Subject: Business    / General Business
To encourage you to think about the many, everyday opportunities to negotiate, and to improve
your negotiating skills, you need to go out and negotiate in the real world. You can negotiate for
anything you like – a hotel bill, a signing bonus, a piece of jewelry, who will clean the bathroom
or do the dishes, who gets the bigger room in the apartment…anything at all. Please note that
you do not have to buy anything to complete this assignment. On the contrary, you may be on the
selling side in the negotiation, or your negotiation may not involve a purchase at all.
There are two rules for the real world negotiation assignment.
1. You may not tell the person you are negotiating with that this is for a class project until the
negotiation is completed (and then you can decide whether or not you want to tell). You are not
allowed to resort to a plea of “Please help me out for a class.”
2. You are not allowed to engage in a negotiation that you do not intend to follow through with if
the outcome you desire is obtained. For example, you must be willing (at some price, under some
conditions) to acquire the item for which you are negotiating. Do not start a negotiation in which
you would never want to come to agreement.
Your paper should contain a description of the negotiation, your preparation for it, and a
description of the outcome. You should try and include all relevant course concepts that played a
role in the negotiation (e.g., issues, interests, priorities, BATNAs, aspirations, outside parties,
constraints, etc.).
You will not be penalized for writing about a failed negotiation – we can learn as much from
negotiations that fail as we can from those that succeed!
Your grade for the real world negotiation paper will be based on the following criteria:
• Creativity (5 points): How unique was the context? How creative was your strategy? How did
you meet expected and unexpected challenges?
• Quality (10 points): Is it well written?
• Analysis (10 points): Have you correctly employed key concepts to assess the strategic
landscape of the negotiation? How well have you applied your learning from the course to your
analysis of this case?
• Self-Reflection (5 points): Have you linked your experiences with your goals for the course,
your strengths and weaknesses? What have you learned about your negotiating style and skills
from this negotiation experience? What would you do differently in the future?
Your real world negotiation should be roughly 5-6 pages in length.

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