World Championship in Negotiation The Ro
On Teaching
World Championship in Negotiation?
The Role of Competitions in
Negotiation Pedagogy
Remigiusz Smolinski and Peter Kesting
The last decade has seen the emergence of several new negotiation
competitions around the world.We think the two major drivers of this
development are a general trend toward the increasing internationalization of higher education and a recognition of the specific benefits of
competitions for negotiation pedagogy. These benefits include: the high
level of student commitment generated by participation in a competition, which enhances the quality of negotiation; the opportunity that
the competitions give students to experience authentic cultural diversity; and the networking opportunities for students and instructors
that the competitions create. This article focuses on the role that negotiation competitions can play in negotiation pedagogy. We first present
an overview of the currently most important international negotiation competitions. This is followed by an outline of the specific benefits
of negotiation competitions for pedagogy.We then take a closer look at
the organization and outcome of negotiation competitions and
discuss the opportunities for their development and growth.
Key words: negotiation competition, negotiation pedagogy,
negotiation teaching, cross-cultural negotiation, out-of-classroom
education, networking.
Remigiusz Smolinski is a research associate at Aarhus University’s School of Business and Social
Sciences in Aarhus, Denmark. His e-mail address is resmo@asb.dk.
Peter Kesting is an associate professor at Aarhus University’s School of Business and Social
Sciences. His e-mail address is petk@asb.dk.
10.1111/nejo.12029
© 2013 President and Fellows of Harvard College
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July 2013
355
Introduction
The last decade has witnessed a noticeable increase in the number of
new negotiation and mediation competitions1 for students. The two oldest
of the negotiation competitions is the Williston Negotiation Competition,
which was in its sixtieth year in 2013, and the American Bar Association
(ABA) Negotiation Competition, which took place for the first time in
1984. Both the Williston and ABA competitions are regional in their orientation, involving students solely from American and Canadian schools.
The most established international competitions are the International
Negotiation Competition for Law Students (1998), the International
Academy of Dispute Resolution Mediation Competition (2001), the ICC
International Mediation Competition (2006) (see Greg Bond’s article in
this issue), the Negotiation Challenge (2007), and the Warsaw Negotiation
Round (2010).
Negotiation competitions are becoming increasingly popular among
students, as indicated by the increase in both the number and quality of
applications every year. Recognizing their importance, some universities
strongly encourage their students to participate in such competitions and
regularly send negotiation teams, providing them with coaches and often
even paying the associated costs. Negotiation competitions have become
an established element of international negotiation education.
Despite their popularity and importance, little research on negotiation
competitions has been conducted. We think that negotiation competitions
are particularly useful for negotiation pedagogy because they offer students
unique experiences that are difficult to acquire in any other “synthetic”
educational setting; participants typically become more committed to competition activities than they do to standard classroom exercises and also
find the experience much more emotionally intense (Ogilvie and Carsky
2002; Shapiro 2006; Honeyman, Coben, and De Palo 2009b). They also
benefit from the competition’s cultural diversity by interacting with students from different countries who have not yet adapted to a joint “host
culture” and with students who have been trained by teachers from diverse
negotiation backgrounds who use varied teaching approaches (Honeyman,
Coben, and De Palo 2009a; Salacuse 2010). Finally, the competitions offer
excellent opportunities to network with students and instructors from a
variety of different institutions (Levin and Thurston 1996; Bienzle et al.
2007).
Our focus here is on the role of negotiation competitions in developing participants’ negotiation skills, as well as in building a community of
negotiation instructors. We base our discussion on our own experiences
and on the feedback we received from structured interviews conducted
with participating students and their coaches during negotiation competitions that we have either organized ourselves or were involved in as
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Role of Competitions in Negotiation Pedagogy
advisors or judges. In addition, we have gathered online information about
other negotiation competitions and supplemented this with a questionnaire
survey of competition organizers.
Major Negotiation Competitions
Table One below lists the main negotiation and mediation competitions. The
majority of these competitions are organized and hosted by academic
institutions (some also have corporate sponsorship),but the list of organizers
also includes a professional association (ABA) and a chamber of commerce
(the International Chamber of Commerce [ICC] in Paris). Most of the
competitions that we have identified focus on graduate students,and only one
of them is also open to undergraduates (the Warsaw Negotiation Round).
The most well-established competitions are only open to law students and
focus on the resolution of legal disputes. Some of the newer ones are also open
to business students and some even focus on business negotiations (ICC
International Mediation Competition, the Negotiation Challenge, and the
Warsaw Negotiation Round). There is no specific competition for students of
political science, diplomacy, sociology, etc., but students from other disciplines have access to several of the competitions, although some of the
competitions require them to team up with a law student. Common to all
competitions is that students participate in teams,comprising from two to five
players.
All negotiation competitions we identified take place annually.Almost all
of them have a strong educational focus on developing basic negotiation and
mediation skills and techniques. They also expose students to“cross-cultural
communication as well as potential differences in negotiation styles, ethical
limitations, social norms, and business practices”(International Competition
for Law Students) and “cultural diversity in the process of negotiation”
(Warsaw Negotiation Round).The majority of the competitions also explicitly
focus on networking and the creation of awareness about the field.
With the exception of the Williston Negotiation Competition, all these
competitions comprise several rounds in which different cases or role-plays
are subsequently negotiated or mediated. In two of the competitions (ABA
Negotiation Competition and International Negotiation Competition for
Law Students), general instructions for the role-plays or cases are distributed to the teams beforehand to allow more time for preparation. Most of
the competitions are structured in rounds in which teams are ranked or
steadily eliminated leaving the strongest teams to face off against each other
in the final round. The number of rounds — and the duration of the
competitions — varies widely, with the ICC International Mediation Competition being the most comprehensive. (It comprises four group rounds
and four finals, stretching over six days).
Some of the biggest differences between the competitions include the
general type of role-plays (or cases or simulations) used (distributive versus
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Smolinski and Kesting
Table One
Major Negotiation Competitions
Competition Name,
Website
Role of Competitions in Negotiation Pedagogy
1. Williston Negotiation
Competition
http://law.harvard.edu
Organizers, Aim
•
•
Harvard Negotiators and
a board of student
advisors
Education
First competition,
Frequency, Place
•
•
•
1953
Annual
Harvard Law School
Types of Role-Plays,
Number of Rounds,
Evaluation criteria
Team Composition,
Participants, Number
of Teams
•
•
•
Teams of 2 students
Harvard Law School
first-year students only
20 teams in 2010
•
•
•
2. American Bar
Association Negotiation
Competition,
http://americanbar.org
3. International
Negotiation
Competition for Law
Students
http://www.chapman.edu/law/
competitions/dispute-resolution/
international-negotiationcompetition/
•
•
•
American Bar Association
Education
Organized by an
executive committee
with members
representing various
regions of the world
• Education, networking,
increasing interest in the
topic
1984
Annual
Changing locations in the
U.S. and Canada
• 10 regional competitions
are held across the U.S.
and Canada
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1998
Annual (late June or early
July)
• Changing locations
worldwide: 2009 Chicago,
2010 The Gold Cost,
Australia, 2011
Copenhagen, 2012
Belfast, 2013 Orange, CA
•
•
Teams of two students
The team members have
to attend the same
ABA-approved law school
(or Canadian
LSAC-member law school)
228 teams in 2012
•
•
Teams of 2 law students
With the exception of
new entrants, participants
are usually the winners of
a recognised national
competition
No fixed number of
teams: multiple of 4 —
there have been 20 teams
in the last two
competitions.
•
•
•
•
One comprehensive
many-issue case, complex
business problems
Value creation; value
claiming; drafting
Special awards
Legal negotiations
Two rounds plus two
finals
Planning, flexibility,
outcome, teamwork,
relationship, self-analysis,
ethics
Cross-border transactions
or disputes
Three rounds, in which
all teams participate
Pre-negotiation planning;
process; characteristics;
relationship between the
teams and teamwork;
reflection; outcome; and
negotiating ethics
4. International Academy of
Dispute Resolution
International Law School
Mediation Tournament
htpp://www.inadr.org/
tournaments/law-schooltournament
•
5. International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC)
International Mediation
Competition
http://iccwbo.org/
mediationcompetition/
•
6. The Negotiation Challenge
thenegotiationchallenge.org/
•
•
•
•
Negotiation Journal
July 2013
7. Warsaw Negotiation Round
http://www.warsawnegotiation
round.pl
•
•
International Academy of
Dispute Resolution
Education, increasing
interest in the topic
•
•
•
2001
Annual
Changing locations
worldwide: 2013 in
Dublin, 2012 in Chicago,
2011 in London
•
3 graduate students per
team
• Law students only
• Max. 36 teams
•
International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC), Paris
Education and
capacity-building
•
•
•
2006
Annual
Paris
•
Teams of no more than 4
students
• Either law or business
students (including at
least one law student;
professional mediators
• 57 teams in 2011, 66
teams in 2012 and 2013
•
HHL-Leipzig Graduate
School of Management;
IESEG School of
Management
Education, networking,
increasing interest in the
topic
•
•
•
2007
Annual
2007–2011 in Leipzig,
2012 in Paris, 2013 in
Athens
•
Teams of three students
majoring in law or
business
8 teams in 2007, 12
teams in 2008–2011, 18
teams in 2012 and 2013
•
Warsaw School of
Economics
Education, networking,
increasing interest in the
topic
•
•
•
2010
Annual
Warsaw
•
Teams of three students
majoring in law or
business
12 teams
•
•
•
Students serve as
mediators, advocators
and clients.
• Three qualification
rounds plus one final
• The ability to collaborate
and to guide parties to a
dispute resolution
Real-life commercial
mediations
• Four rounds plus four
finals
• A written mediation
plan; performance during
the mediation
• Special awards
Different types of
commercial and
non-commercial
negotiations
• Four qualification rounds
plus a final
• Scores, problem-solving
abilities, value creation
and claiming, the final is
judged by a jury
•
•
359
Different types of
scoreable negotiations
Three to four
qualification rounds plus
a final
Scores, the final is judged
by a jury
integrative), the role that participants play (involved parties versus mediators), and the dispute or problem at the heart of the negotiation (crossborder commercial disputes between at least two entities, complex,
multi-issue business problems, legal problems, etc.). Two of the competitions (the Negotiation Challenge and the Warsaw Negotiation Round) use a
mix of different negotiation types in order to challenge participants’ different negotiation skills.
Another difference between the negotiation competitions is in the
evaluation of team performance. In all competitions, judges are used to
evaluate the results — often working in teams of two. However, in addition
to that, only the Negotiation Challenge and the Warsaw Negotiation Round
also use scoreable role-plays. In these competitions, the scoring criteria are
typically disclosed to the negotiating parties at the beginning of the respective round.
The criteria evaluators use can differ considerably. We found three
main evaluation areas used in the different competitions:
•
Preparation: for example, analysis of the problem, explication of one’s
interests as well as the interests of one’s counterpart, and development
of a negotiation or mediation strategy.
•
Process for example, effective teamwork, listening skills, empathy,
the ability to move toward a collaborative outcome without giving
up one’s own commercial interests and needs, communication and
negotiation skills, the ability to collaborate in order to find a solution,
flexibility.
•
Outcome: for example, value creation, value claiming, drafting of the
joint contract, self-analysis, and ethical behavior.
We found that the various competitions use quite different combinations of these specifications in their evaluation procedures. Some competitions have assigned special awards for specific skills, such as group work
or value claiming.
Thus, although all the leading negotiation and mediation competitions
are similar in that they involve students and have an educational focus, we
find that they nonetheless differ considerably with regard to content and
structure. In the following, we take a closer look at how the main benefits
of negotiation competitions make them a unique tool for negotiation
pedagogy.
Pedagogical Benefits of Negotiation Competitions
Negotiation competitions offer several pedagogical benefits to both the
participating students and the academic community. These benefits can
be grouped into three categories: skill development, networking, and
promotion of negotiation as a field of study.
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Skill Development
The purpose of competitions is to compare the relative skills of individuals or teams trying to master a particular discipline. They thus play an
inherently motivational role for contestants, which manifests itself in two
ways. First, the contestants invest a significant amount of time and effort
to prepare for the competitions. From our numerous conversations, we
found that, although most of the teams typically start their preparations
two to three months before the event, some prepare even up to six
months before. In addition to taking negotiation courses offered at their
institutions, these students usually prepare by thoroughly reviewing relevant literature and practice using various exercises, most typically roleplay-based negotiations.
Second, we have found the level of motivation that contestants demonstrate during the competition, and the resulting intensity and quality of
their negotiations, to be typically much higher than in the classroom
setting. The individuals and teams participating in negotiation competitions
can assess their performance, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and
— above all — see how their negotiating styles work in a highly competitive context that mimics the real business and/or legal negotiations in
which they can expect to participate in the future. This unique experience
is difficult to simulate in the classroom. Although we have found students in
negotiation courses to typically be highly motivated, adding a competitive
aspect to negotiations seems to result in a qualitatively different experience. We believe that reflecting on this experience will help participants
further enhance and develop their negotiation skills.
Negotiation competitions also enable students and teachers to
compare various negotiation approaches and styles used by students from
different cultures, traditions, and diverse educational backgrounds. For
instance, how do students with a highly emotional negotiating style
perform in different negotiation settings, or when confronted with negotiators from other cultures? What happens when value-creating individuals
negotiate with value-claiming counterparts? Such experiences are invaluable for the participating students because they help them understand the
“effect” of their personal negotiation style(s) in different settings and constellations. Such a variety of cultures and traditions would be difficult, if not
impossible, to reproduce in classroom settings where negotiation styles are
likely to be much more homogeneous because classmates are more likely to
have been educated in the same tradition or represent the same (or similar)
culture. (Even “foreign” students are likely to have adapted to the culture of
their host institutions.)
Networking
Meeting and interacting with peers who share a passion for a particular
topic can be, despite the competitive context, a fascinating and valuable
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experience. The international nature of negotiation competitions offers
participants exciting opportunities to network with colleagues from
different institutions and countries.
Negotiation competitions also provide valuable networking opportunities for instructors. During the competitions, they can compare their way
of teaching negotiation with other approaches and exchange views with
other colleagues. We believe this combination of exposure to different
views, opinions, and approaches, coupled with seeing these approaches
embodied in the actual negotiation role-plays, can help instructors optimize
their existing teaching approaches and methods and also encourage them
to try new ones.
Promoting Negotiation
In some countries, negotiation is already an acknowledged and wellestablished research and study discipline, at least at the graduate level in
law and business education. Unfortunately, in many countries this is not the
case. Thus, such events as negotiation competitions create opportunities to
raise awareness of this topic both in the academic community and among
practitioners.
Because most student negotiation competitions are organized by academics who are passionate about this topic, they often take place at their
universities. This helps promote negotiation both as an academically interesting topic and as a key skill useful in private life and professional careers.
It typically also increases students’ interest in attending negotiation
courses, emphasizing the role of such courses in academic curricula, and
helping secure the resources necessary for conducting negotiation research
at the host institution.
Lessons Learned from Competition
The following observations arise from our experiences organizing and
participating in international negotiation competitions.
Organizing and Conducting Negotiation Competitions
Our first, and very encouraging, observation regards the ever-increasing
interest of the student community in participating in the negotiation competitions we have helped organize. Evidence includes the number of qualified applications, which has grown continuously in recent years and which
has always exceeded the maximum number of teams that could be hosted
by the organizers.2 This clearly indicates a qualified and growing demand
for negotiation competitions. A drawback of this popularity, however, is that
only a limited number of teams can be selected from a set of typically
strong applicants. Even with clear and transparent evaluation criteria and
admission processes, rejected candidates express disappointment.
A second important aspect of negotiation competitions is the postnegotiation debriefing (Susskind and Corburn 2000).We consider the debriefing
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to be an integral and important part of the negotiation teaching that enhances
participants’ experiential learning.Debriefing gives participants a significant
feedback that can help them understand and reflect on their behavior in the
negotiations and thereby improve their negotiation skills.
In negotiation competitions, however, revealing the full details of the
role-play simulation immediately after each round may (positively or negatively) affect the participants’ reputation and status within the group and
influence their behavior in the following rounds. This rarely occurs in real
business or legal negotiations, in which the attractiveness of the agreed
outcome and integrity of the counterparts is perceived by the negotiator
rather than being a hard fact supported by objective information. Given
this, we substituted the debriefing sessions that had taken place after each
round with sessions providing overall feedback from all the rounds at the
end of the competition when the potential reputation effects could no
longer influence the results of the competition anymore. One disadvantage
of this, however, is that, at the end of the competition, it can be hard to
remember everything about the negotiations, particularly those in the
earlier rounds, with the result that some students might find it difficult to
relate the feedback to their behavior. This can, in turn, reduce the learning
effects. Although it would be ideal to align these conflicting effects, when
making a trade-off between improving the pedagogical value of the
competitions and preserving their realism, we tend to favor the latter.
Another issue that we have discussed intensively is the use of nonscoreable role-plays in negotiation competitions. On the one hand, evaluating the
results of negotiations based on nonscoreable role-plays will always be
somewhat subjective, particularly when several negotiations are carried out
in parallel and when different judges — whose performance expectations and
judging criteria may vary — are involved. On the other hand, the scope of
scoreable role-plays is restricted and their evaluation always focuses on a
substantial (measurable) outcome. Cross-evaluations of the relational
outcome of the negotiation and the impact of the participants’ negotiation
styles, such as Subjective Value Inventory (introduced in Curhan, Elfenbein,
and Xu 2006) can be useful tools for integrating other dimensions, but they
are subjective too, and can also be manipulated strategically by competitors.
Moreover, it is difficult to find scoring systems that consider and measure
negotiators’ creativity and their invention of options.
Initially, we gave priority to objectivity and fairness, and only used
nonscoreable role-plays in the finals. In 2011, however, we started experimenting with nonscoreable role-plays and have used them also in the
qualification rounds since. Our experiences with these role-plays have been
quite positive. We introduced multiple evaluation criteria and explained
them to the teams prior to the negotiation round. To standardize their
judging criteria as much as possible, all judges met before and after the
negotiations, and jointly identified the best and worst performing team,
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positioning all other teams in relation to them. Although using nonscoreable role-plays in negotiation competitions rather than scoreable ones
requires more effort, participants have told us they appreciated the judges’
cooperative spirit, and we have received no complaints about the subjectivity and incomparability of the evaluations so far.
Organizers should also nurture the networking aspect of the competition by offering participants opportunities to interact, for example,
between the rounds or during evening events. Involving students in organizing the competition can be helpful because they never forget to integrate suitable networking (social) opportunities into the schedule. We
think, however, that the scientific and pedagogical part of the competitions
should remain in the hands of academic faculty who should be responsible
for selection and preparation (writing) of suitable role-plays; briefing,
guiding, and debriefing the negotiation rounds; and evaluating their results.
Negotiations in Competitive Settings
Emotionalism
An important aspect of competitions is the high level of emotionalism that
contestants often express. This phenomenon, which various scholars have
frequently observed (Ogilvie and Carsky 2002; Shapiro 2006; Druckman and
Olekalns 2008; Honeyman, Coben, and De Palo 2009b), seems to be
common in competitive settings. Raised voices, excited gestures, clear signs
of satisfaction with the obtained result, or expressions of deep disappointment, frustration, anger, and even tears are integral elements of negotiation
competitions. We are constantly astonished at how much more intense
emotions are during the competitions compared with simulations that
typically take place in classes and executive seminars.
As organizers, we have sometimes even found ourselves watching
highly emotional negotiations during the competitions and hoping that
they do not escalate beyond control. This happened once during a negotiation between teams from France and South America. As we entered the
room, the negotiators were standing at the whiteboard literally shouting at
each other. As time ran out and the judge began to count down, the
situation seemed to escalate. But despite the highly charged emotional
atmosphere, the teams were able to reach agreement at the very last
second, after which, to our surprise, they laughed and hugged.
This highly emotional approach seems to have a positive effect on the
relational outcome. Indeed, we also observed that the above-mentioned
teams were both popular with other participants. We suspect, however, that
this will apply as long as the emotions do not become too negative and the
negotiating style too confrontational and aggressive. We have also found
that even teams with widely divergent cultural backgrounds were able to
understand and accommodate highly emotional approaches quite well.
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We add, however, that highly emotional teams generally had poorer
outcomes — at least in the competitions we have observed. We think this
is because emotionalism is rather time-consuming and such teams often ran
out of time. Although the emotional teams tend to perform quite well in the
overall rankings, so far they have not made it to the finals, which have
typically featured relatively less emotionally expressive, problem-focused
teams. The style of the final rounds has always been calm and relatively
quiet.
Reputation
We have repeatedly been surprised at how quickly teams can acquire
reputations for their level of integrity and fairness throughout the competition (Glick and Croson 2001). The spectrum of negotiation approaches,
attitudes, strategies, and tactics demonstrated by the contestants is typically
broad, but unknown before the first negotiation rounds commence.
Although some teams conduct a principle-based negotiation, consistently
demonstrating a “win-win” attitude, others choose to pursue a more Machiavellian approach, and focus on winning by all means. In particular, negotiation exercises based on the prisoner’s dilemma (similar to such simulations
as “Win as Much as You Can” or “Oil Pricing”3) offer an excellent opportunity to observe how contestants build a reputation. A team’s positive (trust,
trustworthiness, fairness, and cooperation) and negative behaviors (mistrust, untrustworthiness, unfairness, and defection) quickly build that team’s
reputation, and word spreads rapidly among the small community of competition participants. Negative reputations seem to be stronger and more
persistent and carry more weight than positive ones, because participants
who feel cheated by their negotiation partners inform other teams about it
and warn them not to repeat their own mistakes.
We have also observed behaviors that confirm that fairness is a relative
concept, which negotiators typically interpret subjectively and often use
strategically in their negotiations (Loewenstein, Thompson, and Bazerman
1989). We note, however, an unpredictable relationship between having a
reputation as a tough negotiator and receiving sympathy among one’s
counterparts. In fact, we often observed contestants who were perceived as
tough negotiators but were still liked by the group. In each case, despite
their toughness at the negotiating table, they appeared friendly and
authentic in their social interactions.
In contrast, teams that behaved arrogantly and suggested that their
negotiation approach and sense of fairness were superior to the approaches
of other teams are often disliked and treated with reservation. In one
negotiation competition, we observed a situation in which Negotiator A in
a three-party coalition insisted on excluding one of her negotiation partners
(Negotiator B) as a punishment for his unfair behavior in one of
the previous rounds. Interestingly, however, Negotiator C perceived this
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exclusion to be unfair and refused to go along with it. After a long and
heated debate, Negotiator C decided it would be better to form a coalition
with Negotiator B, despite the fact that he may have behaved unfairly in the
past, rather than with Negotiator A, who had tried to impose her perception
of fairness on him. Thus, the negotiation ended by excluding Negotiator A
from further coalition negotiations.
To avoid spreading reputations, some negotiation competitions explicitly forbid teams from discussing their negotiation experiences with other
contestants. In our view, however, this rule denies reality because it restricts
interpersonal information flows that, outside the competition setting,
cannot be stopped. Reputation is an integral part of repeated negotiations,
and observing its mechanics is a valuable exercise.
Negotiation Styles
Our most puzzling observation concerns the application of principle-based
(or interest-based) negotiation principles in a competitive environment. In
general, achieving a Pareto-efficient result in even the simplest possible
negotiation situation with value-creation opportunities (more than one
issue and different preferences regarding the issues) requires the exchange
of sensitive information concerning parties’ interests and preferences. If
this approach is taken by both parties, it can often lead to systematic value
creation. Our experience from negotiation competitions, however, seems to
confirm the claim made by Roy Lewicki, Alexander Hiam, and Karen Wise
Olander (1996) that, if a cooperative, principle-based negotiator meets a
competitive hard bargainer, the latter is more likely to obtain a better
substantial result, at least if the cooperative negotiator is unable to change
negotiating tactics accordingly.
In a typical example of this, we observed a team using a principlebased negotiation approach, but in a naïve way, by uncritically trusting their
counterparts and openly and truthfully disclosing their interests and key
information concerning the reservation points. Their counterparts said
little, and, while not lying explicitly, neither did they try to correct the other
party’s false assumptions. The result was that the less cooperative party
ended up with the majority of the jointly created value and obtained the
best result in the negotiation round. The main lesson from this is that, while
interest-based negotiation can help achieve Pareto-efficient results, it can
also create risks when the other party employs a competitive approach
focused solely on value-claiming. Negotiators should be careful when disclosing information and try to determine the trustworthiness of their counterparts before deciding whether or not to share sensitive information with
them.
In our experience, the most effective skill for achieving consistently
excellent performance in negotiation competitions is the ability both to
recognize the characteristics of the negotiation situation and the attitude of
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negotiation partners and to efficiently apply the methods and techniques
that optimize performance in such settings. This skill might be called
strategic adaptability or negotiation intelligence. Those teams that end up
at the top of the rankings in negotiation competitions are not only impressive value creators but can also bargain hard when the situation requires it.
They can create trust and build relationships but still get a good deal, even
if it turns out to be impossible to establish a rapport.
Interestingly, these teams are often not the best value creators nor the
best value claimers (hard bargainers) among the participants, but they do
have the most versatile set of negotiation skills and the experience and/or
intuition to use the right methods at the right time. This allows them to
perform well in the wide spectrum of negotiation situations that contestants typically encounter in negotiation competitions. Thus, skill development is a critical element of negotiation competitions. Organizers of such
competitions should therefore ensure that participants compete in a wide
variety of negotiation settings, for example, with two or more parties,
distributive as well as integrative, and scoreable and nonscoreable.
Last but not least, as in business school case study contests (Dunham
2003), participation in negotiation competitions seems to have a positive
effect on participants’ career prospects. One participant who had asked for
a letter of reference told us that participation in an international negotiation
competition was one of the main reasons she was offered an internship
working for the European Union.
Outlook for Negotiation Competitions
The increasing number of applicants means that current demand cannot be
met by existing competitions. Moreover, the pool of potential applicants is
largely untapped because many students are simply unaware that such
competitions exist, especially students from disciplines other than law
and business, such as sociology, education, political science, and even the
natural sciences. Consequently, we see room for new initiatives.
We encourage universities with an established negotiation faculty to
organize their own, internal competitions, the winners of which could then
participate in international competitions. In many countries outside the
U.S., negotiation training is still not well developed and needs to be promoted — negotiation competitions can help fulfill that important role.
International negotiation competitions reflect the wider pedagogical
trend of moving beyond the classroom toward more experiential education. This gives students the opportunity to experience different cultures
and develop their own personal networks — which can help them better
function in a globalized world. In addition, events such as negotiation
competitions spur students’ interests in the topic and make their educations measurably more enjoyable. A next step could be to create a forum or
association to link the different competitions with each other. Such an
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367
organization could provide a useful platform for exchanging experiences,
coordinating activities, and establishing common standards. Eventually, it
might even be possible to create some kind of world championship, supported by the various “local” competitions.
Finally, negotiation competitions are also fertile areas for researchers
who could investigate the specific conditions of negotiation competitions
and compare them with the classroom experience and/or results from the
field. Such research would give scholars a deeper understanding of the
effects of a competitive, albeit still somewhat artificial, setting on negotiation behavior. International negotiation competitions also provide an
almost ideal setting for the investigation of intercultural team negotiations.
The particular advantage here is the teams’ high levels of commitment,
combined with the fact that the negotiations can be fully observed and
easily complemented with additional questionnaires or interviews.
Conclusion
Our goal here has been to describe the various benefits that negotiation
competitions offer for negotiation pedagogy. These include the participants’
high levels of commitment and the intensity of the experience, neither of
which can be equaled in classroom settings; the opportunity to experience
authentic cultural differences; the great networking opportunities for students and faculty; and the very effective promotion of negotiation as a field
of study. Moreover, we think that negotiation competitions offer useful
research opportunities. Clearly, negotiation competitions are a perfect
complement to classroom teaching with great potential for development.
NOTES
1. For practical reasons, in this article, we mostly use the term “negotiation competitions,” but
we acknowledge that several competitions also have an element of, or focus on, mediation.
2. In the negotiation competitions we have organized, the ratio of applications to participants
was up to almost 9 to 1.
3. “Win as Much as You Can” and “Oil Pricing”, are negotiation role-play simulations available
from the Program on Negotiation Clearinghouse at http://www.pon.harvard.edu/shop/home/.
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Curhan, J. R., H. A. Elfenbein, and H. Xu. 2006. What do people value when they negotiate? Mapping
the domain of subjective value in negotiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
91(3): 493–512.
Druckman, D., and M. Olekalns. 2008. Emotions in negotiation. Group Decision and Negotiation
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Dunham, K. 2003. Business-school contests give edge to job-hunting students. The Wall Street
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Glick, S., and R. Croson. 2001. Reputations in negotiation. In Wharton on making decisions, edited
by S. J. Hoch, H. C. Kunreuther, and R. E. Gunther. New York: Wiley.
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Honeyman, C., C. Coben, and G. De Palo. 2009a. Rethinking negotiation teaching, volume one:
Innovations for context and culture. Saint Paul, MN: DRI Press.
— — —. 2009b. Rethinking negotiation teaching, volume two:Venturing beyond the classroom.
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Levin, J. A., and C. Thurston. 1996. Educational electronic networks. Educational Leadership 54(3):
46–50.
Lewicki, R. J., A. Hiam, and K. W. Olander. 1996. Think before you speak: A complete guide to
strategic negotiation. New York: John Wiley.
Loewenstein, G. F., L. Thompson, and M. H. Bazerman. 1989. Social utility and decision making in
interpersonal contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57(3): 426–441.
Ogilvie, J. R., and M. L. Carsky. 2002. Building emotional intelligence in negotiations. The International Journal of Conflict Management 13(4): 381–400.
Salacuse, J. W. 2010. Teaching international business negotiation: Reflections on three decades of
experience. International Negotiation 15(2): 187–228.
Shapiro, D. L. 2006. Teaching students how to use emotions as they negotiate. Negotiation Journal
22(1): 105–109.
Susskind, L., and J. Corburn. 2000. Using simulations to teach negotiation: Pedagogical theory and
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der internationalen Diskussion, edited by D. Herz and A. Blätte. Münster, Germany:
Lit Verlag.
Negotiation Journal
July 2013
369
World Championship in Negotiation?
The Role of Competitions in
Negotiation Pedagogy
Remigiusz Smolinski and Peter Kesting
The last decade has seen the emergence of several new negotiation
competitions around the world.We think the two major drivers of this
development are a general trend toward the increasing internationalization of higher education and a recognition of the specific benefits of
competitions for negotiation pedagogy. These benefits include: the high
level of student commitment generated by participation in a competition, which enhances the quality of negotiation; the opportunity that
the competitions give students to experience authentic cultural diversity; and the networking opportunities for students and instructors
that the competitions create. This article focuses on the role that negotiation competitions can play in negotiation pedagogy. We first present
an overview of the currently most important international negotiation competitions. This is followed by an outline of the specific benefits
of negotiation competitions for pedagogy.We then take a closer look at
the organization and outcome of negotiation competitions and
discuss the opportunities for their development and growth.
Key words: negotiation competition, negotiation pedagogy,
negotiation teaching, cross-cultural negotiation, out-of-classroom
education, networking.
Remigiusz Smolinski is a research associate at Aarhus University’s School of Business and Social
Sciences in Aarhus, Denmark. His e-mail address is resmo@asb.dk.
Peter Kesting is an associate professor at Aarhus University’s School of Business and Social
Sciences. His e-mail address is petk@asb.dk.
10.1111/nejo.12029
© 2013 President and Fellows of Harvard College
Negotiation Journal
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355
Introduction
The last decade has witnessed a noticeable increase in the number of
new negotiation and mediation competitions1 for students. The two oldest
of the negotiation competitions is the Williston Negotiation Competition,
which was in its sixtieth year in 2013, and the American Bar Association
(ABA) Negotiation Competition, which took place for the first time in
1984. Both the Williston and ABA competitions are regional in their orientation, involving students solely from American and Canadian schools.
The most established international competitions are the International
Negotiation Competition for Law Students (1998), the International
Academy of Dispute Resolution Mediation Competition (2001), the ICC
International Mediation Competition (2006) (see Greg Bond’s article in
this issue), the Negotiation Challenge (2007), and the Warsaw Negotiation
Round (2010).
Negotiation competitions are becoming increasingly popular among
students, as indicated by the increase in both the number and quality of
applications every year. Recognizing their importance, some universities
strongly encourage their students to participate in such competitions and
regularly send negotiation teams, providing them with coaches and often
even paying the associated costs. Negotiation competitions have become
an established element of international negotiation education.
Despite their popularity and importance, little research on negotiation
competitions has been conducted. We think that negotiation competitions
are particularly useful for negotiation pedagogy because they offer students
unique experiences that are difficult to acquire in any other “synthetic”
educational setting; participants typically become more committed to competition activities than they do to standard classroom exercises and also
find the experience much more emotionally intense (Ogilvie and Carsky
2002; Shapiro 2006; Honeyman, Coben, and De Palo 2009b). They also
benefit from the competition’s cultural diversity by interacting with students from different countries who have not yet adapted to a joint “host
culture” and with students who have been trained by teachers from diverse
negotiation backgrounds who use varied teaching approaches (Honeyman,
Coben, and De Palo 2009a; Salacuse 2010). Finally, the competitions offer
excellent opportunities to network with students and instructors from a
variety of different institutions (Levin and Thurston 1996; Bienzle et al.
2007).
Our focus here is on the role of negotiation competitions in developing participants’ negotiation skills, as well as in building a community of
negotiation instructors. We base our discussion on our own experiences
and on the feedback we received from structured interviews conducted
with participating students and their coaches during negotiation competitions that we have either organized ourselves or were involved in as
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Smolinski and Kesting
Role of Competitions in Negotiation Pedagogy
advisors or judges. In addition, we have gathered online information about
other negotiation competitions and supplemented this with a questionnaire
survey of competition organizers.
Major Negotiation Competitions
Table One below lists the main negotiation and mediation competitions. The
majority of these competitions are organized and hosted by academic
institutions (some also have corporate sponsorship),but the list of organizers
also includes a professional association (ABA) and a chamber of commerce
(the International Chamber of Commerce [ICC] in Paris). Most of the
competitions that we have identified focus on graduate students,and only one
of them is also open to undergraduates (the Warsaw Negotiation Round).
The most well-established competitions are only open to law students and
focus on the resolution of legal disputes. Some of the newer ones are also open
to business students and some even focus on business negotiations (ICC
International Mediation Competition, the Negotiation Challenge, and the
Warsaw Negotiation Round). There is no specific competition for students of
political science, diplomacy, sociology, etc., but students from other disciplines have access to several of the competitions, although some of the
competitions require them to team up with a law student. Common to all
competitions is that students participate in teams,comprising from two to five
players.
All negotiation competitions we identified take place annually.Almost all
of them have a strong educational focus on developing basic negotiation and
mediation skills and techniques. They also expose students to“cross-cultural
communication as well as potential differences in negotiation styles, ethical
limitations, social norms, and business practices”(International Competition
for Law Students) and “cultural diversity in the process of negotiation”
(Warsaw Negotiation Round).The majority of the competitions also explicitly
focus on networking and the creation of awareness about the field.
With the exception of the Williston Negotiation Competition, all these
competitions comprise several rounds in which different cases or role-plays
are subsequently negotiated or mediated. In two of the competitions (ABA
Negotiation Competition and International Negotiation Competition for
Law Students), general instructions for the role-plays or cases are distributed to the teams beforehand to allow more time for preparation. Most of
the competitions are structured in rounds in which teams are ranked or
steadily eliminated leaving the strongest teams to face off against each other
in the final round. The number of rounds — and the duration of the
competitions — varies widely, with the ICC International Mediation Competition being the most comprehensive. (It comprises four group rounds
and four finals, stretching over six days).
Some of the biggest differences between the competitions include the
general type of role-plays (or cases or simulations) used (distributive versus
Negotiation Journal
July 2013
357
358
Smolinski and Kesting
Table One
Major Negotiation Competitions
Competition Name,
Website
Role of Competitions in Negotiation Pedagogy
1. Williston Negotiation
Competition
http://law.harvard.edu
Organizers, Aim
•
•
Harvard Negotiators and
a board of student
advisors
Education
First competition,
Frequency, Place
•
•
•
1953
Annual
Harvard Law School
Types of Role-Plays,
Number of Rounds,
Evaluation criteria
Team Composition,
Participants, Number
of Teams
•
•
•
Teams of 2 students
Harvard Law School
first-year students only
20 teams in 2010
•
•
•
2. American Bar
Association Negotiation
Competition,
http://americanbar.org
3. International
Negotiation
Competition for Law
Students
http://www.chapman.edu/law/
competitions/dispute-resolution/
international-negotiationcompetition/
•
•
•
American Bar Association
Education
Organized by an
executive committee
with members
representing various
regions of the world
• Education, networking,
increasing interest in the
topic
1984
Annual
Changing locations in the
U.S. and Canada
• 10 regional competitions
are held across the U.S.
and Canada
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1998
Annual (late June or early
July)
• Changing locations
worldwide: 2009 Chicago,
2010 The Gold Cost,
Australia, 2011
Copenhagen, 2012
Belfast, 2013 Orange, CA
•
•
Teams of two students
The team members have
to attend the same
ABA-approved law school
(or Canadian
LSAC-member law school)
228 teams in 2012
•
•
Teams of 2 law students
With the exception of
new entrants, participants
are usually the winners of
a recognised national
competition
No fixed number of
teams: multiple of 4 —
there have been 20 teams
in the last two
competitions.
•
•
•
•
One comprehensive
many-issue case, complex
business problems
Value creation; value
claiming; drafting
Special awards
Legal negotiations
Two rounds plus two
finals
Planning, flexibility,
outcome, teamwork,
relationship, self-analysis,
ethics
Cross-border transactions
or disputes
Three rounds, in which
all teams participate
Pre-negotiation planning;
process; characteristics;
relationship between the
teams and teamwork;
reflection; outcome; and
negotiating ethics
4. International Academy of
Dispute Resolution
International Law School
Mediation Tournament
htpp://www.inadr.org/
tournaments/law-schooltournament
•
5. International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC)
International Mediation
Competition
http://iccwbo.org/
mediationcompetition/
•
6. The Negotiation Challenge
thenegotiationchallenge.org/
•
•
•
•
Negotiation Journal
July 2013
7. Warsaw Negotiation Round
http://www.warsawnegotiation
round.pl
•
•
International Academy of
Dispute Resolution
Education, increasing
interest in the topic
•
•
•
2001
Annual
Changing locations
worldwide: 2013 in
Dublin, 2012 in Chicago,
2011 in London
•
3 graduate students per
team
• Law students only
• Max. 36 teams
•
International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC), Paris
Education and
capacity-building
•
•
•
2006
Annual
Paris
•
Teams of no more than 4
students
• Either law or business
students (including at
least one law student;
professional mediators
• 57 teams in 2011, 66
teams in 2012 and 2013
•
HHL-Leipzig Graduate
School of Management;
IESEG School of
Management
Education, networking,
increasing interest in the
topic
•
•
•
2007
Annual
2007–2011 in Leipzig,
2012 in Paris, 2013 in
Athens
•
Teams of three students
majoring in law or
business
8 teams in 2007, 12
teams in 2008–2011, 18
teams in 2012 and 2013
•
Warsaw School of
Economics
Education, networking,
increasing interest in the
topic
•
•
•
2010
Annual
Warsaw
•
Teams of three students
majoring in law or
business
12 teams
•
•
•
Students serve as
mediators, advocators
and clients.
• Three qualification
rounds plus one final
• The ability to collaborate
and to guide parties to a
dispute resolution
Real-life commercial
mediations
• Four rounds plus four
finals
• A written mediation
plan; performance during
the mediation
• Special awards
Different types of
commercial and
non-commercial
negotiations
• Four qualification rounds
plus a final
• Scores, problem-solving
abilities, value creation
and claiming, the final is
judged by a jury
•
•
359
Different types of
scoreable negotiations
Three to four
qualification rounds plus
a final
Scores, the final is judged
by a jury
integrative), the role that participants play (involved parties versus mediators), and the dispute or problem at the heart of the negotiation (crossborder commercial disputes between at least two entities, complex,
multi-issue business problems, legal problems, etc.). Two of the competitions (the Negotiation Challenge and the Warsaw Negotiation Round) use a
mix of different negotiation types in order to challenge participants’ different negotiation skills.
Another difference between the negotiation competitions is in the
evaluation of team performance. In all competitions, judges are used to
evaluate the results — often working in teams of two. However, in addition
to that, only the Negotiation Challenge and the Warsaw Negotiation Round
also use scoreable role-plays. In these competitions, the scoring criteria are
typically disclosed to the negotiating parties at the beginning of the respective round.
The criteria evaluators use can differ considerably. We found three
main evaluation areas used in the different competitions:
•
Preparation: for example, analysis of the problem, explication of one’s
interests as well as the interests of one’s counterpart, and development
of a negotiation or mediation strategy.
•
Process for example, effective teamwork, listening skills, empathy,
the ability to move toward a collaborative outcome without giving
up one’s own commercial interests and needs, communication and
negotiation skills, the ability to collaborate in order to find a solution,
flexibility.
•
Outcome: for example, value creation, value claiming, drafting of the
joint contract, self-analysis, and ethical behavior.
We found that the various competitions use quite different combinations of these specifications in their evaluation procedures. Some competitions have assigned special awards for specific skills, such as group work
or value claiming.
Thus, although all the leading negotiation and mediation competitions
are similar in that they involve students and have an educational focus, we
find that they nonetheless differ considerably with regard to content and
structure. In the following, we take a closer look at how the main benefits
of negotiation competitions make them a unique tool for negotiation
pedagogy.
Pedagogical Benefits of Negotiation Competitions
Negotiation competitions offer several pedagogical benefits to both the
participating students and the academic community. These benefits can
be grouped into three categories: skill development, networking, and
promotion of negotiation as a field of study.
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Role of Competitions in Negotiation Pedagogy
Skill Development
The purpose of competitions is to compare the relative skills of individuals or teams trying to master a particular discipline. They thus play an
inherently motivational role for contestants, which manifests itself in two
ways. First, the contestants invest a significant amount of time and effort
to prepare for the competitions. From our numerous conversations, we
found that, although most of the teams typically start their preparations
two to three months before the event, some prepare even up to six
months before. In addition to taking negotiation courses offered at their
institutions, these students usually prepare by thoroughly reviewing relevant literature and practice using various exercises, most typically roleplay-based negotiations.
Second, we have found the level of motivation that contestants demonstrate during the competition, and the resulting intensity and quality of
their negotiations, to be typically much higher than in the classroom
setting. The individuals and teams participating in negotiation competitions
can assess their performance, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and
— above all — see how their negotiating styles work in a highly competitive context that mimics the real business and/or legal negotiations in
which they can expect to participate in the future. This unique experience
is difficult to simulate in the classroom. Although we have found students in
negotiation courses to typically be highly motivated, adding a competitive
aspect to negotiations seems to result in a qualitatively different experience. We believe that reflecting on this experience will help participants
further enhance and develop their negotiation skills.
Negotiation competitions also enable students and teachers to
compare various negotiation approaches and styles used by students from
different cultures, traditions, and diverse educational backgrounds. For
instance, how do students with a highly emotional negotiating style
perform in different negotiation settings, or when confronted with negotiators from other cultures? What happens when value-creating individuals
negotiate with value-claiming counterparts? Such experiences are invaluable for the participating students because they help them understand the
“effect” of their personal negotiation style(s) in different settings and constellations. Such a variety of cultures and traditions would be difficult, if not
impossible, to reproduce in classroom settings where negotiation styles are
likely to be much more homogeneous because classmates are more likely to
have been educated in the same tradition or represent the same (or similar)
culture. (Even “foreign” students are likely to have adapted to the culture of
their host institutions.)
Networking
Meeting and interacting with peers who share a passion for a particular
topic can be, despite the competitive context, a fascinating and valuable
Negotiation Journal
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361
experience. The international nature of negotiation competitions offers
participants exciting opportunities to network with colleagues from
different institutions and countries.
Negotiation competitions also provide valuable networking opportunities for instructors. During the competitions, they can compare their way
of teaching negotiation with other approaches and exchange views with
other colleagues. We believe this combination of exposure to different
views, opinions, and approaches, coupled with seeing these approaches
embodied in the actual negotiation role-plays, can help instructors optimize
their existing teaching approaches and methods and also encourage them
to try new ones.
Promoting Negotiation
In some countries, negotiation is already an acknowledged and wellestablished research and study discipline, at least at the graduate level in
law and business education. Unfortunately, in many countries this is not the
case. Thus, such events as negotiation competitions create opportunities to
raise awareness of this topic both in the academic community and among
practitioners.
Because most student negotiation competitions are organized by academics who are passionate about this topic, they often take place at their
universities. This helps promote negotiation both as an academically interesting topic and as a key skill useful in private life and professional careers.
It typically also increases students’ interest in attending negotiation
courses, emphasizing the role of such courses in academic curricula, and
helping secure the resources necessary for conducting negotiation research
at the host institution.
Lessons Learned from Competition
The following observations arise from our experiences organizing and
participating in international negotiation competitions.
Organizing and Conducting Negotiation Competitions
Our first, and very encouraging, observation regards the ever-increasing
interest of the student community in participating in the negotiation competitions we have helped organize. Evidence includes the number of qualified applications, which has grown continuously in recent years and which
has always exceeded the maximum number of teams that could be hosted
by the organizers.2 This clearly indicates a qualified and growing demand
for negotiation competitions. A drawback of this popularity, however, is that
only a limited number of teams can be selected from a set of typically
strong applicants. Even with clear and transparent evaluation criteria and
admission processes, rejected candidates express disappointment.
A second important aspect of negotiation competitions is the postnegotiation debriefing (Susskind and Corburn 2000).We consider the debriefing
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Role of Competitions in Negotiation Pedagogy
to be an integral and important part of the negotiation teaching that enhances
participants’ experiential learning.Debriefing gives participants a significant
feedback that can help them understand and reflect on their behavior in the
negotiations and thereby improve their negotiation skills.
In negotiation competitions, however, revealing the full details of the
role-play simulation immediately after each round may (positively or negatively) affect the participants’ reputation and status within the group and
influence their behavior in the following rounds. This rarely occurs in real
business or legal negotiations, in which the attractiveness of the agreed
outcome and integrity of the counterparts is perceived by the negotiator
rather than being a hard fact supported by objective information. Given
this, we substituted the debriefing sessions that had taken place after each
round with sessions providing overall feedback from all the rounds at the
end of the competition when the potential reputation effects could no
longer influence the results of the competition anymore. One disadvantage
of this, however, is that, at the end of the competition, it can be hard to
remember everything about the negotiations, particularly those in the
earlier rounds, with the result that some students might find it difficult to
relate the feedback to their behavior. This can, in turn, reduce the learning
effects. Although it would be ideal to align these conflicting effects, when
making a trade-off between improving the pedagogical value of the
competitions and preserving their realism, we tend to favor the latter.
Another issue that we have discussed intensively is the use of nonscoreable role-plays in negotiation competitions. On the one hand, evaluating the
results of negotiations based on nonscoreable role-plays will always be
somewhat subjective, particularly when several negotiations are carried out
in parallel and when different judges — whose performance expectations and
judging criteria may vary — are involved. On the other hand, the scope of
scoreable role-plays is restricted and their evaluation always focuses on a
substantial (measurable) outcome. Cross-evaluations of the relational
outcome of the negotiation and the impact of the participants’ negotiation
styles, such as Subjective Value Inventory (introduced in Curhan, Elfenbein,
and Xu 2006) can be useful tools for integrating other dimensions, but they
are subjective too, and can also be manipulated strategically by competitors.
Moreover, it is difficult to find scoring systems that consider and measure
negotiators’ creativity and their invention of options.
Initially, we gave priority to objectivity and fairness, and only used
nonscoreable role-plays in the finals. In 2011, however, we started experimenting with nonscoreable role-plays and have used them also in the
qualification rounds since. Our experiences with these role-plays have been
quite positive. We introduced multiple evaluation criteria and explained
them to the teams prior to the negotiation round. To standardize their
judging criteria as much as possible, all judges met before and after the
negotiations, and jointly identified the best and worst performing team,
Negotiation Journal
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363
positioning all other teams in relation to them. Although using nonscoreable role-plays in negotiation competitions rather than scoreable ones
requires more effort, participants have told us they appreciated the judges’
cooperative spirit, and we have received no complaints about the subjectivity and incomparability of the evaluations so far.
Organizers should also nurture the networking aspect of the competition by offering participants opportunities to interact, for example,
between the rounds or during evening events. Involving students in organizing the competition can be helpful because they never forget to integrate suitable networking (social) opportunities into the schedule. We
think, however, that the scientific and pedagogical part of the competitions
should remain in the hands of academic faculty who should be responsible
for selection and preparation (writing) of suitable role-plays; briefing,
guiding, and debriefing the negotiation rounds; and evaluating their results.
Negotiations in Competitive Settings
Emotionalism
An important aspect of competitions is the high level of emotionalism that
contestants often express. This phenomenon, which various scholars have
frequently observed (Ogilvie and Carsky 2002; Shapiro 2006; Druckman and
Olekalns 2008; Honeyman, Coben, and De Palo 2009b), seems to be
common in competitive settings. Raised voices, excited gestures, clear signs
of satisfaction with the obtained result, or expressions of deep disappointment, frustration, anger, and even tears are integral elements of negotiation
competitions. We are constantly astonished at how much more intense
emotions are during the competitions compared with simulations that
typically take place in classes and executive seminars.
As organizers, we have sometimes even found ourselves watching
highly emotional negotiations during the competitions and hoping that
they do not escalate beyond control. This happened once during a negotiation between teams from France and South America. As we entered the
room, the negotiators were standing at the whiteboard literally shouting at
each other. As time ran out and the judge began to count down, the
situation seemed to escalate. But despite the highly charged emotional
atmosphere, the teams were able to reach agreement at the very last
second, after which, to our surprise, they laughed and hugged.
This highly emotional approach seems to have a positive effect on the
relational outcome. Indeed, we also observed that the above-mentioned
teams were both popular with other participants. We suspect, however, that
this will apply as long as the emotions do not become too negative and the
negotiating style too confrontational and aggressive. We have also found
that even teams with widely divergent cultural backgrounds were able to
understand and accommodate highly emotional approaches quite well.
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We add, however, that highly emotional teams generally had poorer
outcomes — at least in the competitions we have observed. We think this
is because emotionalism is rather time-consuming and such teams often ran
out of time. Although the emotional teams tend to perform quite well in the
overall rankings, so far they have not made it to the finals, which have
typically featured relatively less emotionally expressive, problem-focused
teams. The style of the final rounds has always been calm and relatively
quiet.
Reputation
We have repeatedly been surprised at how quickly teams can acquire
reputations for their level of integrity and fairness throughout the competition (Glick and Croson 2001). The spectrum of negotiation approaches,
attitudes, strategies, and tactics demonstrated by the contestants is typically
broad, but unknown before the first negotiation rounds commence.
Although some teams conduct a principle-based negotiation, consistently
demonstrating a “win-win” attitude, others choose to pursue a more Machiavellian approach, and focus on winning by all means. In particular, negotiation exercises based on the prisoner’s dilemma (similar to such simulations
as “Win as Much as You Can” or “Oil Pricing”3) offer an excellent opportunity to observe how contestants build a reputation. A team’s positive (trust,
trustworthiness, fairness, and cooperation) and negative behaviors (mistrust, untrustworthiness, unfairness, and defection) quickly build that team’s
reputation, and word spreads rapidly among the small community of competition participants. Negative reputations seem to be stronger and more
persistent and carry more weight than positive ones, because participants
who feel cheated by their negotiation partners inform other teams about it
and warn them not to repeat their own mistakes.
We have also observed behaviors that confirm that fairness is a relative
concept, which negotiators typically interpret subjectively and often use
strategically in their negotiations (Loewenstein, Thompson, and Bazerman
1989). We note, however, an unpredictable relationship between having a
reputation as a tough negotiator and receiving sympathy among one’s
counterparts. In fact, we often observed contestants who were perceived as
tough negotiators but were still liked by the group. In each case, despite
their toughness at the negotiating table, they appeared friendly and
authentic in their social interactions.
In contrast, teams that behaved arrogantly and suggested that their
negotiation approach and sense of fairness were superior to the approaches
of other teams are often disliked and treated with reservation. In one
negotiation competition, we observed a situation in which Negotiator A in
a three-party coalition insisted on excluding one of her negotiation partners
(Negotiator B) as a punishment for his unfair behavior in one of
the previous rounds. Interestingly, however, Negotiator C perceived this
Negotiation Journal
July 2013
365
exclusion to be unfair and refused to go along with it. After a long and
heated debate, Negotiator C decided it would be better to form a coalition
with Negotiator B, despite the fact that he may have behaved unfairly in the
past, rather than with Negotiator A, who had tried to impose her perception
of fairness on him. Thus, the negotiation ended by excluding Negotiator A
from further coalition negotiations.
To avoid spreading reputations, some negotiation competitions explicitly forbid teams from discussing their negotiation experiences with other
contestants. In our view, however, this rule denies reality because it restricts
interpersonal information flows that, outside the competition setting,
cannot be stopped. Reputation is an integral part of repeated negotiations,
and observing its mechanics is a valuable exercise.
Negotiation Styles
Our most puzzling observation concerns the application of principle-based
(or interest-based) negotiation principles in a competitive environment. In
general, achieving a Pareto-efficient result in even the simplest possible
negotiation situation with value-creation opportunities (more than one
issue and different preferences regarding the issues) requires the exchange
of sensitive information concerning parties’ interests and preferences. If
this approach is taken by both parties, it can often lead to systematic value
creation. Our experience from negotiation competitions, however, seems to
confirm the claim made by Roy Lewicki, Alexander Hiam, and Karen Wise
Olander (1996) that, if a cooperative, principle-based negotiator meets a
competitive hard bargainer, the latter is more likely to obtain a better
substantial result, at least if the cooperative negotiator is unable to change
negotiating tactics accordingly.
In a typical example of this, we observed a team using a principlebased negotiation approach, but in a naïve way, by uncritically trusting their
counterparts and openly and truthfully disclosing their interests and key
information concerning the reservation points. Their counterparts said
little, and, while not lying explicitly, neither did they try to correct the other
party’s false assumptions. The result was that the less cooperative party
ended up with the majority of the jointly created value and obtained the
best result in the negotiation round. The main lesson from this is that, while
interest-based negotiation can help achieve Pareto-efficient results, it can
also create risks when the other party employs a competitive approach
focused solely on value-claiming. Negotiators should be careful when disclosing information and try to determine the trustworthiness of their counterparts before deciding whether or not to share sensitive information with
them.
In our experience, the most effective skill for achieving consistently
excellent performance in negotiation competitions is the ability both to
recognize the characteristics of the negotiation situation and the attitude of
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negotiation partners and to efficiently apply the methods and techniques
that optimize performance in such settings. This skill might be called
strategic adaptability or negotiation intelligence. Those teams that end up
at the top of the rankings in negotiation competitions are not only impressive value creators but can also bargain hard when the situation requires it.
They can create trust and build relationships but still get a good deal, even
if it turns out to be impossible to establish a rapport.
Interestingly, these teams are often not the best value creators nor the
best value claimers (hard bargainers) among the participants, but they do
have the most versatile set of negotiation skills and the experience and/or
intuition to use the right methods at the right time. This allows them to
perform well in the wide spectrum of negotiation situations that contestants typically encounter in negotiation competitions. Thus, skill development is a critical element of negotiation competitions. Organizers of such
competitions should therefore ensure that participants compete in a wide
variety of negotiation settings, for example, with two or more parties,
distributive as well as integrative, and scoreable and nonscoreable.
Last but not least, as in business school case study contests (Dunham
2003), participation in negotiation competitions seems to have a positive
effect on participants’ career prospects. One participant who had asked for
a letter of reference told us that participation in an international negotiation
competition was one of the main reasons she was offered an internship
working for the European Union.
Outlook for Negotiation Competitions
The increasing number of applicants means that current demand cannot be
met by existing competitions. Moreover, the pool of potential applicants is
largely untapped because many students are simply unaware that such
competitions exist, especially students from disciplines other than law
and business, such as sociology, education, political science, and even the
natural sciences. Consequently, we see room for new initiatives.
We encourage universities with an established negotiation faculty to
organize their own, internal competitions, the winners of which could then
participate in international competitions. In many countries outside the
U.S., negotiation training is still not well developed and needs to be promoted — negotiation competitions can help fulfill that important role.
International negotiation competitions reflect the wider pedagogical
trend of moving beyond the classroom toward more experiential education. This gives students the opportunity to experience different cultures
and develop their own personal networks — which can help them better
function in a globalized world. In addition, events such as negotiation
competitions spur students’ interests in the topic and make their educations measurably more enjoyable. A next step could be to create a forum or
association to link the different competitions with each other. Such an
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organization could provide a useful platform for exchanging experiences,
coordinating activities, and establishing common standards. Eventually, it
might even be possible to create some kind of world championship, supported by the various “local” competitions.
Finally, negotiation competitions are also fertile areas for researchers
who could investigate the specific conditions of negotiation competitions
and compare them with the classroom experience and/or results from the
field. Such research would give scholars a deeper understanding of the
effects of a competitive, albeit still somewhat artificial, setting on negotiation behavior. International negotiation competitions also provide an
almost ideal setting for the investigation of intercultural team negotiations.
The particular advantage here is the teams’ high levels of commitment,
combined with the fact that the negotiations can be fully observed and
easily complemented with additional questionnaires or interviews.
Conclusion
Our goal here has been to describe the various benefits that negotiation
competitions offer for negotiation pedagogy. These include the participants’
high levels of commitment and the intensity of the experience, neither of
which can be equaled in classroom settings; the opportunity to experience
authentic cultural differences; the great networking opportunities for students and faculty; and the very effective promotion of negotiation as a field
of study. Moreover, we think that negotiation competitions offer useful
research opportunities. Clearly, negotiation competitions are a perfect
complement to classroom teaching with great potential for development.
NOTES
1. For practical reasons, in this article, we mostly use the term “negotiation competitions,” but
we acknowledge that several competitions also have an element of, or focus on, mediation.
2. In the negotiation competitions we have organized, the ratio of applications to participants
was up to almost 9 to 1.
3. “Win as Much as You Can” and “Oil Pricing”, are negotiation role-play simulations available
from the Program on Negotiation Clearinghouse at http://www.pon.harvard.edu/shop/home/.
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