[Negotiation and Decision-Making @ HBS Page]


Negotiating Complex Deals & Disputes:
Real Estate, Sports, Public-Private Partnerships, and Litigation

Senior Lecturer Michael Wheeler
One Credit
Winter term, 1997
13 two-hour sessions + paper
Note:  Enrollment limited to 30 students

Career Focus:

  This course is intended for students who will work for or with organizations involved in complex, high-profile negotiations. These may range from multi-party or public-private real estate development projects to hard fought lawsuits and regulatory battles. There are high personal and professional rewards for managers who can successfully build consensus in these challenging cases.

Educational Objective:

  Students will apply and extend the analytic concepts and interpersonal skills they developed in the required negotiation course in a series of contemporary cases. They will also explore much more deeply the practical opportunities for creating value at the bargaining table -- and the institutional factors that determine how that value is likely claimed. There will be a particular focus on the way in which legal rights and responsibilities shape the zone of possible agreement and strategic moves within it.

Content and Organization

  Although there will be occasional simulations, most of the classes will be case-based. Examples include:
  1. Public/private real estate development (for example, the recent agreement between Disney and New York to invest significantly to revitalize Times Square;

  2. Intercity bidding wars for professional sports franchises and industrial facilities (as in the move of the NFL Rams from Los Angeles to St. Louis or the negotiations between Raytheon, electric utilities, and state tax officials to keep that company in Massachusetts);

  3. Environmental conflict (over a proposed sale of pollution credits, for example, or between a Texas chemical plant and its residential neighbors); and

  4. Mediation and arbitration as possible alternatives to lawsuits over product liability claims or harassment issues.
  The course will meet weekly in two-hour sessions. In lieu of an examination, students will be required to write topical papers. Team projects will be encouraged.

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