 5 points each the first two, up to 4 points the third (=max 14 total points) . Format: First 2 WUP: Individual ‘Bullet-point’, slide-like; max 2 pages, 1.5 spaced. Third WUP: max 1 slide-like team analysis for sharing in Discussion (in class) [Assignment DATES: Monday Febr 20th ; Monday March 20th ; Wednesday April 5th]

- Class participation: max 6 points (for continued and prepared attendance, good interventions or above average written analyses) – assigned in tranches of 2 points in occasion of WrapUps.

- Field projects: up to 10 points A field project, conducted in teams of maximum 3 members, analyzing a real case of decision and/or negotiation (through interviews, or documental sources as journal reports, books, movies etc;) with the tools learned. Project expected length: 5 to 10 pages, 1.5 spaced.

All team members have to present and ‘defend’ their project orally in one of the last sessions of the course (May 8 or 10). The written report has to be delivered as a BB assignment by May 17 (midnight).

- A final +1 point for outstanding contributions during the whole course may be added at the end. If the points cumulated during the course were already 30, this would bring to a 30 cum laude.

Students can opt out from the attending mode of evaluation and turn to a non attending mode during the course, until the formation of teams for the project work. During project work students should maintain the commitment towards other team members and cannot opt out. Once the project is completed, any student can eventually opt for a non attending individual evaluation mode, if not satisfied with the team output.

Evaluation – Non Attending mode

- An oral colloquium (no multiple choice) based on the adopted readings, as indicated in the course outline, taken in any official exam date.

- An individual paper, 5 pages max, 1.5 spaced, 12 font, analyzing a real case (chosen by the student) of decision and/or negotiation (based on documents, interviews, journal reports, descriptions in books etc) with the tools learned (to be delivered as a BB assignment opened for the session in which the student has registered)

The two evaluations are expressed on the standard 30 point scale and their simple average will constitute the final grade, provided that each part is sufficient.

Selected  Chapters  (as indicated in the course Syllabus and Available on Library Course Reserve) from:

• A. GRANDORI, Organization and Economic Behaviour, Routledge 2001.
• L.L. THOMPSON, The mind and heart of the negotiator, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice-Hall 2004.
• Course Slides (posted).