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2021/2022  KAN-CIBCV1520U  Negotiations – Building and Managing Relationships

English Title
Negotiations – Building and Managing Relationships

Course information
Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Elective
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Semester
Start time of the course Autumn
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Max. participants 45
Study board
Study Board for Master of Arts (MA) in International Business Communication in English
Course coordinator
  • Robert Ibsen - Department of Management, Society and Communication (MSC)
Main academic disciplines
  • Communication
  • Management
  • Business psychology
Teaching methods
  • Face-to-face teaching
Last updated on 04-02-2021

Relevant links
Learning objectives
Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
  • Analyse and map the relative power between parties and prioritize short-term outcome maximization vs. preserving and cultivating relationships long-term
  • Prepare and drive negotiations based on a strategy choice
  • Integrate trust and ethics in relationship building as well as the effects of cognitive biases and decision-making styles
  • Build, expand, and cultivate relationships across sectors, industries, and borders
Examination
Negotiations ¿ Building and Managing Relationships:
Exam ECTS 7,5
Examination form Home assignment - written product
Individual or group exam Individual exam
Size of written product Max. 10 pages
Assignment type Written assignment
Duration 7 days to prepare
Grading scale 7-point grading scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Winter
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
Course content, structure and pedagogical approach

The key contents of the course will focus on a number of mutually supplementray elements:

  • overview of negotiations and their role in initiating, growing and maintaining relations and partnerships in an increasingly complex business environment with more and more focus on sustainability in its widest sense, including ethics, morals and general decency and interdependence
  • factors that must drive and inform the negotiator’s choice of overall strategy
  • the centrality and importance, in an increasingly turbulent world, of a wide variety of elements driving and sustaining growth and mutual respect in relationships 
  • overview of potentially destructive factors exerting a negative influence on negotiator behaviour, negotiation results and the longer-term relationships between the parties involved
  • tools for managing the entire negotiation process
  • value-driving communication and the importance of mindful and ethical behaviour in negotiations
  • the important role of interpersonal differences – and the importance of a realistic self-perception
  • trust bases and ethics in negotiations, dealing with unethical behaviour
  • cognition and cognitive biases in decision-making and negotiations
  • intercultural issues as a potential complexity driver

As for overall pedagogical framework, all content elements from lectures will be leveraged and supported continuously by exercises, discussions, and assignments.
Description of the teaching methods
The course is built around a continuous blend of three components each contributing to the students’ successful completion of the course:
• input via lectures and discussion of relevant theories, tools and models needed in order to prepare and plan a negotiation, doing the negotiation, and evaluating and reflecting on all aspects of the negotiation
• a large number of practical exercises and case studies to leverage – via experiental learning – the students’ understanding of learning points while enhancing real-life negotiation skills. All such exercises are combined with feedback, overview of learning points etc.
• textbook, articles, papers and other types of input to enhance the students’ understanding and well-considered and critical use of theories, models etc.
Feedback during the teaching period
Feedback and continuous assessment are an important and integral part of the course - during as well as after each negotiation exercise done in class. These exercises and the accompanying feedback are designed to continuously anchor in learning points. These learning-point are related to theoretical input from lectures as well as a wide variety of ‘how-to’ skills including communication, use of tactics, strategy choices and more. Feedback naturally also includes suggestions for modifications/​improvements. Issues covered during feedback match the key elements of the written exam paper – thus ensuring cohesion between theory, hands-on negotiations/exercises and the exam paper.
The rationale behind the build-up of the course is that genuine and value-creating negotiation capabilities, by definition, include a sophisticated set of skills to be mastered in real-life situations while relying on the required theoretical base (the course curriculum). This is secured via a theoretical base combined with experiental learning, i.e. exercises and the accompanying feedback – individual as well as collective and peer-to-peer.
Student workload
Lectures 30 hours
Preparation 126 hours
Examination 40 hours
Expected literature

Expected literature and materials

  • Ibsen, Robert: Real Negotiations (Samfundslitteratur, 2017)
  • Assorted articles and papers 
  • Cases and exercises
  • Slidepacks 
  • Exam paper specimens
Last updated on 04-02-2021