Riverton Press: An Exercise in Principled Negotiation

Abstract

Negotiation is coming into increased use as a topic in business schools, with an emphasis on new approaches such as principled negotiation (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 2011). This provides an alternative to the “position-based” negotiations of the labor–management tradition that used primarily distributive bargaining. While the literature has expanded, there seems to be a shortage of experiential exercises that work well. I present the “Riverton Press,” which is a two-person role-play that asks participants to negotiate using the ideas of principled negotiation. A short summary of the theory of principled negotiation, teaching notes, examples of classroom use and student responses, and complete materials for the exercise are provided. Students show evidence of increased understanding of principled negotiations and ability to use the method more effectively after doing the role-play and classroom debrief.

Keywords:

• principled negotiation
• integrative bargaining
• experiential activities
• role-play

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Joan Weiner for a suggestion that led to the development of this role-play and to Dr. Kathleen Kane for many helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. Additional resources for negotiation are available at Harvard's Program on Negotiation (www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/negotiation-pedagogy-program-on-negotiation) and Northwestern's Dispute Resolution Center (www.negotiationexercises.com).

2. Selected comments by students in MBA 810, December 2012.