Course 2023-2024 a.y.

20322 - DECISION MAKING AND NEGOTIATION

Department of Management and Technology

Course taught in English
Go to class group/s: 31
CLMG (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  12 credits SECS-P/10) - M (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - IM (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - MM (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - AFC (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - CLELI (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - ACME (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - DES-ESS (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - EMIT (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - GIO (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - DSBA (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - PPA (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - FIN (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10) - TS (6 credits - II sem. - OP  |  SECS-P/10)
Course Director:
ANNA GRANDORI

Classes: 31 (II sem.)
Instructors:
Class 31: ANNA GRANDORI


Mission & Content Summary

MISSION

Managing is largely a decision making activity, and this course is aimed at improving knowledge and skills in that fundamental field. The course provides concepts and tools for improving decision making and negotiation strategies, behaviors and solutions, utilizing and integrating tools from various social sciences that have been applied to negotiation analysis. In particular, it provides tools for sustaining effective and innovative decision and negotiation behavior in uncertain, risky and open problems, with applications in a wide variety of settings (not only business policy and entrepreneurial decisions, but also labor disputes, inter-organizational negotiations, political and judicial problems). The course format is based on active teaching, providing analytic models and developing skills through simulations and case studies.

CONTENT SUMMARY

  • 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.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO)

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...
  • 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.

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

At the end of the course student will be able to...
  • 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.

Teaching methods

  • Face-to-face 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 on campus/online (role playing, business game, simulation, online forum, instant polls)

DETAILS

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.


Assessment methods

  Continuous assessment Partial exams General exam
  • Individual assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)
 x    
  • Group assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)
 x    
  • Active class participation (virtual, attendance)
 x    

ATTENDING STUDENTS

Evaluation – Attending mode

 

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

 

- Case analysis Assignments - Written wrap up case analyses

- Class participation

- Field projects: 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. 

All team members have to present and ‘defend’ their project orally in one of the last sessions of the course. The written report has to be delivered as a BB assignment.

 

- 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.

 


NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS

Evaluation – Non Attending mode

 

- Written in-class test based on the adopted material (4/5 open questions and a brief case analysis).

 


Teaching materials


ATTENDING AND NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS

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).
Last change 12/12/2023 11:54